Hi Neo...
Quote:
All over the world there is a decline in the interest in forums due to the fact that it is easier to simply find the solution to our problems using Google. How are we going to address this?
This is an interesting question. When we do a Google search we generally end up at forums and similar technical sites because our questions, or a similar questions, are likely to have been asked and answered before. Hence, forums are very critical knowledge-building communities because without these sites, their would be little to find when we do a Google search. Google is not the "knowledge creator", Google is the "knowledge indexer". Of course, this site was much more active in the early days of the Internet before there were so many great knowledge repositories for UNIX and Linux, including this one. UNIX.COM was one of the first moderated forums to focus on a high signal-to-noise ratio related to UNIX and Linux technologies. We are constantly working to make the site easier to use and more fun for all our valuable members.
I can unequivocally say with experience that UNIX.COM does come up a lot when I am searching GOOGLE for results to some of my esoteric ideas posted on here.
It is always about how you search. After years of use I still haven't got the hang of that major detail yet as it is always down to how deeply one understands the subject one is searching for.
RudiC has recently posted some hum[-]dinger solutions to bash string handling and I would never know how to search for those with my level of shell scripting knowledge, BUT, and a big BUT, these rarities are now in the internet ether because of just that, they ARE so rare and few people other than the _hardened_ pros' would know about them.
Stack Overflow comes up a lot but this site certainly sees its fair percentage of GOOGLE hits, heck I even posted a thread about this some time ago.
Also judging by the number of newcomers, almost daily, then they must get the UNIX.COM badge from somewhere, and that somewhere is a search engine and more than likely the GOOGLE one.
My 5 pennoth.