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I have a question about my Ask Ubuntu post: ubuntu 22.04 app black screen and laggy

To start, this was my first answer on this site although I’ve used for years. I’ve posted answers on many sites for decades, and I try to help. I’ve been into tech for 40 years, I’ve earned my way many times the hard way.

So, I recently installed 22.04 and came across this thread. Issues similar to what I’ve found and some I’ve resolved or found work arounds. I signed up for an account and provided my work around and links as well. Now I see my answer has been deleted, why? The moderator indicated I asked a question didn’t provide an answer???

I do not recall any questions marks in my answer. I provided legitimate assistance to those in need. I’ve used Ubuntu and other Linux/BSD distros personally and professionally since the 90s. Mostly extremely custom and I can get deep into the weeds.

Want to block my attempt to assist your community, I could care less. A bit of advice, teach your moderators how to moderate. If your moderator wanted to reach out personally and give me feedback, that is acceptable. Meanwhile it took me a couple hours to install 22.04.1 (yes evidently a prerelease???) and go from barely functional to stable. I’ve see several threads on issues. Appears 22.04 has a few bumps. I’ve not seen a release this glitchy for some time.

I am off in the weeds again. Will probably block my feedback/answer/question again because I didn’t know the magic word or something.

Done here.

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    The Mod comment was: I can appreciate that you have put a great deal of effort into this post, however on a question and answer site such as Ask Ubuntu the place where your comments have appeared is reserved for answers only... This is my comment and I deleted the answer after placing this comment as I believed that your answer did not directly answer the question (Not An Answer) and was also far too long to convert to a comment. My apologies for upsetting you, that was never my intent, but I still believe it was a fair call. But the joy of Meta is that now the Community can comment....
    – andrew.46 Mod
    Jul 20, 2022 at 4:12
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    So everybody can easily see the post and comments I have at temporarily undeleted the post and placed a 24 hour lock (askubuntu.com/help/locked-posts) while discussion takes place...
    – andrew.46 Mod
    Jul 20, 2022 at 4:31
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    @William Also just a heads-up that downvotes here on Meta have a (mostly) different meaning than they do on the main site. Here, they don't mean that the question isn't useful (we're always willing to reasonably discuss the why behind things that happen, and sometimes they are changed), just that the users that downvoted disagree with you, which means they likely feel that the deletion was correct. Jul 21, 2022 at 14:13
  • Another small point concerning this: ' If your moderator wanted to reach out personally and give me feedback, that is acceptable. ' So a moderator, either a 'Community' moderator or an elected moderator would not normally do that but there is an option for discussion on Chat. A starting point would either be: 1. chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/3877/raiders-of-the-lost-downboat or 2. chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/201/ask-ubuntu-general-room . These rooms can be a little quiet but community members can be found there and mods as well. Always up for friendly discussion.
    – andrew.46 Mod
    Jul 22, 2022 at 6:32
  • Who makes the rules and why should a new member to deleted without any feedback? Claiming inaccurately that this was a question not an answer? I’ve written thousands of answers on many topics over a quarter century on countless discussion boards. I’ve used Ubuntu as my primary workstation since releases were in the single digits. Jul 22, 2022 at 22:44
  • tips provided are ok but I was addressing a specific issue. My goal is to be a mentor, and as such is bam not going to spoon feed you. I present resources in hopes that you will gain a greater understanding of the topic. What I provided, I’ve done similar thousands of times. I go back to local BBS and Gopher server (pre WWW) days. Surely this was something to designate this as a first post by a new member. Jul 22, 2022 at 22:53
  • What kind of community is this that antagonizes by blocking their first post. As a very long time member of the Ubuntu community, I find this short sighted and defeatist behavior towards those willing to volunteer in the community disrespectful. Jul 22, 2022 at 22:53
  • Back to the guidelines, I signed up for an account and posted. What guidelines. Plus my answer was called a question by the moderator, huh? Since the responses here indicated I violated multiple policies, in my single answer, appears your policies need work. Either that or actively actively discouraging new members. I’ve spent years trying to encourage many to try Linux over windows and macs. Some of the complaints I’ve heard about why not have shown up in your responses. I’ve seen numerous complaints for 22.04. I found work around for many in a few hours. Sharing against the policy. SMH Jul 22, 2022 at 23:03
  • Oh and I don’t need a grammar lesson. Stop being insulting. Jul 22, 2022 at 23:07
  • And you are done. Comments are locked on this thread due to excessive arguments and unnecessary rudeness towards the userbase by the OP. And the unnecessary ranting in comments as well indicates that comments have outserved their usefulness.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jul 24, 2022 at 17:45
  • @WilliamRichter When you sign up it explicitly says to refer to the Help Center for guidance on posting. It even says this on the "Ask a Question" screen or the "Post an Answer" screen before your answer is written. It explicitly says that an answer must be an answer, and if you've been reading the site for as long as you claim you'll have learned that 'link only' answers or answers that don't actually give any context or solutions themselves are deleted.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Jul 24, 2022 at 17:46

2 Answers 2

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I’ve posted answers on many sites for decades

In all fairness, Stack Exchange sites (of which Ask Ubuntu is one) are not like other sites. If you've been participating in online communities for that long, I'm sure you can agree that it's best to follow the guidelines of each community you participate in.

this was my first answer on this site although I’ve used [it] for years

If you've been reading here for years, then please consider that you've already benefited greatly from these very guidelines that make the site what it is!

The moderator indicated I asked a question didn’t provide an answer

Well no, the Mod indicated that you had a comment rather than an answer. And while you may believe you provided an "answer", you really didn't according to the guidelines of the site.

It's important to realize that Ask Ubuntu is not a "discussion site" or forum. It's a question-and-answer site, with a specific set of guidelines in place to help it succeed in that purpose.

In light of the community guidelines, your answer reminds me of a quote from Isaac Asimov's Foundation:

“The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - he found he had nothing left. Everything cancelled out.

Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed.”

Not that your post is "vague gibberish", but doing an "analysis" against it, there's mainly:

  • "I ... am experiencing a general sluggishness as well."


    This makes it sound like you are currently having the same problem, rather than having solved it (even partially) and providing an answer. Substituting the word "am" with "was" would help set the stage for an answer.

  • "Horrible keyboard / can't enter a password / Video still lags / Likely not the root cause of the sluggishness / if I can't get it stable I can always reinstall 20.04 / many of the UI utils appear to be not quite there yet / still appears rather rough / so yeah, bleeding edge"


    Perhaps this isn't "vague gibberish", but it definitely doesn't help to provide an understanding the issue or the solution. Honestly, it just comes across as "ranting". It's absolutely okay to point out that there are quality issues, but that shouldn't take up 80% of your post.

    In general, Stack Exchange sites have an "anti-fluff" policy. The answer should focus on the solution, rather than recapping your problems.

  • "I made a few tweaks and this helped but still slow."


    But you don't list any tweaks that you made in that section, and based on the "still slow", we assume you're still having the issue. If the tweaks helped, though, then it would be better to include them in the answer.

  • "I was able to expand, which helped but not a lot."


    But there doesn't seem to be any indication in the original question that the OP ran out of space. As such, this is extraneous information that isn't useful to answering the question; just describing one of your issues and how you resolved it.

  • "I did find one article that mentioned changing the disk cache to a memory cache. I did this and helped a lot."


    That's great, but please understand that linking to a website is still considered "Not an Answer" here unless you also include at least a summary of the steps necessary to fix it. See the Why and how are some answers deleted? Help:

    barely more than a link to an external site (i.e. the actual answer is not included in the post)

So as with Asimov's semantic analysis, once we cancel out the "fluff" and rants, we're left with a link only answer, which also gets cancelled out.

Done here.

Perhaps so, although I hope not. You say that you've been a reader here for years, so again, these guidelines that you ran afoul of have worked to create a site that you've enjoyed from the other end. Hopefully, you can work within these guidelines in answering questions in the future.

As @ArturMeinild said, your post could certainly be edited into a reasonable answer that might help some readers make progress on related issues, if you have the desire to do so.

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  • Yes, I do agree. It doesn't really matter much on how long you have used the platform. everyone makes mistakes.
    – Rishon_JR
    Jan 1, 2023 at 14:35
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If you would like your answer to be accepted, I suggest that you shorten it down, and focus entirely on what you did that helped the situation.

You mention that "I did find one article that mentioned changing the disk cache to a memory cache. I did this and helped a lot." So in my opinion, your answer should focus solely on that.

But you don't mention any details on how to do this, so your answer actually doesn't help anyone yet (except that an article exist about how to do something). But if you provide the exact details on how to change from disk cache to memory cache, then it might be of help to other users.

So I would suggest you do a 2 line intro about your situation, and then focus on the actual solution, and cut the rest. Then the answer would be perfectly acceptable. The question itself could still be closed for being unclear, but that's another matter.

I hope you can follow my rationale here - nobody on this site (including mods) does anything to censor or block people from giving answers - it is done solely to maintain the quality of the site content, according to the Answer guidelines.

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