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Vote:Best Newbie Helper
We were all a newbie once, and each day there are more of them then there were the day before. These are the guys that are doing the most to turn the newbies into competent Linux users. They answer questions on IRC. They write documentation. And they are as important for the future of Linux as the hackers who write the code. The nominees in
this category are Sensei, Matt Welsh, Havoc Pennington, and Tom
Christiansen. You know what to do.
He's been doing the "answwer guy" column for like, years now. I've seen him on lots of newsgroups and mailing lists too. Seems like I get his stuff popping up all over the place every time I do a search in Yahoo! or Google.
Pardon my french.. Who the fuck is Sensei? And what the hell has Matt Welsh really contributed since the early days of Linux? What is the criteria really for selecting candidates? Can i nominate myself (Anonymous Coward)?
I thought this award was for the best newbie helper. andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu (aka xanne in #freebsd/efnet) has to be, by far, the best helper around. But she was alieniated.. know why? Because she primarily helps FreeBSD users. So instead of being so Linux-centric, you could open up and display an open door for FreeBSD (notice how slashdot's graphics server is run off of FreeBSD and doesn't go down nearly as often as slashdot.org itself which is run off of linux)
bugg
I find this post really amusing. I really don't understand the "what have you done for me lately" attitude you are espousing here. Matt Welsh has done a lot for newbies. His book Running Linux is still one of the best for people new to linux, and I still see people who want to learn it buy that book first. When I hear people recommend books, that's the one. His contribution to the linux community deserves to be recognized.
And then, after this little tirade, you suggest you be nominated? What have /you/ done? Besides make worthless comments on slashdot? If you wanted someone else nominated, you should've done it during the nomination phase. You were given your opportunity to have your say. If you didn't do it, we don't want to hear about it.
Not trying to say FreeBSD is worth no more than jittery rodents for serving: I'm just saying this isn't really the "high stress" example you made it out to be. :)
I think the single most important resource of Linux must be the Linux Documentation Project and the myriad of HOWTO's available. (Personally , the PPP-HOWTO needs severe updating , and needs to be supplemented with a Modem-HOWTO, but this is a side issue ...)
I use the LDP almost daily, in helping others use Linux. I often refer others to it - through experience, if it takes me 6 hours to figure something out, it would have taken 30 minutes if I'd just been bothered to read the HOWTO.
Thank you Matt, you're a star.
.my 2p
I nominated Havoc. He is always around on IRC to answer my dumb questions. If it weren't for Havoc, I'm sure much of GNOME would not exist or be in a much worse state due to his value to newbie GTK/Gnome hackers.
Hi, I'm Sensei. I started and run the website Linuxnewbie.org.
:)
We help newbies and help everyone use and get better with Linux. We create a positive cycle of learning where the community helps itself.
Call it a LUG, a think tank, a watering hole, whatever.
I just wanted to give some background on who the fsck Sensei is.
http://www.icalledit.com - Predicting the future, one post at a time
Well, I:
Okay, so a lot of my contributions might be "ancient history", but I would only hope that they were instrumental in making Linux as popular as it is today. Helping newbies was my top priority for longer than I can remember. Maybe that deserves a vote.
Cheers,
Matt Welsh
I'm voting Sensei myself. He seems to cover a lot more ground at LinuxNewbie, a site I first visited today. That site seems to better cover the lone newbie wanting information on anything rather than just one thing. Welsh comes a close second.