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! ✌️
Personally, as a noob myself, I enjoy reading about others’ experiece when they switch. No idea why. Just fun to read usually.
On another forum there are sticky weekly posts where people can write about X, like in our case it could be:
Share your story of how you met your distro
- How is it going so far?
- What surprised you positively?
- What difficulties did you have?
I love this idea!
I really would appreciate something like this.
In that way, everyone can still write and enjoy their own or others’ stories.Especially, since this would not only apply to newcomers, but to experienced users too, e.g. “My first week with Gentoo” or something like this. I like it!
Edit: I added your idea to the post
They all get a downvote from me.
I thought about it too, but I personally want to use the downvote function only to signal a low-effort or low-worth post, not my opinion or dislike.
Remember, it’s supposed as filter, not opinion system.So while I personally don’t find much liking in some posts in general, there has always been a person behind it that invested time into writing that particular comment or post.
To be fair though, is announcing you just removed windows not a totally low effort post?
Depends. If it’s just one sentence, it won’t add any value or stuff to discuss.
But if it’s an experience report it can always be interesting to read and adds value.
I will install Windows and remove it again just to annoy you.
Do that and keep my updated ✌️
I like to hear other peoples experiences
deleted by creator
I often do like these posts, because it usually shows their past suffering, and the new freedom they enjoy. It is also an opportunity to share the common community feeling with them.
After all, to me many years ago when I saw Linux booting for the very first time (no GUI, just lots of text from the kernel) that was one thing about Linux that I liked : names of human beings visible. If you look at software by Microsoft or Apple on computer installations you will normally see zero names, it is all very formal.
Social interaction between Linux users, starting with solving Linux questions, has been there for years in forums. I like seeing people help other people and move forward together.
Same with newcomer posts. I think if the posters get redirected to the correct sub
And what sub would you suggest ?
No I don’t mind them. I am a linux noob myself and these kinds of posts are what helped me decide to switch.
While we’re complaining, you know what I don’t like? Completely incomprehensible posts about some super specific subsystem. “fdplq updated to 0.5.pi.007.69!” Wow, that will change my life the next time I boot up may computer to read some Lemmy and play a game for an hour or two.
But they are all part of the linux community. I’m not gonna say the way I use linux is any better or worse than anyone else.
And fortunately, nobody is forcing us to click on those posts we don’t care about.
Perhaps we can make a new community here: c/ditchedWindows, for example.
Personally, i would prefer it if the linux 4 noobs community would be brought back to life, or if we have dedicated threads here where we can discuss newbie stuff.
If we would go the route of threads, some helpful people who have a lot of experience could decide to help out and others could just skip the thread.
And if people would want a new community, i would hope that it is not called something like ‘ditched windows’, because that sounds like a recipe to make it a community to complain about windows. For me as newbie, i’m looking for 2 things; info and howto’s and suggestions about everything linux, and the knowledge that there are others who are also new and ask things that would be interesting for me as well.
This is a Linux community, so of course people will be moving away from other operating systems and installing Linux. I don’t see why everyone that does it needs to post about it. It’s like the people that make a big deal about leaving a party instead of just leaving.
It’s annoying. Maybe there should be a separate “SwitchedToLinux” community for these posts.
maybe a different structure could work where main linux community is for noobs and we have some kind of seasoned linux community
I find them mildly annoying, but generally tune them out.
The offensive responses, are much worse. Linux users can VERY much be a “boys club” and treat newcomers as lower life forms.
The issue is if you tune them out what’s left? It’s most of the content here.
Hell just the other day there was a “what new tech thing have you done this year?” And 95% of the responses were just some variation of “Installed Mint/PopOS!/Endeavour and started using Firefox.”
Like it’s great that you’re making the transition, but I was hoping to hear what new self hosting service people got working on their home server, some new residential network installs for security platforms, etc.
Not just “I changed browsers.”
How about we make a dedicated community for “I deleted Windows” posts?
Maybe they are, but this is the way the medium works - you don’t get to control what people post (unless you are mod). Scroll past and move on.
I don’t remember seeing a single one, so they’re probably not annoying me.
Exaggerated complaint posts about non problems there are way to many, though.
Today I typed in sudo to see if I still felt anything and there were no updates to any repositories. Sometimes you stare into the void long enough to play nethack
