New linux forums

[Cew27]

hey guys i just made a new linux forum, for uk users and global users. www.linux-forums.co.uk
please sign up and help me populate it. im looking for some ubuntu experts to help out and also needing some moderators
thanks

[Newuser1111]

Give me a better reason.

[Kabezon]

Why? o.O Why not just use this one?

[drubin]

Why? o.O Why not just use this one?

Agreed, I prefer to have my forums centralized in one place. Why split up the help? into a completely different forum that makes searching for answers slightly harder.

[Tom--d]

It looks nice :)
A lot like the Arch Linux webpage (or is that just me xD)

Hope it goes well for you.

[Prefix100]

Give me a better reason.

Its a simpler, nicer, forum?

[Kernel Sanders]

hey guys i just made a new linux forum, for uk users and global users. www.linux-forums.co.uk
please sign up and help me populate it. im looking for some ubuntu experts to help out and also needing some moderators
thanks

FAIL.

A forum without a purpose or proper organisation is destined to FAIL.

I CAN HAZ FAIL?

[Cew27]

well i like these forums and will alwalys link to soultions on here from my forums and encourage others so do similar, but these forums are overcrowded and its less of a tight-knit community and more of a message board

[Cew27]

also it is the arch theme, i am very friendly with the arch lot and they were nice enough to help me out with a good layout :)

[Canis familiaris]

Nice and simple layout.
But I would suggest you to focus on particular part of Linux such as Virtualization, Programming, etc. rather than whole Linux itself since there are enough generic forums already.

[Cew27]

my intentions is to slowly build up a usergroup of experience users, those who know fedora and suse best shall be fedora and suse experts. possible a moderator on the fedora forum ect. and do this for all parts of the forum so i have a group of moderators that know alot and can help people in that specific field. this is just my ideal at the moment and things may change. i am also trying to get a linux software website up. just a simple one with links to mirros and new on new software. www.fosspedia.com

[Cew27]

FAIL.

A forum without a purpose or proper organisation is destined to FAIL.

I CAN HAZ FAIL?

this comment is true as we can tell from other linux forums, wait. no

[Kernel Sanders]

this comment is true as we can tell from other linux forums, wait. no

Other linux forums have a purpose and a structure. All you've done is do a stock punbb install, add forums for all the major distro's, and then ask for members.

You're going nowhere like that. For one, why should people register there? They can get better and faster support from using the proper forums for each of those distros.

You need a purpose. All you have is some generic sounding linux forum name, and some generic forums.

It's pointless.

[Cew27]

yes the name is generic, but its to the point. the main purpose of my forums is not only provide an information base but also a friendly community where everyone can be friendly and go there to seek help or just to chat with people who share the same interest also no it isnt stock punbb layout its far from it.
why should people join? for the reasons stated above. why is it empty? because i have no content.
content brings members but members make content. no member = no content.
i have to start somewhere and this is my first hurdle. given members we shall have content

[Kernel Sanders]

yes the name is generic, but its to the point. the main purpose of my forums is not only provide an information base but also a friendly community where everyone can be friendly and go there to seek help or just to chat with people who share the same interest also no it isnt stock punbb layout its far from it.
why should people join? for the reasons stated above. why is it empty? because i have no content.
content brings members but members make content. no member = no content.
i have to start somewhere and this is my first hurdle. given members we shall have content

But if someone is using fedora, they will get better help at the fedora forums, and they have an off topic forum for friendly chat also.

If someone is using ubuntu, they will get better help here, and there is a forum for friendly chat here also.

You can't just make a generic linux forum, provide forums for all the main distro's and then expect people to flock to it and provide the content you need.

You need a purpose. If for example you had a linux programming project, you could have forums for that, and if you were nice and helpful, and you had a good project, people would stick around and post in your off topic forums too. That's how forums get started. They have a purpose. A raison d'etre.

Maybe you could target ubuntu theming? Get some content together yourself (seriously, you can't just sit back and hope an influx of members will make your forum for you, and provide all the content you need), make a few tutorials and get people interested in your forum being a themeing site. Then if it's any good, they'll stick around.

YOU.NEED.A.PURPOSE.OR.YOU.WILL.FAIL.

Seriously, put some thought into it. If you are keen on the idea of running your own successfull forums then you need to start putting some work into it. This is a totally half assed and lazy attempt.

[Canis familiaris]

I agree.
You need to focus on a particular aspect. You just cant compete against the Gaint Forums.

[Cew27]

i dont expect to compete against the giant forums and my purpose is in the near future to be the forum that acompanies fosspeidia and maybe become fossforums
also i use 5 + distros and when i need help with one i dont want to havce to go to 5 different forums to get help, a one stop shop for support would be better for people like me

[Kernel Sanders]

See, that's why your forums will fail.

You've posted your forum and you've received feedback, yet all you can come up with is why everyone is wrong.

Look at the reasons why people are so disinterested and make the appropriate changes. If you are serious about this then you need to listen and start putting the work in.

Literally all you've done is get a linux forum name, use a stock punbb install, make a sepatate forum for each of the main distro's and sit back. Who would register at a forum like that? Especally since you show no intention of listening to what people want, or putting any effort in yourself.

Even if you wrote some tutorials that would be indexed on google that would be something. Yet you show no intention of doing that. You're just sitting back hoping hordes of people will register and write all those tutorials, and add all that content for you.

Not going to happen.

You seem to have a really bad attitude for this :(

[toupeiro]

Moreso than that, your motive for a forum doesn't seem to be community. As you've said, you don't want to have to go everywhere for support of your five distro's, so you want a one stop shop.. You'll find that won't attract very many people.

If I were going to attempt something as you are doing, the first thing I would be doing is building an extensive knowledge base of everything I've collected, researched, or developed for as many platforms as I've worked on. At least then, you are providing fertile soil for things to start growing. I'm disinclined to do a whole lot of work for a site whose primary focus is not community. Sounds more like I would be benefitting you, which I could just as easily do by responding to a post on this site with your problem.

Heck, I'll even give you some catalyst. I haven't seen very many forums do this. I used to contribute to a web community called appdeploy.com when I did windows software packaging. Their packageKB and SoftwareKB is very extensive, community driven, and extremely resourceful. Maybe poke around there and get some ideas of how you could apply this model to FOSS and have a software troubleshooting, documentation, and platform porting repository.

[Raffles10]

well i like these forums and will alwalys link to soultions on here from my forums and encourage others so do similar, but these forums are overcrowded and its less of a tight-knit community and more of a message board

Overcrowded ?

Surely the purpose of a forum is for its members to share knowledge/help/advice. The more members the more knowledge/help/advice available.

People come here because they know their messages/requests will be viewed by a large number of people. Why dissipate the advice available by directing it somewhere else ?

[malspa]

Maybe it won't fail. The "nice" part is a good reason to at least try, especially after the way things go here. Thanks, Cew27, looking forward to participating over there.

[snova]

(Take my blatant opinions with a grain of salt.)

Just my two cents, but I've been thinking lately about the concept of a centralized forum for all of Linux myself. Such a project is probably doomed to fail in the current times, but just what is the point of having so many small ones? Granted, ubuntuforums.org is by no means small, but what about the rest?

I like the idea of taking all the specialized ones and making one big amalgamation out of them. That means less searching for help and more time meeting people who know what the heck is wrong. I could use one of those right now.

But like I said: this will probably go down right now. Linux is fractured, to put it bluntly. Everybody has their own favorite distro, and they help each other. Not a problem, but suppose some random guy who uses, say, Fedora, knows the perfect solution to my problem? Chances are I'd never find him, because I use Ubuntu and don't intend on switching.

Distro-specific forums are important because a solution for Fedora probably won't work on Ubuntu when the issue is about packaging, but the weakness of this is when the forum gets generic to the point where it's no longer distro-specific. This forum already has. We are duplicating effort when it comes to this.

Personally, I would love to go to such a site for generic problems. The reason why distros should unite in this particular scenario is simply so that I can find support in the same places. I don't need to make four usernames for help in four distros.

This is an objective worth working for, but like I said- this won't work yet. There is simply no way you will convince everybody to move somewhere else. In the end, it will be beneficial, but until then, forget it. This is far too big of a demand.

Plus, I'd miss the brown and hate the blue. Think about theming so we can use a familiar interface. Think about forwarding to combine them transparently. Think about migration so LaRoza can keep their 13,000 post count (I just saw this earlier).

In summary: Specialized help is just fine in specialized places, but it would be nice if generic help could be found in one place. Just don't expect results for a long time. And think it through. I might even suggest you build your own, custom solution. This kind of undertaking might justify it.

One more thing: you are going to need dozens more non distro-specific forums than "Generic Help". Find a way to nest forums in categories and sub-categories, like you can here. Then I might consider looking at "Servers -> HTTP -> Apache -> Configuration", or due to my interests, more likely "Programming -> Language Specific -> C++".

[malspa]

I don't see why it has to be doomed to fail. Even if a few people can get some help there, or have a friendly place to chat and compare notes, I'd think it's a success. It doesn't have to be the most popular forum site out there.

[jpeddicord]

hey guys i just made a new linux forum, for uk users and global users. www.linux-forums.co.uk
please sign up and help me populate it. im looking for some ubuntu experts to help out and also needing some moderators
thanks

I know you have good intentions with this, but as it is just a link to a site with no specific purpose other than to get people to join, it classifies as spam.

Echo responses of Kernel Sanders and toupeiro.

You are free to display a link to your site in your signature here, but not a topic.

Thread closed.