Is Ask Ubuntu an Ubuntu Q&A site for everyone?

Question

Some Bee in Bonnet stuff

Firstly I would like to define which kind of Ubuntu user I am; (which could be described as an unqualified; unprofessional or amateur user), a home user and am attempting to describe and define my concerns regarding a new user intending to use Ask Ubuntu in order to enable the better and fuller use of Ubuntu. Bearing in mind the Ubuntu philosophy that Ubuntu is for everyone it appears due to elitism Ask Ubuntu is not for everyone. Which could be read to be more than contradictory when being associated with Ubuntu! It could appear that the ethos here is "If your question has not been asked it probably is not worth asking. Feel free to have a look around though".

The way I see it as Ubuntu is being used I am asking in the right place as after looking at other similar questions they do not provide a working answer.

Some reasons how the Bee got there

My original question in the main Ask Ubuntu site has been edited and updated whenever possible to indicate there has been effort and time put in by myself to try and resolve the question as this is encouraged in FAQ. FAQ also explains a question gets moved to community wiki after too many edits.
I have spent much time in FAQ, probably more than most new users yet still have not earned the badge associated with reading FAQ in main Q&A site.

Another section in FAQ explains the importance of tagging in order to help bring the question to peoples attention who are interested in that tag.

What this is really about

With regard to my main question which is How to EFI install Ubuntu? and looking at tags and tag synonyms I thought I would search for questions in meta before posting a question here asking about how a new user could get help with suggesting a new tag synonym "hybrid-bios" (which is not EFI,BIOS or EUFI) and found this question Tag synonym suggestions looking at this has more than added to my frustration of the complexity of this site and do hope this post is being constructive as intended.

What the point is

Referring to Tag synonym suggestions - So an other new user has put obvious time and effort into providing a way for other new users to suggest tag synonyms which qualified users could easily review and act accordingly to as how they see fit but somebody else has found reason for concern regarding the question. Which has led me to posting this and really do wonder "Is Ask Ubuntu an Ubuntu Q&A site for everyone?"

Answer 1

Sorry to hear you're having trouble with the site. I must admit I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what you're asking in this post, so I will try to answer each of your concerns as best I can, let me know if I've missed anything or need to further clarify something.

Welcome! We accept all Ubuntu Users and Developers of any degree of knowledge, from someone who hasn't even installed Ubuntu yet and is interested in doing so, to Mark Shuttleworth himself! I'm not sure why you would feel like we don't accept new questions on the site or that our ethos is such, but if you would elaborate where something made you feel like that (outside of what you currently outlined in your post) I'd be happy to address that as well! I'd like to think that there isn't much elitism in the Ask Ubuntu community (sadly, I'm sure it exists, as it does in most all communities. Though, for the most part I've seen far more sincere, compassionate, and helpful users compared to the very few 'elitist' personalities).

Your post in question, How to EFI install Ubuntu 12.10? is perfectly on-topic for Ask Ubuntu, needless to say you're in the right place. The question itself is a bit tricky to answer though (as I'm sure you've seen). EFI/uEFI/Hybrid-bios are all relatively new things and not a lot of users have their hands on hardware to experience the issue you've come across, let alone help you in general. This happens from time to time when newer things come out and the rest of the community hasn't quite caught up experience wise to help. When this happens the best way to remedy this is to keep the question constantly up to date when you try and attempt new things (which you've already done!) or try to call attention to the question using a Bounty (which jrg already did). Past that there isn't much more you can do, if you feel you're not getting adequate support you can try other Ubuntu Community Support venues in hopes that a different format might help better for your situation.

As for tagging, meta, and badges. So tagging is something that falls under privileges. You'll need a certain amount of privilege to be able to suggest tag synonyms (which can be found under the tag's info tab <- Unity for example). If you're not able to suggest a synonym you can just ask here on meta. Meta is a lot different, though the same platform, than the Main site. On meta we just use it for talking about the Main site itself. So the rules about what makes a question a far more lax. This is also where we discuss policy, rulings, and other administrative tasks for the site (like tag synonyms, best practices, organize efforts, etc). If you need something done on the site and you don't know how or have enough reputation you can ask here on Meta and a moderator (♦) or high reputation user can assist. As for your badge, make sure you expand both the FAQ and About page and read each section. Badges can sometimes lag by several minutes to a few hours so don't be too distraught if it doesn't pop up right away.

I'd like to thank you for your patience and feedback using the system. A lot of us have been on here for far too long and often forget out disorienting and different the Stack Exchange platform can be. I know the Stack Exchange team works hard to make sure the platform is as powerful as it can be without disowning new users to which the system is foreign to them. Hopefully this has cleared up a few of your concerns and if not let us know what else we can do to help!

Answer 2

I'm going to first mention something about the tagging part. It helps a lot when the question is correctly tagged, since many users focus more on specific problems. An example, if a question has the Nvidia tag or the Wine tag, it shows first on my list of questions I can answer. The same goes for any user that add a tag to their favorites.

This increases the likelihood that a user with more experience towards your question will give you an answer faster.

In relation to your question, the moment you install an OS on a computer that has EFI, it makes the UEFI tag usable (It applies to the question). Even if you have the option to disable EFI, it is still considered UEFI unless you disable EFI in BIOS and install all operating systems again with EFI disable (Which eliminates the need for the UEFI Tag). You would have to do it this way because installing an OS with EFI (enabled or disabled) and then changing the state o EFI will result in booting problems with the OS.

Now for the question about "Is Ask Ubuntu an Ubuntu Q&A site for everyone?"

If the user follows the rules in http://meta.askubuntu.com/faq and the question itself is:

• About Ubuntu, an app, functionality or connectivity related to it.
• The question has an answer. For example asking an Ubuntu question "How many users use Ubuntu" is a question inside the Ubuntu ecosystem but is not a valid question because is not very likely somebody will be able to answer it.

• The question should not need an answer that covers 100 pages to solve. There are several long answer here (I have some), but the difference between the following questions is big when trying to answer it:

  • What software can I use to download a torrent
  • What are all the functions a torrent client offers when trying to download a file

  The first one will be a short answer. The second one would need to explain all options a client has, from DHT to Ports, to upload and download. Both are valid Ubuntu related questions, but the second one is not specific and very broad.

The term "Q&A" tries to focus more on a question that receives an specific answer. Either by the question having an specific objective or the question explains with enough detail the problem so an specific answer can be made. With this in mind, the question should provide enough information to the readers, to be able to solve it. Asking "How do I fix hdd problem" and not mentioning Ubuntu version, what sort of problem the hdd had and any other relevant information will simply make readers tend to now answer it or start commenting the person that made the question to add more information about the problem.