[Oxygen]

Because one site simply would't be big enough, if every Linux user posted here several things would happen:

a) All people wanting assistance would post, there'd be too many posts for everone to see, there'd be less support.
b) Nobody would get a say, like me posting this, there'd be just too much content that people would be ignored, similar to the above
c) Core Root would see his bandwidth bill and s*** himself.

[budman7]

For a couple of the reasons stated by Oxygen, some users prefer smaller forums.
Take Sourcemage for instance, if you look at there forums, they look dead.
But, if you post a question, you will get a reply that day.
Almost every time I have had a problem that I could not resolve, Sandall, one of the Admins and a developer responded to most of my queries.

With larger forums you don't get that kind of personal attention.

[kakariko81280]

As a rule I don't like big, centralised systems. They tend to have big problems even getting off the ground. Perhaps too many stories of (British) government IT projects gone wrong has made me cynical.

However, there are advantages and sometimes system requirements that suggest a single big system is the way to go. In these cases I always suggest that separate systems that can work together should be investigated.

OpenID and RSS would fit the bill here. A single sign on and the tools so I can aggregate all my subscribed threads into a single place would (I think) achieve much the same as a single site, but spreads the hosting, infrastructure and allows one site to implement something new and fantastic without upsetting every Linux user in the world.

Chris...

[fingal]

Originally Posted by kakariko81280

As a rule I don't like big, centralised systems. They tend to have big problems even getting off the ground. Perhaps too many stories of (British) government IT projects gone wrong has made me cynical.

However, there are advantages and sometimes system requirements that suggest a single big system is the way to go. In these cases I always suggest that separate systems that can work together should be investigated.

That's interesting. I recently read a report about 'Web 2', suggesting that some of your ideas might be on the way. The report mentioned that 'Web 2' isn't a well defined term, but is broadly about end users pulling chosen content onto a single page or website. Filtering the content if you like.

This is called 'data mashing' ... Picking and choosing your own content and - this seems important - the content appears to be centralised on your site, so you aren't sure of the original author(s) until you follow the hyperlinks. This might not seem very new, but I've linked to the report below for a clearer view than I can give.

The report I read can be found here. It's meant for Government officials, but is surprisingly well written and 'unstuffy'. I thought someone might be interested: I think this technology won't be led by Governments (as usual) but by you and me.

This could be useful for people with strong information needs, and who want to save people the trouble of Googling for everything.

[rudie_rage]

I understand how smaller communities can be more helpful. With larger ones you can get that 'lost in a crowd' feeling far too easily.

The problem I find I run into most is managing several accounts across multiple forums and sites. All these places that require you to sign up to post, and each one is suited for just a small part of the support you need.

If there was some way to manage all these accounts and give the illusion of them being one large account across several forums (log in with only one password, and something will relay all your different usernames and passwords to the sites... Something like that) and make the different sites a little more seamless (RSS feeds on a google homepage come to mind for a start) then I would be really happy.

Imagine being able to make it look as if linuxforums, linuxquestions, and the forums for your favourite distro all merged into one. If the navigation was seamless, it would be support heaven.

[ozar]

Originally Posted by rudie_rage

If there was some way to manage all these accounts and give the illusion of them being one large account across several forums (log in with only one password, and something will relay all your different usernames and passwords to the sites...

We already have that. It's called OpenID, but many websites don't participate, at least yet:

OpenID: an actually distributed identity system

I'm not a big fan of OpenID, myself.

[rudie_rage]

Originally Posted by ozar

We already have that. It's called OpenID, but many websites don't participate, at least yet:

OpenID: an actually distributed identity system

I'm not a big fan of OpenID, myself.

Cool, I'll have to take a look.

[budman7]

Originally Posted by rudie_rage

The problem I find I run into most is managing several accounts across multiple forums and sites. All these places that require you to sign up to post, and each one is suited for just a small part of the support you need.

I am a member of a few forums, what I like to do is use the same username and password for all of them.
That way if I don't frequent a forum for awhile, I don't have any problem remembering them.

[rudie_rage]

Originally Posted by budman7

I am a member of a few forums, what I like to do is use the same username and password for all of them.
That way if I don't frequent a forum for awhile, I don't have any problem remembering them.

I did that once, then my computer got rooted via an SSH vulnerability, and my password was compromised. The person that did it knew me, and which sites i frequented. Pretty much every account I had was toast.

Although I still dont have a large number of passwords, I have several for different rings of security I need. My computer logins, my email and message accounts (msn included), and then online communities all have separate passwords to keep from cross-attacks.

back to the topic at hand, using the same username across multiple sites seems to be a good way to make it easy to get into a whole bunch of forums, provided you pick an obscure enough username.

On the other hand, people you knew on one forum would not be able to respond to (and would probably be completely unaware of) posts of yours on different forums. The convenience of a unified system is partially there, but not entirely.

Just a question: what IS the largest general linux community? (disregarding distro specific forums and the like) What is the most active linux community? (sometimes large dosnt mean busy) I mean, If I were looking for the largest group of enthusiasts I could find online, where would I go?

I'm definitely enjoying hearing all these opinions. It seems the majority agrees it is a good thing to have many smaller communities. That opinion isnt surprising, since thats the way it works in practice