447
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de to c/linux@lemmy.ml

TL;DR: I wonder why we always have the same 2 posts as top posts of the day. They appear a bit unnecessary and mildly annoying to me.
Do you think the same? Or do you like them, and can explain me why, so I can change my view?
Please don't just blindly downvote, writing this post took a lot of time. And if you feel the need to do it anyway, tell me why first.


Maybe I am the only person who thinks that.
I probably am, at least according to numbers.

Basically, I've got the feeling that every top post of the day for the last weeks is something like "I've freed myself from evil Windows' shackles and finally switched to Linux.", or "What distro do you recommend?".

Don't get me wrong.
I feel super happy for every newcomer discovering the wonderful world of Linux and FOSS.
I, just like most others here, always try to help them in finding their right distro and guiding them in their first steps.
We all have been there.
And I'm super proud of us all, as a community, that we happily embrace every new member. We definitely have to keep that behaviour, it's what connects us and makes us strong.

I just think we should redirect them a bit onto the specific communities.
Not by banning or censoring, just as friendly reminder, e.g. by a sticky post, comments like "Hey, check out !linux4noobs@lemmy.world" or something else.

It doesn't help much if there are the same threads every day, with people circlejerking on hating Windows and recommending Mint a hundred times, just like 100 people before did on the same thread.

I hate Windows too, but it feels like we're identifying and comparing ourselves with the bitter ex-partner we had a while ago. No, not being Windows shouldn't be the main reason Linux is great.
There are so many great posts and discussions, that are all going missing in this swamp of "Winblows bad, hehe".
We should focus on what makes our software great, and not what the "bad ex-partner" did wrong.

Same with newcomer posts.
I think if the posters get redirected to the correct sub, they will receive more help, since the people partaking in the community are there because they wanna see exactly that.


At the same time, I'm afraid this would undermine our openness and friendliness of this community, and result in being as shitty as Reddits' sub.

!Just as an anecdote, when I was a noob, I posted a question there, and, like 5 minutes later, I got a dozen of non-constructive, offensive comments. 10 minutes later, my post got removed. This was my first contact to the Linux world btw. Guess who switched back to Windows for another half year because of that?
We have to prevent this at any costs.
Anyway... !<


I really enjoy this community here and wanna keep it this great.
I just wanted to ask you, what you think about those everyday-top-posts.
If you like them, please try to change my mind and explain me why :)


Edit/ Additional stuff/ Learnings:

  • I don't hate those "I switched to Linux"-posts, just to clarify. They're fine for me, they just feel like white noise. But I've read many times in this thread that a lot of people enjoy those posts. If that's the case, I'm totally fine! :)
  • I think putting those posts in a weekly sticky thread could be worth an idea? Then everyone could describe their experience of this week of switching from one distro to another, e.g. "My first week of Gentoo" or something like this. Would be an interesting read for everyone.
  • I also believe those "Fuck Windows"-posts can be kind of therapeutic for some people, since Windows became really shitty and annoying in the last years. And when you feel the relieve from finally getting rid of it, you tell that everyone. Understandable.
  • Splitting the community isn't the best idea too. We can always learn from each other and I like the diversity of this community.
  • Thank you for your kind and constructive answers! ✌️
(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] JCreazy@midwest.social 7 points 11 months ago

They are top posts for a reason. It's because people enjoy them. Everyone has the choice to ignore them.

[-] Papanca@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

I don't mind. I understand the enthusiasm since i switched recently (again) too.

As for windows; i think one of the main reasons people switch has to do with how bad windows has become. It's bloated, it feels like everything is spied on, and in 11 they add AI and not to be helpful to their customers. So, a lot of people will say: hey, i switched to linux and finally, i'm rid of that evil windows. Many people might not know that much about linux just yet, so they are maybe - i'm speculating here - moving away from something unpleasant, rather than switching to linux because of the many advantages.

As for the linux 4 noobs community, i joined but it feels pretty dead and so, i ask my noob questions (apart from trying to do my own research) here, rather than over there. Are you implying that noobs are not really welcome to ask their questions here? It would be fine with me if the noob community was filled with people who are enthusiastically asking questions, but the most recent posts are a month old, so not very inviting.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] fogstormberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 11 months ago

maybe a different structure could work where main linux community is for noobs and we have some kind of seasoned linux community

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Laitinlok@lemmy.laitinlok.com 6 points 11 months ago
[-] Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de 4 points 11 months ago

I think explaining why you think so would be better than just saying "No" and not elaborating further.

Could you maybe please tell me your stance on that in more detail, in case nobody else already explained it better?

[-] wlsnt@reddthat.com 4 points 11 months ago
load more comments (4 replies)
[-] cmlael67@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

I don't mind them. If this type of social media had existed when I first installed Linux 24 years ago, I would have probably done the same thing.

[-] Aelis@beehaw.org 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I really don't get why anyone would be annoyed about this specifically when recurring topics and posts are just pretty common.. about litterally anything. I find it even more weird since it's about people ditching windows (I mean how many topics and posts hating on windows, praising Linux, suggesting Linux, and whatever else...just lots and lots, and somehow people are fine with that, so why would it be any different here ?)

Beside, people just want to share things, regardless if others did exactly the same an hour or a decade ago. Why care when it's just so easy to move on to something you'd be more interested in ?

One thing I do find tiresome more than anything within the Linux community though is talks about noobs like they are some cringe childs being boring and acting childishly...everyone have been noobs seriously, even you mentioned toxicity and the lack of openness/friendliness towards noobs if we ostracized them..yet you are suggesting it anyway. I get noobs aren't always fun but come on ! And about newcommer posts...noobs will seek help wherever they can seek it, having another place to help them is not going to change that, so we might just as well help them and redirect them to helping sites anyway.

[-] Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de 3 points 11 months ago

I think you misunderstood my post.
I don't have anything against newcomers - quite the opposite. I try help them a lot and support them as much as I possibly can, since I got the same help a few years ago.

The only thing I criticize is the lack of organisation. There's a huge flood of those two types of posts, and other content just drowns in them.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] EpicFailGuy@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Can't have linux without a hint of elitism.

"Im much better than all my other friends who are still using Windows ... yuck"

[-] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago

Eh, elitism seems to float around all tech communities. PCMasterRace, C, CLI, Apple, Tesla/cars, Snap-On, heck even bidets have elitist advocates. Any time there are multiple way to do something, someone will be snooty about it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago

Positivity is good. I would rather see 100 positive posts than one negative one, even if there's a lot of redundancy. It helps encourage others to switch to Linux, which is good.

[-] millie@beehaw.org 5 points 11 months ago

There's a huge middle ground between constant reposts about the same topic and hostility to new users. Megathreads have often been the solution to that particular problem. I don't know if Lemmy has a merge functionality, though. It seems like the mod tools are kind of limited.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] PoliticalCustard@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 11 months ago

I like reading about these experiences and helping people along if I can, each one is different.

[-] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago

oh yeah, it's been annoying me, too. I haven't subscribed to read countless blog posts of people who set off on the exceptionally unique journey of installing Ubuntu and liking it more than Windows.

[-] flashgnash@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

It's nice to get some idea of how many people are switching over, it seems to have had an uptick recently, 3 people I know in real life have tried using Linux as their daily driver in the past few months who hadn't previously

[-] NOOBMASTER@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

Most of those posts are fake too, just karma farming.

[-] kurumin@linux.community 3 points 11 months ago

Lol lemmy has no karma

[-] Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If your assumption is true, then I feel really sorry for those posters, really.

Getting many upvotes should only be a sign of "This post is relevant for many people", not "Many like it".
The up- and downvote system is supposed to be a filter, not a like- or opinion system.
And, even if account karma really exists, then it still doesn't mean anything.
I also had many posts/ comments that got negative votes, and I would never have thought about deleting them, except if I accidentally hurt someone with them and someone notified me of that.
Otherwise, I stand to my opinion and/ or use the edit function to add my changed stance.

You think a post or comment should be higher up, because it's useful or OP put a lot of work into writing it? Upvote.
Post has no relevance (for no one, not only you) and isn't worth seeing? Downvote.

I constantly upvote stuff I don't even care about or that I see controversial, just because OP took a lot of time.
At the same time, comments like "This!" and other Reddit-ish comments and post are instantly downvoted because they neither promote discussion nor relevance.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] bizdelnick@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

It's not only you. I suppose we need a separate community, linux-newbie or something like this, for such posts and questions about choosing a distro.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 11 months ago

I like to hear other peoples experiences

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 3 points 11 months ago

For me I'd rather people post something over nothing even if it's the same post to us it's clearly something the poster felt was important to them.

[-] Icalasari@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

Perhaps a pinned, weekly post? It's not like federated sites have enough traction yet to make a weekly thread full of buried posts, so it should work in the meantime

[-] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Responding with a meta level tangent comment, but I can't help feeling that when I read these type of comments that it's just Microsoft astroturfing, trying to shape the narrative away from migration to Linux.

Especially when you see those "I still can't get my favorite single game that uses anti-cheat tech or strange peripheral to work with Linux, so Linux sucks for all gaming" posts.

Just kind of seems like there's this stealthy narrative warfare going on.

[-] Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Dang it, you got me!

Just kidding 🙃
I get why you think about that. I sometimes enjoy thinking about "conspiracies" like those too.
Especially with the rise of LLMs and bots, it doesn't sound unrealistic tbh.

On the other hand, I don't believe MS does care about us at all, or at least that much.
Years ago, yes. But they're really good at their "Embrace, extend and extinguish" practice. They "love" Linux now, don't forget that. Home users leaving Windows isn't that big of a problem for them, as long as we continue using their services, like Edge, Outlook and Teams.
The MS ecosystem also dominates the business world and won't get replaced anytime soon, and this field is where the paying customers are.


About the fake-accounts: if I'm not certain if I am reading a troll post, checking the profile helps.
For example, I'm a mod of some communities, have a very long and extensive post- and comment history, and behave like a human would (which basically means I'm very dumb sometimes 🌝).
So, the chances of me being a troll from Microsoft is there, but slim.

I have to admit: I was the same as the example from you in my beginning times.
Here's my story if you wanna read it:

!I have never worked with IT things 3 years ago when I started, it was all new for me. I didn't even find the download-button on GitHub.
But, dumb ass me, tried to install Arch (iirc) on a fucking Microsoft Surface tablet. Of course that didn't work.
Then Manjaro, Fedora, Mint, ElementaryOS, and 10 other distros. I spent about 3 weekends burning USB sticks and installing distros.
Just because it didn't work ootb. Of course it didn't because I needed the surface-linux-kernel.
I can't (couldn't) deal with frustration (at that time) and posted a "I'll go back to Windows" on Reddit because I was so fed up.
I'm still incredibly thankful for that one person that therapeutically asked me many questions on why and guided me step by step.
"Now, type in git clone xx && chmod xx. What's the result?", "Oh, you forgot sudo, try it again", etc.. !<

!He talked to me like a he would explain it to a 5 year old, but that was what I needed.
Somehow we got it working together after a few hours of troubleshooting, even though my frustrated dumbass failed in basically every task, including breathing.
I still can't explain how he got the patience for that. !<

!I cried out of happiness and used the device for 2 more years because of that.
It was probably this one person that helped me stay on Linux, and I'll never forget that.!<

I want to be the same as this mentor, and I think just offering frustrated noobs a helping hand and open ear will help a lot.
Being unconventionally/ unfittingly friendly can open many doors! They often need some type of vent, and if it helps them feeling better, great! Post like those usually don't get much attention anyway, so I think the risk of them turning someone else off Linux is not that high.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
447 points (86.2% liked)

Linux

48646 readers
1185 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS