[sf-lug] didn't try to solve ... (was: Re: SF-LUG meeting notes for Monday 18 March 2019)

[Michael Paoli]

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] didn't try to solve ... (was: Re: SF-LUG  
> meeting notes	for Monday 18 March 2019)
> Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2019 15:03:33 -0700

> Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu):
>
>> Well ... sometimes too, folks like to moan/groan/vent/complain, and ...
>> *aren't necessarily trying to solve*.  And, yes, that too
>> has (some) (limited) usefulness.
>
> [...]
>
> My view:  Doing just the same tire-kicking distro tourism over and over,
> and never even attempting to solve basic Linux 101 distro problems but
> instead just giving up _every time_, such that nobody ever learns
> anything technical, makes a mockery of the whole purpose of running a
> Linux user group and a tragic missed opportunity.  You disagree, OK.

Oh, I wouldn't exactly say I disagree.
Sure, some/limited/occasional I did/attempted (approximately) (semi-vague)
<blah> and it didn't work (for me) - and lacking most relevant details -
beyond knowing someone had some issues on <X> - with nothing particularly
detailed - is of some limited utility - a (statistical) data point.
But a whole lot 'o that, and/or to excess, and yes, probably tends to
be rather to quite suboptimal - at least for goals one would generally
presume for LUG and/or list thereof, e.g. useful reporting, including enough
detail for others to make forward progress from any reported/purported
bug/issue, folks learning about troubleshooting & how to, and the
(reported/purported) issue, and perhaps relevant specifics around it,
and/or (at least later/eventually) how to solve it, etc.
So sure, a little in the mix, yeah, but nothin' more than about
distro, version pass/fail, and insufficient detail to determine how
(non-)trivial the issue and/or how (non-?)trivial to "correct" it or
work around it ... not so useful.  Still sort'a interesting to see
person(s) first impressions/experiences ... but if it's only one,
rather than like a sample set of 20 or 100 or more users ... it's not
so nearly interesting/useful even to statistical significance.