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Zanna Mod
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Note: in your question, you say that "[users] vehemently oppose mentions of other distros". I have taken that wording to be disingenuous, and answered as if you meant that users oppose leaving open questions in which the OP states that they are using another distro, because I think that is what you meant (and I am one of those users), and because merely mentioning another distro has never been an acceptable reason to close, though it certainly does trigger incorrect close voting at times.

Note: in your question, you say that "[users] vehemently oppose mentions of other distros". I have taken that wording to be disingenuous, and answered as if you meant that users oppose leaving open questions in which the OP states that they are using another distro, because I think that is what you meant (and I am one of those users), and because merely mentioning another distro has never been an acceptable reason to close, though it certainly does trigger incorrect close voting at times. Note regarding Fear #2: Only high rep users can do this
If that were true, it would not be worrying. If you are proposing (which was not clear to me) that people should edit distro information out of posts on the basis of whether or not they think the question is distro-agnostic, an action I consider to be wrong, then obviously the fact that literally anyone can suggest an edit to any unlocked post is what makes it disturbing that such an action is being advocated. In chat, I said

[L]etting things slide where there's a preexisting answer to save, ok, maybe I can live with it. But people with diamonds like @Seth and @terdon publically saying things like "yeah you can edit out the distro information if you know it's a distro-agnostic issue"... this is virtually policy-making. A bunch of high rep users might just take it upon themselves to go around doing that. And telling other users what they are doing, inevitably, and everyone will copy them.

It's the "everyone will copy them" part, that really concerns me.

Personal note:

There are persistent fears within community, which often are on the verge of emotional investment rather than practical and professional view on the issue.

My investment in Ask Ubuntu is absolutely emotional and not professional. I care deeply about the site and nobody is paying me to contribute to it, though I do get a lot out of it in validation feels, friendly chats etc.

Note: in your question, you say that "[users] vehemently oppose mentions of other distros". I have taken that wording to be disingenuous, and answered as if you meant that users oppose leaving open questions in which the OP states that they are using another distro, because I think that is what you meant (and I am one of those users), and because merely mentioning another distro has never been an acceptable reason to close, though it certainly does trigger incorrect close voting at times.


Note: in your question, you say that "[users] vehemently oppose mentions of other distros". I have taken that wording to be disingenuous, and answered as if you meant that users oppose leaving open questions in which the OP states that they are using another distro, because I think that is what you meant (and I am one of those users), and because merely mentioning another distro has never been an acceptable reason to close, though it certainly does trigger incorrect close voting at times.

Note regarding Fear #2: Only high rep users can do this
If that were true, it would not be worrying. If you are proposing (which was not clear to me) that people should edit distro information out of posts on the basis of whether or not they think the question is distro-agnostic, an action I consider to be wrong, then obviously the fact that literally anyone can suggest an edit to any unlocked post is what makes it disturbing that such an action is being advocated. In chat, I said

[L]etting things slide where there's a preexisting answer to save, ok, maybe I can live with it. But people with diamonds like @Seth and @terdon publically saying things like "yeah you can edit out the distro information if you know it's a distro-agnostic issue"... this is virtually policy-making. A bunch of high rep users might just take it upon themselves to go around doing that. And telling other users what they are doing, inevitably, and everyone will copy them.

It's the "everyone will copy them" part, that really concerns me.

Personal note:

There are persistent fears within community, which often are on the verge of emotional investment rather than practical and professional view on the issue.

My investment in Ask Ubuntu is absolutely emotional and not professional. I care deeply about the site and nobody is paying me to contribute to it, though I do get a lot out of it in validation feels, friendly chats etc.

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Zanna Mod
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  • Answers wouldPartly due to the above, mistakes would be made, and answers would be posted that are not applicable to Ubuntu (in fact, they already are, but usually only on much-viewed questions with many other answers), because someof people will do anythingtrying hard to get green ticks, or give "good service", or whatever else floats their boat. For realaccepts.
  • Scope would be oriented around Ubuntu-specificity. At the moment, Ubuntu-specificity has very little to do with our scope. There are borderlines where it comes into play, such as the programming one I mentioned above, but, as has been mentioned in other posts, when something is the same as Ubuntu but on a different distro, we still close it, and when something is the same as on a different distro but on Ubuntu, we still leave it open. We only need to know if the OP is using Ubuntu. We have hardly ever cared whether the issue is specific to Ubuntu, until your proposal. I don't know how people's understanding of the site's scope would change over time with this reorientation, but I think it will be harder to understand and less consistently applied by all concerned: community and visitors.
  • Answers would be posted that are not applicable to Ubuntu (in fact, they already are, but usually only on much-viewed questions with many other answers), because some people will do anything to get green ticks, or give "good service", or whatever else floats their boat. For real.
  • Scope would be oriented around Ubuntu-specificity. At the moment, Ubuntu-specificity has very little to do with our scope. There are borderlines where it comes into play, such as the programming one I mentioned above, but, as has been mentioned in other posts, when something is the same as Ubuntu but on a different distro, we still close it, and when something is the same as on a different distro but on Ubuntu, we still leave it open. We only need to know if the OP is using Ubuntu. We have hardly ever cared whether the issue is specific to Ubuntu, until your proposal. I don't know how people's understanding of the site's scope would change over time with this reorientation, but I think it will be harder to understand and less consistently applied by all concerned: community and visitors.
  • Partly due to the above, mistakes would be made, and answers would be posted that are not applicable to Ubuntu (in fact, they already are, but usually only on much-viewed questions with many other answers), because of people trying hard to get accepts.
  • Scope would be oriented around Ubuntu-specificity. At the moment, Ubuntu-specificity has very little to do with our scope. There are borderlines where it comes into play, such as the programming one I mentioned above, but, as has been mentioned in other posts, when something is the same as Ubuntu but on a different distro, we still close it, and when something is the same as on a different distro but on Ubuntu, we still leave it open. We only need to know if the OP is using Ubuntu. We have hardly ever cared whether the issue is specific to Ubuntu, until your proposal. I don't know how people's understanding of the site's scope would change over time with this reorientation, but I think it will be harder to understand and less consistently applied by all concerned: community and visitors.
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Zanna Mod
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As a prolific reviewer, I could not agree more, and I beg you not to push this on me. You propose the use of search engines, but as I have mentioned elsewhere the differences between Linux distros are not documented comprehensively or accessibly anywhere.

As a prolific reviewer, I could not agree more, and I beg you not to push this on me.

As a prolific reviewer, I could not agree more, and I beg you not to push this on me. You propose the use of search engines, but as I have mentioned elsewhere the differences between Linux distros are not documented comprehensively or accessibly anywhere.

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Zanna Mod
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