The Arch Communities Mentality to Newcomers

cyberpsych0sis · 2014-11-16 05:12:59

I would like to start off by saying that I have learned ALOT about arch and linux in general in the short time I've been here at this forum. There is a WEALTH of knowledge and bright/experienced minds here. That being said, I'm curious about how you as a member view the Arch Culture? And if you could express to me, how you think it got where it is now, how you think newcomers are treated, how they should be treated, and why.

I ask these questions because I've seen a desire and willingness to help people among certain highly knowledgeable members, but it sometimes seems heavily cloaked in purposefully vague and at times insulting offerings. I am not criticizing, I think I have an idea why this dynamic exists, this is more an exercise in trying to understand the societies mentality that exists here and what the status quo is.

At times it feels like this community has a "rite of passage" mentality to it. I'm curious about your thoughts on that.

Last edited by cyberpsych0sis (2014-11-16 05:22:48)

jasonwryan · 2014-11-16 05:21:47

It's not a rite of passage, it is to ensure that people learn to help themselves, and don't expect to be spoonfed, or worse...

FWIW: "purposefully vague" suggests an attempt to misdirect or obfuscate, that is quite different to pointing someone at the right place to look so they can work out for themselves what is wrong. I see no evidence of the former, and think the latter is the correct approach.

cyberpsych0sis · 2014-11-16 05:40:59

jasonwryan wrote:

It's not a rite of passage, it is to ensure that people learn to help themselves, and don't expect to be spoonfed, or worse...
FWIW: "purposefully vague" suggests an attempt to misdirect or obfuscate, that is quite different to pointing someone at the right place to look so they can work out for themselves what is wrong. I see no evidence of the former, and think the latter is the correct approach.

So it is a practice of giving the least amount of information necessary to allow the person to workout the issue on their own? This makes sense, for a couple of reasons.
1. When we reach that AHAH moment on our own we have a greater sense of accomplishment and I would argue that provides a level of resilience and sense of self power/sufficiency. A sort of innoculation to adversity which can certainly contribute to successfully solving problems on your own in the future.
2. This mentality creates stronger individuals and thereby a stronger community when everyone works harder to solve problems than ask for answers (Kinda reminds me of stories of Spartan children being left in the wild to fend for themselves.)
3. It will help ward off those who lack the resilience to work their way through a problem, for that reason I would argue this is a bit of a rite of passage for some.

Would you suggest this approach should be adopted by all members of the community? Do you think it weakens the community when one of its individuals provides the answers to someone? Is there ever a point where you should just give them the answer? I realize there are no hard and fast rules, but I wonder what you think would be most beneficial?

Last edited by cyberpsych0sis (2014-11-16 15:49:06)

jasonwryan · 2014-11-16 06:08:37

People are free to offer as much, or as little, help as they see fit. There are times when just posting the answer is the best approach; that would be the case where it didn't involve pasting from the man pages or the wiki (or wasn't something covered in threads here or elsewhere on the web).

If there are egregious examples of spoonfeeding, generally someone who has been around a little longer will chime in.

nstgc · 2014-11-16 14:26:34

I also had the feeling for a while that I was being broken in, not so much with people offering only tid bits of information, but in my case, at one point, 100% of my threads were deleted for one reason or another. I think what the problem is is that the Arch community is a bit different from so many others, and it just takes time to adapt.

Trilby · 2014-11-16 15:16:29

I have seen many online communities form, grow rapidly, and eventually collapse completely because there were no standards.

When a society becomes excessively egalitarian, everything becomes acceptable, everything is ok, and there are no expectations of anyone. This is crap. We should be able to have standards and expectations. But despite the occasional critique to the contrary, this does not make us "elitist". Everyone is welcome - there is no prerequisite knowledge required. But there are some standards of conduct. A willingness and interest in learning is expected. We don't want freeloaders or the above mentioned vampires. We want to help people when those people show signs that they might be (or eventually become) contributing members of the community.

I'll admit to being pretty quick to closing/binning vamp-like threads. But for me this is because there is very little grey area. I've also gone to great lengths to help a newcomer understand some very basic concepts when they have shown an interest to learn, read the wiki, and presented meaningful questions. In other words, I'm more than happy to teach someone to fish. But if they come with a hand out begging for fish, they're more likely to get slapped with the fish

cyberpsych0sis · 2014-11-16 15:44:04

nstgc wrote:

I also had the feeling for a while that I was being broken in, not so much with people offering only tid bits of information, but in my case, at one point, 100% of my threads were deleted for one reason or another. I think what the problem is is that the Arch community is a bit different from so many others, and it just takes time to adapt.

It reminds me of places like stackexchange.com, while it is a GREAT place to get answers. The senior members expect a high amount of research to be done prior to asking their question and they also expect the questions to be asked in a certain way. It's a new set of rules for people to adapt to, that frankly, is difficult for most (At least in the beginning while they're learning this new system) in the age where everything is usually just a click away, we are a great deal spoiled by the internet. I believe this method of least information and redirecting to other resources is going to be required to keep our infrastructure sustainable in the future. Especially considering the exponential growth of information. It does make me wonder how much of our "information" is just duplication. This does beg the question though. How can we create a more streamlined way of finding answers and asking questions? I think places like the wiki pages and stack exchanges are a good examples of creating repositories of information but I don't think they are the full solution. I don't think they fill that gap that experience has provided for others, and that gap, can sometimes be a huge one.

Last edited by cyberpsych0sis (2014-11-16 15:55:41)

Lone_Wolf · 2014-11-16 15:47:54

Give a poster the answer to their problem, and they'll learn very little and come to rely on others helping them.
Guide them to finding the answer, and they'll learn a lot and may become helpers themselves.

To me, that should be the spirit of Arch community.

ANOKNUSA · 2014-11-16 17:04:14

Every social unit contains individuals who can roughly be broken into two categories: those who joined the group because it reflects their identity; and those who join because they believe membership will help form their identity. The former rarely have trouble integrating into a new group because, in a sense, they were already members before they joined. The latter are the ones who inevitably and invariably have a problem integrating, as they project their demands and expectations of what the community should be onto the community's established members. They have a personal stake in being members of the group that's inherently different from that of members who join because they're uncertain of what membership in the group might really mean to them.

In the Arch world, these are folks with suggestions on how to make Arch more popular, or "teach" people how to install Arch the "easy" way, or who simply complain that we're elitist or that we make things too difficult for them. They project expectations about what Arch might or should be upon the rest of the community, and do so because they don't understand some very fundamental, key facts about Arch, its purpose or its community:

- Arch is designed by and for a particular type of person. If you are not one of those people, Arch isn't for you.
- Using Arch does not make one "hardcore" or give you major nerd cred. People use Arch and participate in its community because those things reflect those users' values and ideals.
- Arch was not created in the hopes of making money or increasing Linux market share, actively promoting GNU/Linux or FOSS, bringing about The Year of the Linux Desktop or any of that crap. It was created to fill a niche, and does so very nicely.
- The Arch community is not a democracy, thankfully. Democracy is great, but not universally so. What you want as an individual is of little consequence in light of the values and needs of the larger community.

All social units are inherently exclusive in some way and to some degree, and exist primarily to satisfy the needs of like-minded individuals rather than satisfy the curiosity of "seekers." Many of us use Arch because it fulfills some need. We're computer nerds who were unsatisfied with other operating systems, and I'd bet most of us ended up here after being "seekers" ourselves. The reason we feel protective of our community is because we don't want it turning into all the noisy, inane ones we left before finding our home here. If Arch and its community don't satisfy you, well, that's life. There are still other options out there for you. There's nothing arrogant or elitist about expecting prospective members of a group to overcome some barrier to entrance. That barrier is often just a matter of introspection, asking oneself whether one really wants to be a member of a group for the right reasons.

EDIT: Spelling and such.

Last edited by ANOKNUSA (2014-11-16 17:06:42)

MoonSwan · 2014-11-16 20:57:50

ANOKNUSA wrote:

- Arch is designed by and for a particular type of person. If you are not one of those people, Arch isn't for you.

I've seen this reflected in the forums just by watching new/excited people posting and, usually after a few weeks, move on to other distros. I've also seen a blog that was dedicated to this one fellow's view of Arch Linux as "second only to Gentoo" as the distro which he used as a yard stick to prove one's high level of "geekiness" (?) in the open source OS community. He put Arch on a very high pedestal, came to our forums, asked questions and, when he got answers he didn't like, felt betrayed. His blog went on to list his dissatisfaction with the Arch community and why he felt it was "elitist" and other such things. In short, this blogger wasn't joining the Arch community for the "right" reasons; that is, he was using the community as a way to mold his identity as an elite member of a larger community.

ANOKNUSA wrote:

- The Arch community is not a democracy, thankfully. Democracy is great, but not universally so. What you want as an individual is of little consequence in light of the values and needs of the larger community.

In my opinion, the Arch community is a pretty good reflection of a true meritocracy. No one is "better" than another member but you may be viewed as a respected "elder" if you have a certain level of experience and knowledge.

ANOKNUSA wrote:

All social units are inherently exclusive in some way and to some degree, and exist primarily to satisfy the needs of like-minded individuals rather than satisfy the curiosity of "seekers." Many of us use Arch because it fulfills some need. We're computer nerds who were unsatisfied with other operating systems, and I'd bet most of us ended up here after being "seekers" ourselves. ... There's nothing arrogant or elitist about expecting prospective members of a group to overcome some barrier to entrance. That barrier is often just a matter of introspection, asking oneself whether one really wants to be a member of a group for the right reasons.

I think this accurately summarises how I feel about this community as a whole.

ewaller · 2014-11-16 21:17:13

Here is my take on the community. Although we promote ourselves as being for the more seasoned user, we really do welcome all comers. We also realize that different members bring different levels of expertise to the game. We are justifiably proud of the documentation we provide and have an amazing community of seasoned, insightful members who are more than willing to help on the forums, the mail list, the AUR, and in the wiki.

But, it is a two way street. We consider it to be disrespectful to seek help without first having done the research. I, and I imagine others, size up the technical capability of members posting questions to the forums. If, in our judgment, that person should have been able to solve the problem given some initiative, our response is likely to reflect that. In extreme cases, we may suggest one read the fine manual. We are more likely to provide a link. I think the article linked in my signature sums it up perfectly.

nstgc · 2014-11-16 22:52:10

To say there isn't some degree of elitist sentimentalities here would be arrogant. However, it is no worse than the majority of other special interest forums. Whenever you get people together with a single unifying aspect, elitism is inevitable in some form. I think it may seem worse then it is since installing the Arch the Arch way the first time is considerably more intricate (though not necessarily harder) than nearly any other OS installation method, and less familiar since there isn't a gui. Since there is this seemingly impassible barrier for membership, we are expected to be super nerdy elitists, and so that is how we are seen.

Also, by "we" I mostly mean "people not me". I'm pretty much useless in these forums and learning very slowly. I don't think anyone would be intimidated by me.

skottish · 2014-11-17 02:23:52

Helping anyone to become self sufficient benefits everyone if the motivation is sharing. Sure, different people do things differently and sometimes people can be terse. But, the aim is for mutual benefit.

drcouzelis · 2014-11-17 13:23:20

cyberpsych0sis wrote:

I ask these questions because I've seen a desire and willingness to help people among certain highly knowledgeable members, but it sometimes seems heavily cloaked in purposefully vague and at times insulting offerings.

Can you give an example? Do you mean like this?

In my opinion, the Arch Linux community's mentality towards newcomers is great!

But the Arch Linux community's mentality towards anyone who wants to be given information in an oversimplified manner instead of learning from what has already been documented in a community that openly declares that it will not provide information in an oversimplified manner instead of inviting people to learn from what has already been documented is justifiably severe.

Trilby · 2014-11-17 13:34:41

drcouzelis wrote:

But the Arch Linux community's mentality towards anyone ...

Agreed. The same standards apply to everyone. There is not "initiation" of newcomers. In fact, if anything, as a moderator I am harsher on those who have been around longer: they should know better.

With a newcomer, I'd offer guidance on how to best get assitance here. I might explain why they are only being directed to the wiki/man page and I'd give them a link to said wiki or man page. I'd then wait for any follow up if they read the man/wiki and were still confused. With someone who has been around a while I might just put "RTFM" and close the thread.

Sulman · 2014-11-24 16:43:25

cyberpsych0sis wrote:

I ask these questions because I've seen a desire and willingness to help people among certain highly knowledgeable members, but it sometimes seems heavily cloaked in purposefully vague and at times insulting offerings. I am not criticizing, I think I have an idea why this dynamic exists, this is more an exercise in trying to understand the societies mentality that exists here and what the status quo is.

Firstly, the fears about 'help vampires' and learning how to ask questions correctly are important considerations in any community. However, there is a third type of contributor, and you see them all over more advanced distribution mailing lists, and indeed IT as a profession.

This is the sort of person that is experienced and knowledgeable, but they know it, and this unfortunately defines them.

Read the forums and mailing lists and you'll find plenty of examples of people asking perfectly legitimate questions getting hazed by RTFM-monkeys who don't know how to contribute anything useful. They do it because it makes them feel important. I would suggest Arch has a problem with this kind of user, compared to say, Gentoo.

karol · 2014-11-24 17:06:30

Sulman wrote:

Read the forums and mailing lists and you'll find plenty of examples of people asking perfectly legitimate questions getting hazed by RTFM-monkeys who don't know how to contribute anything useful. They do it because it makes them feel important. I would suggest Arch has a problem with this kind of user, compared to say, Gentoo.

Can you post links to some examples of said online hazing?

Trilby · 2014-11-24 17:10:12

I think we can all be occasionally prone to what Sulman describes, though 'hazing' seems to assign a malicious intent which I'm not sure exists. Perhaps sometimes it is due to these poor motivations, but other times I believe it is purely accidental. The question asked seems to be trivial and easy to answer with a google search or reading of the manual. But only on closer inspection one might realize it is not so clear. So while a proper direction to the manual may be the best way to help someone learn (i.e., teaching them to fish) we should always be sure to check for ourselves to make sure the answer really is there (i.e., ensure there are fish in the lake!)

karol · 2014-11-24 17:23:44

Trilby wrote:

The question asked seems to be trivial and easy to answer with a google search or reading of the manual. But only on closer inspection one might realize it is not so clear. So while a proper direction to the manual may be the best way to help someone learn (i.e., teaching them to fish) we should always be sure to check for ourselves to make sure the answer really is there (i.e., ensure there are fish in the lake!)

Or maybe the lake has frozen over and while the fish are still there, you have another obstacle in your way.
It's usually OK to assume Allan is responsible for it.

drcouzelis · 2014-11-24 17:56:58

It's never the wrong season for an Allan joke.

2ManyDogs · 2014-11-24 18:52:47

Sulman wrote:

They do it because it makes them feel important. I would suggest Arch has a problem with this kind of user, compared to say, Gentoo.

I've seen people make this claim before (that the Gentoo forum is more "noob friendly" than the Arch forum) and in my experience it is simply not true. The Gentoo forum has a large number of very smart helpful users (like the Arch forum), but it also has a large number of users who jump on new users. The difference, in my experience, is that the Gentoo mods are not willing to "moderate" -- bikeshed discussions about the evils of systemd have recently completely overtaken the useful content on the Gentoo forum, and users there are unwilling to hear any other viewpoint (in my opinion, of course). I personally prefer the strong moderation standard here. I no longer use Gentoo mainly because its forum has become too hostile and unusable for me.

If a new user here needs an RTFM, with an appropriate pointer to the Arch wiki, I see nothing wrong with that. As Trilby points out, the lake should first be checked for fish -- the wiki pointer should be checked (and preferably, the solution should be tested) before simply telling the new user to go read the wiki. If the new user comes back with "doesn't work!" I lose my patience and go elsewhere.

(edit) this is an excellent example of a user being told to go fish when there are in fact no fish in the lake.

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2014-11-24 22:40:05)

davidm · 2014-11-24 20:27:22

I believe generally it's about where it should be. Arch has a different culture than say Ubuntu. But part of that is because it's (mostly) geared for different types of users. For example you won't find many Archers telling newbies how to open a terminal window step-by-step and then give them the exact commands to do things for their specific situation. Instead you will usually get a general overview or perhaps a pointer to the relevant documentation, bug report, manual entry,etc. It will be assumed for instance that by having an Arch installation you say already know how to access the terminal. There is nothing wrong with this IMO.

I do think for people who are brand new to Arch the whole Arch way of doing things can be pretty overwhelming to some even where they are fairly intelligent or experienced with *nix. It's just a lot of new information to learn at once. So I think we should try to be more understanding to these users but not to the point where we are spoon feeding them terminal commands one by one and giving them a step-by-step on how to open a terminal window or how they need to press "Enter" at the end of each command.

Another thing I see is that sometimes there is a hint of a binary user expectation system. Either you are willing to spend hours and hours debugging, reading obscure documentation, submitting bug fixes and patches... basically dedicating your life to your Arch system or you are some kind of "vampire". I don't think this is healthy for either the user or the community. Not everyone can contribute in the same ways or dedicate the same amount of time to the community. But if each tries to contribute at least a little to the best of their ability and given their situation then we are all better for it. I think it's enough that people simply do what they reasonably can with a genuinely positive intent.

davidm · 2014-11-24 21:18:14

Trilby wrote:

I think we can all be occasionally prone to what Sulman describes, though 'hazing' seems to assign a malicious intent which I'm not sure exists. Perhaps sometimes it is due to these poor motivations, but other times I believe it is purely accidental. The question asked seems to be trivial and easy to answer with a google search or reading of the manual. But only on closer inspection one might realize it is not so clear. So while a proper direction to the manual may be the best way to help someone learn (i.e., teaching them to fish) we should always be sure to check for ourselves to make sure the answer really is there (i.e., ensure there are fish in the lake!)

Also there is the whole "information overload" and unfamiliarity angle to it. As Arch seasoned users we probably know a lot of the basics of Arch and then some. For someone relatively new there are all sorts of new things they are having to absorb and even if the answer is right in front of them that does not mean they will recognize it or be able to separate it from the other "noise" (such as old information which is no longer relevant).

It's like being new to an area and looking for a certain store. Do you turn here? Did you go to far? Should you turn around? Is it on the left or right side of the road? Does it have a sign to look for? Maybe there are two streets with the same name and it is on the other one? Maybe the store closed down? etc etc. But if you are a local and familiar with the area it is generally so much more easier as your mind does not have to process as much information and possibilities. You are able to focus better and are much less overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Last edited by davidm (2014-11-24 21:19:22)

2ManyDogs · 2014-11-24 21:41:34

davidm wrote:

It's like being new to an area and looking for a certain store. Do you turn here? Did you go to far? Should you turn around? Is it on the left or right side of the road? Does it have a sign to look for? Maybe there are two streets with the same name and it is on the other one? Maybe the store closed down? etc etc. But if you are a local and familiar with the area it is generally so much more easier as your mind does not have to process as much information and possibilities. You are able to focus better and are much less overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Other forums give directions (go two miles, turn left at the big tree, yes, tree, that big tall thing with leaves; go another two miles until you see a spotted cow on your left, you're almost there, you will see the store on the right side of the road past the firehouse, remember to turn off the ignition when you park; come back and ask again if you didn't see the cow).

On the Arch forum you get a map to the store; a very detailed map, updated regularly by people who go to the same store every day. If you can't read a map, you're on your own.

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2014-11-24 21:46:30)

Xyne · 2014-11-24 22:07:50

I wrote up my thoughts on this subject a while ago in response to another poster. They should still be relevant: http://xyne.archlinux.ca/notes/arch/ethos.html

Arch Linux

#1 2014-11-16 05:12:59

The Arch Communities Mentality to Newcomers

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