New Official Ubuntu Forums == confusion

[littlegreenman]

Hi all,

Where is the great General Support thread? I don't seem to be able to find a thread where I can ask about my problem with CD Writing.

It's cool that Ubuntu Forums are now official, but did you have to change it all around so to make it difficult to use?

Where can I post a question of a problem of CD Writing using Ubuntu and it's 'official' programmes?

Thanks.

Diogo

[jdong]

This is not a change that officialness imposed on us -- there are just simply TOO many questions in the General Support forum for us to manage.


If you think the problem deals with reconfiguring your burner, put it in Hardware. If you think the problem deals with configuring/choosing burning software:
1. If it's a package in the main repository, like the Nautilus burner or a direct question about cdrecord, put it in Ubuntu Repository Support.
2. If you installed the software from Universe (not supported by Canonical/Ubuntu team), or you obtained it from a different repository, put it in Other Software.

[littlegreenman]

Thanks for your reply.

There isn't a forum that is for instance newbie help. That forum would be great. Because my problem for instance, which does not fit into the categories. I am a newbie with Linux, I don't know what is wrong, only know that the software that comes with Ubuntu, and the hardware that Ubuntu recognise and gave me no problem with, just do not work. I guess I will post it in the repositary forum...

Not very user friendly. *Very* bad move IMO. Or at least, not a clear move....


:|

[Cygnia]

For my taste there are too many layers or levels of forums and subforums. It could be possible to divide into subject areas without creating unnecessary complexity. Just my two cents.

--
Bryce

[jdong]

tree-based sorting algorithms are more efficient than linear ones! LOL


I do not agree that we need a 'newbie support section'. I feel it's unfair to brand people by their skill level, or to degrade some members of our support community.


Post to the closest match you can think of, and a mod will move it to a different forum if it seems more appropriate. We will always leave redirects in the previous forum, if you need to track it that way.


Other ways of tracking include:

a. Doing an Advanced Search, for topics started by your username. Very simple.
b. Subscribe to your topics -- get e-mail / IM notification of changes to your thread. These options are available under Thread Tools, or Additional Options when you post.

[wallijonn]

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/images/icons/icon14.gif

I love the new sidebar on the ubuntu forums home page. Good work, guys.

[TravisNewman]

General support was overflowing because everything was going in there, whether it was hardware related, ppc, AMD64, LiveCD, or Hoary sometimes. It's been renamed to Software Support, and the subforums have been added in, so that maybe people will stop posting in the wrong place and so that finding things will be easier.

Perhaps more work needs to go into the layout, but for now, this is much more intuitive than the General Support section. If you can't figure out where your post should go, just put it in other.

[littlegreenman]

I do not agree that we need a 'newbie support section'. I feel it's unfair to brand people by their skill level, or to degrade some members of our support community.


I don't think the term Newbie is in any way derogatory. If you look at my UbuntuForums status it says I am a newbie.

I am new, it's easier for a new person to ask a question in a general new to ubuntu/linux forum. If you don't know what is the problem you can't categorize it.

Sure, you know what the symptoms are... but why?

Ok, fair enough, no newbie forum.

But maybe renaming those repository/supository :D forum would be a good idea....

As a newbie/new user, I find it confusing. And I am not the most PC-challenged person out there (is this not politically correct?). If Ubuntu want's to get universal support, if Linux wants to get universal support, if you want to kick the crap (can I say crap?) out of M$, than everything is important.

As someone also said in a different thread somewhere, one has to think that no one is being charged for the help they get here... But one shouldn't settle for second best....

I do get panickedthumb's point. Let's see what happens.


as Cygnia said,
just my two cents....

[eBopBob]

I do not agree that we need a 'newbie support section'. I feel it's unfair to brand people by their skill level, or to degrade some members of our support community.
Exactly. Although I personally am not offended at being called a newbie in regards to Linux, I'm sure many will. It is much better to have categories which list what sorts of problems (such as hardware, software, etc.) and allow all users to post their questions in those areas.

One problem I see at Linux Questions is that there are far too many categories, and then a newbie one. So in a lot of places you see a topic which could have gone elsewhere; which IMO is pretty dumb. Why make it so that you could post that same topic in three or four places?!

[jdong]

I think we can all agree that the OLD general support method wasn't working.

I don't think we've tested the new layout long enough to begin replacing it...


Let's just see what happens for now.

[karih]

I must agree with the first poster here, this is a bit confusing. But I guess you can nearly always post in the right place, else someone will just move it.

Newbie section is IMO fine though, I remember on Sitepoint forums (all kinds of web programming related) I got very proud when someone asked me why I didn't just place the question in the PHP forum since it was that "advanced". ;)