What happened to the Ubuntu community?

[VMC]

I'm not talking about clarification.

I talking about the person knows exactly what the OP wants, but decides to give his opinion anyway or ask why do that?
"How do I make install smaller, it uses way to much hard drive" or "DistroX is using too much ram" Answer:Why do you want to do that. You have enough space or ram, etc, etc, ad nauseam

[sudodus]

@VMC,

Now I understand what you meant (where I supported ajgreenys response). Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I agree that we should avoid telling our opinion directly or asking 'why do that?' instead of trying to help. (But I must admit that I might have written such answers myself; I hope I can avoid it in the future.)

I know that I often suggest a workaround instead of a direct solution of the problem of the original poster. This is done with good intentions, but it is close to what I agree with you to avoid.

@everybody,

- Please let me know what you think about suggesting a workaround instead of a direct solution.

[blahboybaz]

One trend I have noticed recently is people coming to the forum, asking a question, and then never coming back to see if there was an answer.

It may not be a new thing exactly but it seems more prevalent. I find it a tad frustrating since I come online with the best intention to help and then the person simply does not reply.

It may be down to social media and attention span as DuckHook suggested or it may be a combination of other factors, suggested also by VMC and TheFu.

Regardless, I always try and remind myself why I joined these forums in the first place, why I applied for Ubuntu Member status, and why I continue to come online to help when I can; namely, the spirit embodied in the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

Its nice to see when a problem has worked so others can benefit from it down the road. Often times a problem and its solution is very narrowly specific so it really doesn't help unless your problem is exactly identical to the op's situation or need. Stack Overflow seems to get a lot of that (if it isn't deemed an irrelevant or already asked question). Its always refreshing when a solution is generalized enough to help a broader audience.

[blahboybaz]

What bothers me the most, is when someone asks a question about something, and is answered with a questions OR an opinion!
Never, ever answer a question with a question. 90% of the time, that tells me the person with the second question doesn't know the answer, then gives an opinion.

It is not to clarify the OP's original question. Or at lease 90% of the time its not. Rather. I don't know the answer, so I will throw a question back at you.
I'm not seeing this here per say. It was another forum lately that I noticed this a LOT.

I think that's kinda what I'm talking about? Feels like getting criticized for what you want to do and then getting canceled. In the end your stuck doing what you can to figure it out yourself or just giving up.

[QIII]

Sometimes the "Why?" question is important.

It can clarify what the user is attempting to do and reveal their end goal -- and that may be achieved by many routes.

New users may be misunderstanding their systems and would be helped by a little education.

Users may also be attempting to accomplish something ill-advised that they have seen suggested elsewhere,

The UF is not a Stack Exchange venue. We are of the general opinion that a specific, standard, one-off answer is often not the best way to approach a user's unique issue. Similar symptoms do not necessarily indicate similar root causes. We try to diagnose, understand and educate.

Certainly, answering with "Why?" questions can be prone to being snotty. If you see those here, please report them. But, by and large, you will see more seasoned veterans here asking those questions because they have been around a long time to see when things may be heading in a less productive direction and take the opportunity to redirect, clarify or teach.

[pantazi]

As a relatively new (but willing to learn) Ubuntu user, I would find a direct solution to be useful to help me out of a sticky problem, but if it is not too much of an imposition a breakdown of how that solution is reached would help my learning process.

[TheFu]

@everybody,

- Please let me know what you think about suggesting a workaround instead of a direct solution.

I like both. Direct solutions, when possible and workarounds/redirected solutions for the other 98% of the questions. Often, questions are asked assuming Unix is MS-Windows. It isn't.

[DuckHook]

Sometimes the "Why?" question is important.

It can clarify what the user is attempting to do and reveal their end goal -- and that may be achieved by many routes.

New users may be misunderstanding their systems and would be helped by a little education.

Users may also be attempting to accomplish something ill-advised that they have seen suggested elsewhere,

The UF is not a Stack Exchange venue. We are of the general opinion that a specific, standard, one-off answer is often not the best way to approach a user's unique issue. Similar symptoms do not necessarily indicate similar root causes. We try to diagnose, understand and educate.

Certainly, answering with "Why?" questions can be prone to being snotty. If you see those here, please report them. But, by and large, you will see more seasoned veterans here asking those questions because they have been around a long time to see when things may be heading in a less productive direction and take the opportunity to redirect, clarify or teach.

New users will sometimes get my "opinion" because I detect a flawed context behind their question. They want to do something potentially self‑destructive because they do not understand how Linux works and are mistakenly intent on a course of action that they have been conditioned to use through bad proprietary OSes. For example, many new users want to run everything under sudo, or disable sudo altogether and run permanently as root.

If someone asks me for the best way to jump off a cliff, I not only have the right to refuse to provide such instructions, but the outright obligation to point out that jumping off cliffs is not good for one's health. And if such cliff jumping risks harming others, like the unsuspecting souls strolling on the path below, I have every right to object to such courses of action entirely.

Of the unwitting drones in the bot farms that infest our computing commons, many were assimilated precisely because they thought they already knew everything and couldn't be bothered listening to we old timers. They compromised their security for the sake of "convenience". They are now a menace to us all because they "did it their way". As responsible members of this community, we have an obligation to point out their errors. And they don't get to decide whether they like these "opinions" or not because their actions have consequences far beyond the confines of their own computers.

The OP started this thread on the subject of community. Surely the very essence of a community is the freedom and willingness to speak up about all sorts of issues that bear on whatever topic is at hand. If we self‑censor our responses to strictly the question being asked, we may as well eliminate the human element in these forums altogether and replace ourselves with an AI like ChatGPT that doesn't care about context or consequences.

[QIII]

A veteran mountain climber's "opinion" about how to position a carabiner is often arrived at after years of observing others doing it their own way and adding to the pile of bodies at the base of the cliff.

[TheFu]

As a relatively new (but willing to learn) Ubuntu user, I would find a direct solution to be useful to help me out of a sticky problem, but if it is not too much of an imposition a breakdown of how that solution is reached would help my learning process.

Sometimes, there is a huge amount of background to get to the recommended solution. Providing 10 yrs of experience, knowledge and mistakes learned, just isn't possible for many non-trivial answers in a forum post.

A simple question, doesn't make the solution simple, nor does it mean that doing it the way some other OS would accomplish it is possible or the "best" solution either. Of course, there are always multiple, or 500, different possible solutions in Linux, seldom is there just 1.

Many of the people here are paid for our opinions around Linux deployments and solutions daily. It is what our clients expect and demand, so they can avoid issues.

What's that popular saying? "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." That goes to many people asking questions here ... including me.