Re: Any newbie Linux forums?

From: Michael Black (et472_at_FreeNet.Carleton.CA)
Date: 07/11/05 

Date: 11 Jul 2005 01:44:18 GMT

Phil Coen (nobody@nowhere.com) writes:
> Hey guys, thanks for a very entertaining thread for the weekend. But, if I
> may say so without causing offense, I think that some of you are starting
> to believe your own press releases. Linux expertness does not confer
> gurudom for the rest of the universe.
>
> As amateur psychologists I hope you all have a second income to pay for your
> newsgroup access.
>
> I suspect that if we were able to retrieve your technical questions back
> when YOU were rank beginners, I suspect that they would be along the same
> lines of any newcomer today. i.e. "Hey, my screen turned purple when I did
> something. How do I get it back to white again???" I base this on my
> belief that nobody is born an expert.
>
> Or, am I wrong on that point? :-)
>
But there is a class of people who actually don't ask questions. Or rather,
they form the questions in order to find an answer, but they don't state
the question out loud.

No, people aren't born knowing everything. But some can find answers
without asking other people questions. Or at the very least the questions
are in the context of existing material, to fill in a needed bit rather
than ask a broad question to avoid reading up on the topic.

I've never asked a question about Linux. That doesn't mean I know everything
or that I don't have problems. But the questions are just in my mind, to
help me define the problem before I seek the answer.

Often, I do find what I need by doing searches, and yes the newsgroups
are often the best source of answers (or even just the questions, to
see that my problem is not unique). I admit that this wouldn't work
if others weren't asking the questions in the first place.

But it also means trying things. You try something, you get some
results, and you use those results to try further things. When I bought
a scanner last year, I was stuck with not only not knowing what was supposed
to happen with a scanner, but not knowing what would happen with USB, since
it was my first ever USB device. I actually tossed a different distribution
on an unused partition to gather results from that, and once I saw
what was supposed to happen, I was able to get my distribution working.

Learning is change, and change is about balance. But much of the time
that balance can't be found because the people posting the questions
are leaving out bits of information, or aren't conveying their level
of competency. When those are missing, it often means people answering
have to guess. "How do I make an RF oscillator out of an op-amp" is
the sort of question you often seen in the sci.electronics.* hierarchy.
Some will actually answer straight out, but others will try to
define where the question is coming from. There may be a good reason
to use an op-amp, but it may simply be that the level of the poster
is such that they can't conceive of using anything but an op-amp, which
isn't usually a good choice at radio frequencies.

It reminds me of when a friend got a Mac about ten years ago. I set
it up for her, and then she kept asking how to do things. I automatically
reached for the mouse, and she chastised me for it; "I can do it myself".
But the reality was I had no realy experience with it, but my automatic
reaction was to look at obvious choices on the menu. I was learning by
trying things, she was learning by expecting me to know the answers
and tell her. Ultimately, she could get to the same place as I
simply by trying things.

   Michael

k

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