Unsung Heros - commentary.

[dos2unix]

Today, I had a couple of friends over visiting. They dabble in Linux a little, but neither is a Linux "professional".
It surprised me that this website hadn't come up before, but for whatever reason we don't talk about Linux a lot.
(We are friends because we are in a band together). So, I was showing them around this site, and they made a profound
observation. I guess when you're around something all the time you take it for granted.

But what we noticed, was there are about seven are eight people on this site that are very very helpful.
I thought about including their names on a list here, but the problem with a list is that you inevitably miss some people.
As a whole, everyone helps everyone. That is rare these days. But there are a few that go beyond the call of duty.

Not so long ago, it seems like LinuxQuestions.org, reddit and stackOverflow where the places to get help. Sometimes
they are still useful, but this site is fast becoming one of the sources of truth. Several "Linux help" searches return this
site now. That wasn't the case a couple of years ago. How did that happen? Because of the unsung heros of this site.
It was mentioned that I could be one of them, but I'm not really talking about people like me.

There is a difference between writing tutorial articles and the people who really get involved in your problem.
They take time from their day, minutes, hours, in some cases multiple days... to answer your questions and help you
the best they can. They get information from you, they know the right questions to ask.
You aren't a number in a queue, or an unknown face in the crowd. As I said earlier, there are easily at least eight
people I could mention here, probably more. But I personally want to say.. "Thanks!"

I mentioned some other sites that are helpful, I still use them from time to time, (but less and less honestly).
I notice many of the replies on some of those sites are on one liners, or maybe two or three commands to try.
That's it. End of discussion, you're no longer worth my time. But on this site, linux.org... I see people taking
their valuable time to help someone out. Not just a sentence or two.. but pages and pages of responses (often
from multiple people) to help you fix your problem.

If you're one of these people... and I think most of us know who they are... "Thank you!".
This includes the admins and moderators as well. I don't know why this site get attacked so often.
DDoS attacks, spam attacks, you name it.. it seems to happen frequently here. But the admins are on top of
it. They keep this site relatively clean and clear of junk. They keep the bashing and politics down to a minimum,
so, if I haven't said it before... "Thank you!" to those guys as well.

These are the things that separate this site from the rest.

 

[bennett]

fr thanks

 

[Brickwizard]

I don't know why this site get attacked so often.

You have already unknowingly hit the nail on the head, over the last few years this site has become one of the top ranking Linux help sites, in that even Microsoft have recommended Linux org as the go-to site for any Linux problems. And being near the top of the pile makes the site highly visible to those who find pleasure in trying to disrupt ours and other sites. Luckily the level of protection chosen by @Rob keeps the site easy to access whilst blocking the majority of attacks, and those that do succeed only last for a few minutes [one of my other regular sites was down from the beginning of December until last week]

 

[KGIII]

I'm not sure that it's actually 'attacked' so much as there is a lot of traffic. I'd say an attack is intentional and overwhelming the server is just a product of the beast. We're a very juicy spam target. It's not that we have that many active users at once, but there's a lot of non-users hitting the site up for one reason or another.

Those reasons could be spam or they could just be people looking for answers. We have a whole lot of answers to questions that pop up on search engines.

 

[Rob]

But what we noticed, was there are about seven are eight people on this site that are very very helpful.
I thought about including their names on a list here, but the problem with a list is that you inevitably miss some people.
As a whole, everyone helps everyone. That is rare these days. But there are a few that go beyond the call of duty.

Thanks man! We are certainly lucky to have such great users on here!

 

[APTI]

I have been on other sites and they seem to get political. In fact I was kicked off one for pointing out a political post. Guess I should see who broke the rules before reporting it. Bottom line is we disagreed politically but instead of being ok with it, I was instantly kicked out. Now I hope to be so good and so helpful that they ask me back so I can tell them where to put the offer.

I like this place for the reasons you already mentioned. and the admins and mods are not power hungry either.

Rule of Aquisition 33.. It never hurts to suck up to the boss

 

[noelw]

Today, I had a couple of friends over visiting. They dabble in Linux a little, but neither is a Linux "professional".
It surprised me that this website hadn't come up before, but for whatever reason we don't talk about Linux a lot.
(We are friends because we are in a band together). So, I was showing them around this site, and they made a profound
observation. I guess when you're around something all the time you take it for granted.

But what we noticed, was there are about seven are eight people on this site that are very very helpful.
I thought about including their names on a list here, but the problem with a list is that you inevitably miss some people.
As a whole, everyone helps everyone. That is rare these days. But there are a few that go beyond the call of duty.

Not so long ago, it seems like LinuxQuestions.org, reddit and stackOverflow where the places to get help. Sometimes
they are still useful, but this site is fast becoming one of the sources of truth. Several "Linux help" searches return this
site now. That wasn't the case a couple of years ago. How did that happen? Because of the unsung heros of this site.
It was mentioned that I could be one of them, but I'm not really talking about people like me.

There is a difference between writing tutorial articles and the people who really get involved in your problem.
They take time from their day, minutes, hours, in some cases multiple days... to answer your questions and help you
the best they can. They get information from you, they know the right questions to ask.
You aren't a number in a queue, or an unknown face in the crowd. As I said earlier, there are easily at least eight
people I could mention here, probably more. But I personally want to say.. "Thanks!"

I mentioned some other sites that are helpful, I still use them from time to time, (but less and less honestly).
I notice many of the replies on some of those sites are on one liners, or maybe two or three commands to try.
That's it. End of discussion, you're no longer worth my time. But on this site, linux.org... I see people taking
their valuable time to help someone out. Not just a sentence or two.. but pages and pages of responses (often
from multiple people) to help you fix your problem.

If you're one of these people... and I think most of us know who they are... "Thank you!".
This includes the admins and moderators as well. I don't know why this site get attacked so often.
DDoS attacks, spam attacks, you name it.. it seems to happen frequently here. But the admins are on top of
it. They keep this site relatively clean and clear of junk. They keep the bashing and politics down to a minimum,
so, if I haven't said it before... "Thank you!" to those guys as well.

These are the things that separate this site from the rest.

here here. I have had help from a few of these people you mention. They are a credit to this site. I as well thank them.

 

[KGIII]

Hmm... I'd better not be on that list! I don't help anybody!

That's a bit of an inside joke, but I'm still going to say it.

 

[kibasnowpaw]

I always try to be helpful when I’m on the internet, but I’m also not afraid to point things out. And when people come at me, I stick to facts and shut it down as fast as I can most of the time it works. The only time I step away is when people stop arguing the point and start attacking the person, then keep doing it in a loop even after I’ve already countered them. At that point I just turn around and walk away.

I’ve also got a lot of life experience and I’ve tried a lot of things, so I think differently than most people. But yeah generally I always want to help if I can.

 

[KGIII]

The only time I step away is when people stop arguing the point and start attacking the person, then keep doing it in a loop even after I’ve already countered them.

We tend to not let that stuff go too far around here. As I've said many times, our rules can largely be distilled into a single word, and that word is 'civility'.

 

[kibasnowpaw]

We tend to not let that stuff go too far around here. As I've said many times, our rules can largely be distilled into a single word, and that word is 'civility'.

Yeah, I was mostly thinking about YouTube comments it happens a little too much for my taste.

 

[KGIII]

Yeah, I was mostly thinking about YouTube comments it happens a little too much for my taste.

YouTube comments are pretty much a cesspool. Well, much of the time.

Sadly, we no longer teach logic or reasoning in most schools. Worse, there are even fewer people who have learned to debate properly. Formal debate has been a fun thing for me in the past.

You end up with a ton of logical fallacies. Worse, you end up with people who are only partially educated and don't understand fallacies. A fallacy is not a fallacy if it is true. If the data shows that it's a slippery slope, then it's right to call it a slippery slope.

I do miss formal debate. It's all about logic. If you've gone beyond basic math, you might know that mathematics is a philosophy known more or less as logicism. The language of mathematics is shorthand (and universal) to make and evaluate statements are logical.

A fun one comes from more than a century ago, when Principia Mathematica was published. In one section, Bertrand Russell spent 360 (some say 376, as it depends on how you interpret things) trying to prove that 1 + 1 = 2. (There is, of course, 'proof by counting'.) But, at the end of the day, 1 + 1 = 2 because it's logical that it does so.

I'd go on, but I don't want to derail the thread too much.

I'll leave you with some light reading:

Logicism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But, yeah, formal debate is fun and a great way to learn how to think logically.