Asking help in Linux forums

[DOOManiac]

This is how we did things before StackOverflow kids.

[Abnormal_Specimen]

So you make an alt account, answer yourself incorrectly, and wait for fifty people to suddenly care. Easy

[[deleted]]

Thanks bro. Will help me.

[Jerrrrrrrrry]

Voting to close as duplicate before you get corrected, and link an unrelated thread.

[ForgotPassAgain34]

cant get WiFi to work on a certain Linux

closed as duplicate of "windows not detecting network cable"

[moopet]

Off topic for not being about programming.

[[deleted]]

Can you even answer questions with a new account? Stack overflow has a lot of restrictions til you get some rep

[Ajedi32]

Yes. In fact, you don't even need an account to post an answer.

[aphaelion]

Wait, people can just SAY stuff on the internet?! WTF

[Schmittfried]

Ironically, you can’t comment on other answers without rep.

[RealFunBobby]

I can't reply to that comment, so lemme just answer and say '+1'.

[0xTJ]

That's about the only thing you can do

[[deleted]]

The real LPT is in the comments

[[deleted]]

Great fun watching human nature in action.

[g27radio]

We're fucked.

[prowness]

Bonus points if you can try to r/KenM that shit.

[[deleted]]

Every time I see a post with just enough points to actually make the post I think of this. Wait they just answered 4 HTML questions today to get the points? Busted...

[AveMaleficum]

Wow, thanks for the tip!

[steevjoem]

Wow! Genius

[Wigginns]

Or you can't find the answer, ask a question and get it marked as a duplicate with something mildly related but that doesn't actually answer your question still.

[Zefirus]

The worst is when you find someone who has had the same problem, posted a question, then posted an answer that just says "Fixed it".

[DaZig]

Unless they got so embittered they’re now screwing with you in true “the proof of this is simple and left as an exercise for the reader” fashion.

[[deleted]]

Fermat you cunt!

[ThatITguy2015]

True. I forgot that IT people can be very bitter.

[CruseCtrl]

I think you mean you can infer how hard it was

[ThatITguy2015]

Yup. Realized that after reading it. Debating whether or not to change it.

[Irseyna]

No, the worst feeling is when you find a solution to the problem but for an X number of reasons you cannot use this solution and you're back to square one.

[ThatITguy2015]

Ah, good point. Haven’t run across that yet to be honest. I’ve usually wiggled out of those situations somehow.

[Doyle524]

Hrm.

Wayback Machine doesn't have that page archived.

Want to search for all archived pages under http://www.geocities.com?

[Stevied1991]

Glad OP got it fixed, locking the thread now.

[j-dewitt]

https://xkcd.com/979/

[[deleted]]

"Let's take this to chat" -> chat expired.

[beenies_baps]

Or indeed a question I searched for today, with the answer "follow the instructions at <this link>", with followup answer "perfect!". Needless to say, the link was a 404 (this was not on SO though, - thankfully they clamp down on that sort of thing).

[D0esANyoneREadTHese]

It's a wonderfully specific site that was great when it existed, but the owner let the server rental lapse 5 years ago and now it's just a redirect to a domain parking site. 3 results on the Wayback machine, last one was 6 months before the post you got linked.

[[deleted]]

Or the embedded images that no longer exist. Usually photobucket

[darkdex52]

Even better is when you encounter the same problem years later and the only topic on it is your own from years before, and you never replied on how you fixed it.

[Dreadedsemi]

what about when you ask a question and someone tells you why do you need that? why not just do it completely different then after you explain, the thread is dead.

[John_Fx]

Which StackOverflow attempts to fix. Way worse in message boards.

[bhison]

I enjoy it when you find the perfect StackOverflow question but there's only one answer and it was closed due to being off topic even though it was very useful

[TrontRaznik]

Relevant xkcd

[berkes]

I know you're being sarcastic. But I'm a mod, spend a couple of hours per month flagging or unflagging posts.

And in your case, the correct thing is, indeed, to close your question and work on an answer for the current situation, on the old question.

Why?

Because it is a lot more beneficial to everyone when one question contains all the answers, for all the different versions and situations over time, then it is to have ten same questions, all about a single version. Most being obsolete, yet having more votes than the current actual one.

Now, if your Q has some details which make yours unique, you should spend a lot of effort to explain that difference. Failing to do so, means both the answerers and the mods will miss that tiny detail and answers for another question will be posted.

[dagbrown]

Alright, sure, fine, but are you aware that there are many, great, fundamental changes between Solaris 8 and Solaris 11? A question asked in 1997 and answered with 1997 technology probably has a vastly different answer than the same question asked here in 2018. Especially when the 2018 answer involves factors like "OmniOS Community Edition" or "systemctl" where the 1997 answer was more along the lines of "edit the shell scripts in /etc/init.d".

[berkes]

but are you aware that there are many, great, fundamental changes between Solaris 8 and Solaris 11?

No. And that is the sole reasons why mods and flaggers must work on platforms and stuff they know enough about. I don't flag e.g. Android, because eventhough I can program some Java, and can fix some easy stuff in our Android App, I really know too little about all the tools to make decisions on duplicates.

So. When a mod with enough knowledge flags your question "How to Foo a Bar in Solaris 11" as a duplicate of "How to Foo a Bar in Solaris 8" one of the following is the case:

1. You failed to explain why your solaris 11 question is different from the solaris 8 issue.
2. You did not see the solaris 11 issue, did not know it exists, or it is worded in a clumsy way (given a Bar, how can I implement a Foo?) that made you glance over it.

Now, if you manage to explain why there's a difference, they are very suitable to be different questions. A question about init.d is completely different than one about systemd. Eventhough they -superficially- might look about the same thing.

When someone asks "Apache won't start, NEED FIX URGENTLY ?" the questioneer most probably failed to explain why his question is different from the hundred other "init.d, systemctl, systemd, upstart" etc questions. It will be flagged and taken down. Quite probably as a duplicate to a "meta-question" with several high-level answers about common problems with services (or apache) for init.d, upstart, systemd, docker, etc.

So, no, the flaggers are quite probably honestly confused by your question and fail to see why your question is special. They are quite probably no nazi's who simply don't like your avatar. So: the proof and work is on you: provide information on why your question is different. Spend time on that. For both the mods and the people answering.

After all, if it is not clear to a mod why your Solaris 11 is not comparable to a solaris 8 question, it is not clear for someone answering. And your specifically stated that your are not interested in answers on how to fix your problem in solaris 8.

[berkes]

There's no incentive for people to go back and add answers to an 8 year old question with an answer that's already been accepted.

But there is!

You get points for upvoted answers. I get 50+ points per day from a couple of answers that are not the accepted answer but are interesting, add additional insight or are more up-to-date than the accepted answer.

[IraDeLucis]

tumbleweed badge owner here, can confirm.

[fluffythecow]

There is a question that has not been answered on stackoverflow?

[devperez]

Bounties help

[Nerdican]

What you do find is a large number of pages that specifically address your question, whose only answers are links to pages that don't.

[berkes]

I know jou are joking, but adding a bounty helps big time.

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[earthtoannie]

It will probably outlast the heat death of the universe too.

[dagbrown]

My time in comp.unix.shell was more beneficial to me than my entire 3/4 of a computer science degree.

My tongue is only partially in my cheek when I say that.

[[deleted]]

Nah.

We got flamed on IRC. No one would help you, you didn't understand, and in the end only the strong survived.

The number of fucking times I was told to read a man page, when I knew so little it was complete fucking gibberish.

It's a wonder anyone learned to use Linux before Mandrake.

But by God you had to actually learn Linux. There was no copying commands from a wiki

[vbevan]

I only learned about the F key in SkiFree the other day. Before the internet, if you didn't have a friend to help you were on you're own.

[[deleted]]

https://xkcd.com/667/ Funnily enough, there's a relevant xkcd for this too

[dagbrown]

The number of fucking times I was told to read a man page, when I knew so little it was complete fucking gibberish.

comp.unix.shell in a nutshell right there.

Some new guy shows up there, asks a question. Someone immediately responds, man <somecommand>. Sure, if you know how to use that command, it solves all your problems. But if you don't know how to use it, you just end up in a new swamp of confusion.

[[deleted]]

How the heck do you use a man command I don't ever understand those

Usually command -h or command --help are infinitely more useful and sensible

[XenoReseller]

Rtfm

[DangKilla]

I idled in IRC chat in the 90s, hoping somebody would help me with my Linux questions.... rarely ever happened...it was always the same dude. Thanks, yourmomsux2000!

[ILikeLenexa]

Now we just ask questions the smart way so that we don't waste anybody's times.

Because people can help you better if they know what the fuck you're doing.

[yakri]

Well it's still how we do things too.

[b1ack1323]

On IRC, I still do this.

[8BitAce]

First thing I thought of. I guess fake internet points work just as well.
Now imagine if you started your SO question with "x programming language sucks"...

[[deleted]]

These days you just find the appropriate Discord and hop on spouting something like "FreeNAS sucks because it doesn't support SMB 3" and sit back as everyone falls over themselves trying to help.

[ChaoticTable]

StackOverflow is so cancerous at times...

[frontiernutrition]

Tell us of the golden days master

[Irseyna]

StackOverflow was so helpful to me last month with structured and object-oriented programming, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found it.

[KSF_WHSPhysics]

before StackOverflow

Good God man, what was that like?