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The 2000 Beanies

Category: Best Newbie Helper 58

Posted by CmdrTaco from the help-me-help-me dept.
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!
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Category:Best Newbie Helper More

Category:Best Newbie Helper

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  • Glynn Clements! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is a guy on a bunch of Linux mailing list (Admin, C programming, etc etc) that helps out users alot.

    Glynn Clements

  • 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
  • Cause frankly, I don't care who is helping the current crop of lazy newbies. Matt Walsh worked on the LDP and wrote running linux. And despite the current condition of the LDP those are still two great sources of information for people new to linux that have a clue and are willing to do the work to learn linux.
  • I agree entirely, and not just cause I mentioned this thought to you in the first place. ;P

    So like Mark said, I don't have much use for the current newbies that want it all handed to them, but Matt established some time ago some great documentation where it was greatly needed, and this work is still the base for some of the best docs out there for those that will help themselves.

  • Rick Moen is by far the most prolific persona on mailing lists I've ever seen. He manages to convey the necessary mindset as well as the answers to the newbies' questions.

    For example, when newbies ask why $HARDWARE_MANUFACTURER hasn't put out a driver for Linux, Rick patiently explains that any proprietary driver they'd put out would be useless, what we want is for the Linux community to put out a driver for $HARDWARE based on information given to them by $HARDWARE_MANUFACTURER.

    It's amazing how he manages to do this without losing the limited attention span of the average newbie.
    --
    I noticed

  • Next year, (Score:1)

    by magg ( 42 )
    I think i'd nominate one of the web sites that help linux newbies... but i don't think it's time for that now.

    I don't know who to promote...
    Mvh
    --
    Magnus
  • 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.
  • An extremely invaluable tool...
  • 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...
  • -snicker-

    Well, since I didn't expect you to /post/ about this someone had to put the thoughts we were discussing up here. ;-)
  • has helped a lot of newbies in his time, and never did use the extra large lart stick TOO often...
  • I would like to nominate the great ops in #linuxwarez af EFnet fame. These folks are always friendly and helpful. Amongst the helpfull hints and tips they throw your way, the also have one hell of an info bot: Amok. Just join the channel and "/msg amok ?? keyword" to find out about something. Yes, I know quite a few of you will be taken aback by the channel's title. Yes, SOME trading goes on in the background, but hey, such is the info highway. Otherwise, the channel is not a "warez" channel persay but a linux software discussion channel. My $.02
    Nathan R. Ben-Attar
    "First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"

  • First of all, I would like to say that you have to wait 3 minutes to get a voice. I think that this is a very good solution to the common problem where people come into the channel and start flooding or making general nuisances of themselves. The average trouble-maker isn't likely to come into a channel and wait 3 minutes in order to flood.

    Secondly, I would like to say that the people in DALnet #linux are in fact very knowledgeable; you have to understand that it is very difficult to immediately respond entirely accurately to a question in a channel with 60+ users. Most questions require follow-up questions to be entirely accurate and many people are too impatient to wait 10 seconds for an answer.

    If, in fact, you answered follow-up questions duly and thoroughly and still did not recieve a qualified answer, you cannot blame people for having trouble answering a question that you yourself cannot answer. You give no indication of where you did get an answer to you question, nor did you even provide the question that you asked in #linux.

    Lastly, I would like to say that you cannot categorically place everyone in #linux in the doghouse. This is especially true because it is not as though everyone that ever visits #linux is in there every day fully alert answering questions 24 hours a day. I would like to ask, however, who do you nominate as the best newbie helper?

    Chris Hagar

  • Sensei's working hard with Linuxnewbie.org to teach us newibes to ropes. He should get this award. That's sensei@linuxnewbie.org

    - JoJo
  • Havoc Pennington (hp@redhat.com) Daniel Veillard (daniel.veillard@w3.org)
  • This guy hangs around on unix and *bsd newsgroups and posts a lot of answers to people's questions, newbies and pros. He is also working on a FreeBSD documnetation project. Just make a simple www.deja.com search to see. This comment is not biased in any way (I am a Debian zealot myself :p)

  • purl (Score:1)

    by pudge ( 3605 )
    The infobot (and oz, her master) on EFnet's #perl channel. She rules all, contains a crapload of information, is very helpful, and plays games.
  • The man you want is Rob Rosenberger. I get crappy "VIRUS WARNING" forwards and such... pointing people to his site has made my life much, much easier.

    His site. [kumite.com]

  • I have been using linux only three months and so am still in many ways a newbie. A friend first installed Mandrake on my computer and I think that all he taught me was how to use ls and ./

    Linuxnewbie.org was incredibly helpfull and far more friendly than the man pages. A couple times I read man pages for about 658.4 hours before I did a search on LNO and found some one had had the exact same question as I and posted a solution.

    --
    I just had to pause and think about the fun hours I spend as a newbie typing ./licq.tar.gz and cusssing at my computer, linux, unix, and the world in general.
    For help on untarring files go to: http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000444. html

    Thanks Sensei. :)
  • I'm nominating Eli Zaretskii, member of the DJGPP project and amazingly prolific newbie helper. See comp.os.msdos.djgpp sometime for an example. Because of the nature of DJGPP (a port of GCC and much more to DOS/Windows), its newbies are often very very newbie-ish (often seen: "I downloaded the compiler but I don't know how to enter my source code!"). Eli manages to answer an astounding quantity of all sorts of questions with superhuman patience. I can't think of anyone more deserving.
  • How about a big _UN_nomination for *NET #linux*. In my experience, just about every network that has a channel starting in #linux is filled with sarcastic elistest jerks who do more to convince people to keep using Windows than any sort of help. Its a shame really, since its (imho) the most obvious place to look. The only exception I can think of offhand is #linuxhelp on openprojects.net (It seems most people on OPN are pretty friendly)
  • I agree. His site is one of the best around for people just getting started with Linux. Also the NHF's (Newbieized Help Files) are really good too.

    ShadoWolf
    "It should be first patch, not first post" -Alan Cox
  • Those who use a Mac and DALnet simultaneously know.
  • 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.
    --
  • Yeah, Sensei for sure. www.linuxnewbie.org is a great site for anyone looking for info on how to do something using Linux. And the people @ the UBB will answer any questions you have. Go Sensei!
  • I'm nominating Sven Guckes of Vim and mutt fame. He's funny (especially for a Sprocket :-)), kind, straightforward, enthusiastic, willing to write documentation, and endlessly patient with newbies. How many OSS project leaders would invite users to "write a book about Vim *together*"? That's just plain endearing!

    Plus, he writes better English than most Americans and copes with hundreds of e-mails a day from some piddly German university dialup account which prevents him from getting mail while travelling. No diss to some better-known nominees, but those who now have full-time jobs in the Open Source movement are not what it's all about -- I'd prefer to reward people like Sven who aren't raking in anything but goodwill for their efforts.

  • Oh, plus the projects he works on are among the first that people need to learn on *nix systems -- so his newbies are newbies indeed.
  • My vote to Frank Damgaard: frank@sslug.dk

    Lots of Danish Linux ppl have trouble getting a dial up connection going due to clueless ISP's.

    What is *nix without a network? So the MAIN hurdle in Denmark (and any other contry with huge phone fees?) is the dial up connection.

    _Many_ polite and informative answers came and comes from Frank.

    Also, this could serve to honor a very large local Linux user group sslug (see www.sslug.dk)
  • He gets my vote too. He's the man with a vision of how to help, putting in countless hours to make his site the premier Linux help site on the internet.
  • Great nomination. But calm down on newbie-bashing. Not everyone absorbs information as a lone activity (I do, but that's beside the point).

    Running Linux is fantastic.

    --Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
  • If we're talking the best help for newbies then Sensei/LNO is it....
  • Sensei manages to to make the newbies feel completely welcome while keeping LNO interesting enough for the experts to hang around and help. The gap between the most clueless newbie and the LNO demigods is huge, but never causes a problem. LNO is a tremendous asset, and Sensei makes it happen.
  • When I got my first IBM PC and a 300 baud modem, Kermit was there to help me transfer my dissertation from the university mainframe to home where I could edit it with WordStar. 18 years later, Kermit is still under active development at Columbia University [columbia.edu].

    For years, Kermit Project leaders Frank da Cruz and Jeffrey Altman have tirelessly answered questions from users on comp.protocols.kermit.misc [kermit.misc], for free, just about every day. They sure as heck deserve some kind of award.

  • '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..
  • Tom Christiansen may have written useful documentation, but he is a complete and utter asshole, and proves it online time and time again.

    Think he's helpful to newbies? Go on IRC and ask him a newbie Perl question. See how fast you get kick/banned.

  • chalk up my vote for Sensei also. i was refered to his site when i first got into linux, (not that long ago) and i went from asking the questions to answering them and writing help files thanx to Sensei. He's also in his irc channel #linuxnewbie on dalnet all the time and if he isnt there to answer your questions personlly, his loyal 'footmen' (i love that term) are.

  • I would just say that you should avoid dalnet alltogether and go to the efnet distribution-specific channels. No matter where you go on IRC you're probably going to get a holier-than-thou attitude, because those who are disposed to helping people have to deal with a lot of questions which could be solved by simple RTFM or five seconds of thought.

    On the other hand, good questions are almost rewarded.
    --

  • It just has to be, Running Linux is THE book to learn about Linux, he deserves it.
  • ive only been using the site for a couple weeks and i have learned alot and help out a couple people myself. sensei should win for all his hard work

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