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Category: Best Newbie Helper
Is it some guy on IRC? Maybe some guy who answers the easy questions on a website somewhere. Regardless, being a newbie helper is a tough task. Lord knows I don't have the patience to do it, but someone does. Who is it? Nominate them!
andrsn@stanford.edu
She helps many, many people in #freebsd on irc , how-to's, newbie help scripts, and mailing lists. She has also been doing this for a couple of years.
Jason from Linuxnewbie.org...it's a great site, and it's helped lots of newbies. He's sensei@linuxnewbie.org
Juiced? Or Not?
Yes, excellent idea. Matt wrote "Linux Installation and Getting Started", the text file (remember them?!) that became "Running Linux", back in 1992, I think it was (my copy is 2.2.2, dated Feb '95, and the copyright notice says 1992--1994). I can remember getting a lot of help from it when I started using Linux. It remains the best single introduction for the newbie.
I sincerely hope that the "Best Newbie Helper" award doesn't go to some website maintainer - as nice as some "Linux Newbie" websites are, they don't hold a candle to the tireless people who work "in the trenches", as it were.
It's the ready availability of newsgroup help that made Mindcraft's "we didn't find anyone to help us tune Linux" lies so blatant and offensive. It's that newsgroup help that makes Linux a bearable transition for people who can't scale the learning curve by themselves. It's that helpful attitude that gives the Linux community the glowing reputation for support it has.
The only non-newsgroup candidate I'd vote for here is Matt Welsh, for obvious reasons. But the LDP is only really helpful once you're comfortable enough with Linux to make use of that detailed information, and only if your question is a FAQ. For all the obscure, unanticipated, or just ultra-newbie questions out there, everybody turns to DejaNews. I'd like to see this award split between, say, the 5 or 10 most prolific posters to comp.os.linux.setup (the most spiritually-draining, most often needed, and most newbie-heavy place to be helpful).
I haven't frequented the group in a while, but years ago (so I'm not eligible; my tirelessness faded into tiredness before 1999 ever rolled around) I and a relative handful of others posted literally thousands of messages (which shocked the hell out of me the first time I searched for "roystgnr" on Deja) over the years that made the difference for people who got Linux running.
Not all newbies stay newbies, either. My last CIVI homework this fall was completed with the indispensible aid of SLFFEA, a program whose author was kind enough to name me and a few other C.O.L.S. folk in the credits. Makes me feel kind of guilty for leaving, now...
has helped a lot of newbies in his time, and never did use the extra large lart stick TOO often...
I second that nomination.
Lilo is an incredble person. No other person on OPN could match him. He made a network which a lot of people call home and a lot of projects call home. (offical #debian, #linpeople and the new kids from linux.com).
Thank you Lilo.
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'tough-love'??
Or, patronising, impolite, arrogant rubbish, depending on your take.
Yes, (s)he does put in the hours, and does answer lots of questions, but does so much to reinforce the arrogant smarter-than-thou unix person stereotype that I'd be loath to advocate him(her).
As others have said, Mike Stok any time..
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