Advice quality

[Peter Linu]

Thank you. I visited those pages. The only thing preventing me from moving is that I like Mint!
Their model is exactly what I am suggesting. Much of their support is free however there are paid areas as well. Surely our admin could come up with a similar model. OK, for the benefit of the didactic, call it a help desk and not 'experts'.
Mint needs the money every bit as much as a commercial enterprise, The only difference is how much money does the Mint enterprise want to earn. Let's call a spade a spade and not a large trowel.

[DPM]

Their model is exactly what I am suggesting.

There's a crucial difference. These companies are first and foremost geared towards server support, and the desktop support is just a spin-off that is only economically viable because the support infrastructure and staff is already there anyway because of the server support. That's because the Linux market share is huge in servers, but tiny in desktops.

Mint, on the other hand, aims squarely at a user friendly desktop, i.e. at an already tiny market. You could use Mint for servers, too, but it wouldn't make sense because all the desktop polish that Mint offers would be useless for servers which usually don't even have any graphics card.

By consequence, the desktop support in Mint would have to pay for itself, and then you'd be looking at higher prices than the competition. Even without that, there's no way that the average user in the forums here would shell out anything from 150 to 300 bucks just to get support. They'd rather try another distro. It's just a complete non-starter.

The Mint way is rather the "it just works" approach. That may be astonishing, given the support requests in the forums here, but that's selection bias because you don't see any support requests from all the people whom Mint just works for.

[cliffcoggin]

I want somebody in Admin to allocate Expert status only after consultation with the potential expert.

Peter. You still don't seem to have grasped the point that there is no structured hierarchical organisation with one department for Administration, another for Finance, and others for Maintenance, Personnel, Production etc. as you would find in any commercial organisation. The forum comprises just users like you and me who contribute as and when they feel inclined to do so without reward and without responsibility, hence the "somebody in Admin" that you seek does not exist, though if you should volunteer your services I daresay the help would be welcomed. How many hours per week are you prepared to commit to without pay?

[Peter Linu]

Cliff,
Your sarcastic tone is noted.
Believe me, few would want help from me! However as a retiree, I could provide many hours and would do so if I had anything useful to add. That's why I rarely provide solutions which is still superior to what we have currently - noobs trotting out any old shmutter to hopefully receive some glory.

If the forum doesn't have some departments, how can I be reprimanded?

[Schultz]

I don't see any sarcasm there, just realism.

[Pierre]

the LinuxMint project itself is commercial in it's nature,
as it does actually need some funding to keep the project going . .

however, the the LinuxMint forum & the LinuxMint community site,
are just an gathering of like minded & community minded people.


some of those forum people, can get an better Google search result,
for an given issue, and then apply that result to the OPs issue.

some of those forum people, are an "expert" in certain areas,
of either hardware / software .. most forum users are somewhere in the middle.
- - myself included - in this particular area - -

[HaveaMint]

"May I suggest that the signature contains a sign (* or colour change or ?) to signify an expert...

Please, not a color change! Many people are color blind.

Sorry about the late reply, I was quoting someone hence the "quotation marks"

[all41]

however, the the LinuxMint forum & the LinuxMint community site,
are just an gathering of like minded & community minded people.

+1
Not one of us is smarter than all of us--however, we do have forum members that come close.

[Peter Linu]

All41 is one of the experts,

[all41]

Not-- We're just like you Sir--offering help to our fellow users.
It's the very crux of Linux--and Mint in particular.
Good to have you join this effort

[all41]

Peter,
It wasn't too long ago that you could get your teeth pulled by a barber.

See--you're a whipersnapper. Back in the days you went to the blacksmith

[Peter Linu]

RESPONSIBILITY
A few people mentioned that they wouldn't want the responsibility...
Authority without responsibility leads to chaos at least and authoritarianism at worst.
Who would you prefer making the forum's decisions, a seasoned, knowledgable professional or someone who has been on board for 5 minutes and has little or no technical insight? (and a bad attitude).

[Moem]

Who would you prefer making the forum's decisions, a seasoned, knowledgable professional or someone who has been on board for 5 minutes and has little or no technical insight?

You'll have to settle for something in between... our admins and mods are volunteers, not professionals.

[karlchen]

Hello, Peter Limu.

RESPONSIBILITY
A few people mentioned that they wouldn't want the responsibility...

Please, do not twist what Moem had written. She had not rejected each and every kind of responsibility. She had rejected the idea that moderators should be responsible for assigning "expert" status to forum users.

Do you mean that you want the moderators to hand out the status of 'Expert'?
If so, you'll get another 'No' from me. We don't want that kind of responsibility. Because before you know it, someone we have proclaimed to be an Expert messes up badly, someone else blows up their computer following this Expert's advice, and then it's all our fault. No, thank you very much!

I subscribe to this point of view.

Regards,
Karl

[Peter Linu]

Karlchen,
TWISTING WORDS:
I also haven't said that it should be a moderator's responsibility to assign expert status. It should be Admin's responsibility in concert with the proposed expert.

[karlchen]

Hi, Peter.

It does not really matter whether you want the forum moderators to do so or the forum administrators.
Neither the moderators, nor the administrators can reliably verify who has got which qualification in which technical area.
What should be the criteria, which permit assigning somebody the "expert" status? Expert on what precisely?
There is no-one in the world, who knows everything. So even every expert will be an expert on a limited range of questions/problems/areas.
The term expert is not a very well-defined term.
If you are looking for someone, whose advice you can follow in all situations blindly, then good luck finding such a genius.

Regards,
Karl

[Peter Linu]

Again, my words have been twisted!
I KNOW that nobody is an expert at everything!
For instance: there are different categories of technical enquiry on the board. Could a different expert be assigned to each? If that expert didn't have the answer, that expert might consult one of the other experts. This is not to say that members other than experts could have the correct answer, even n00bs. It is however frustrating to have to wade through pages of answers that are often not even on topic.

[ivar]

I've been a user on several special interest forums for 20 years+, most of them did not have any kind of "status" ranking.
But some time spent, and attention given, and I'll soon find out who's knowledgeable on what issues. Who's full of wind, and who's just drama queens.

[Peter Linu]

But some time spent, and attention given, and I'll soon find out who's knowledgeable on what issues. Who's full of wind, and who's just drama queens.

Ivar,
Imagine a world where this wouldn't be necessary. Imagine a forum where people's status was well defined. Imagine a world where information needed was supplied promptly with a minimum of fuss. Imagine a world where people without knowledge were not considered equal in ability as experts.

[rene]

Imagine a world where information needed was supplied promptly with a minimum of fuss.

Imagine one in which people asking for help would do so indeed...

Your above quoted bit implies a fundamentally mistaken world-view. You are by your own admission old; as such a product of a world where technology was for a large part mechanical or at the very least generally stateless; where one action/symptom meant one result/problem. This has very fundamentally changed in the computer era; general computer technology can literally be in thousands of states each of which may imply a different result or problem resulting from or underlying the same action or symptom. This is to say that unless in particularly trivial and/or widely experienced cases there are no easy answers ...

... and particularly not when the person asking for help does not provide enough or, as specifically you have been known to, even any information from which to gather said state. Generally claimed to be a logical matter of not knowing what information to provide, more often this is in fact more a matter of the person not wanting to project not knowing through providing information deemed obviously irrelevant. But, even if we were to take that for granted, what you/the person is in any case asking for is hand-holding from the get-go, from level 0. Not any expert in any field and most certainly no expert in any Linux field has become such by holding hands, and few appreciate or care for anyone claiming such to be the norm for Normal People. If you want to use Linux you need to have some level of self-reliance; conversely, if you do not you do not want to use Linux. Up to now about 98% of people are Normal People in this desktop computer context.

And as such then, please other than said above world also imagine one in which pigs fly; about as useful as this thread. The world of computer technology isn't as simple as you've block-diagrammed it to be, and "experts" are not going to waste their time on crap.