The Anomalous State of Knowledge

Hi all !

Like many of you, I'm coming from reddit.

I haven't posted much back there because I'm basically what many people call a noob.

I started learning self-hosting 2 years ago, and oh boy, this has been a journey. I've spent numerous sleepless nights trying to figure out stuff, and I now proudly run numerous services for fun, family and work.

But damn, how hard was it to KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR. To know what to ask. To know how to ask. To get out of the anomalous state of knowledge, where you want to learn, you want to know, but you don't know how.

Even though I'm comfortable with computers compared to many people in my surrounding, I'm no genius either. I had to learn Linux from scratch, had to find out about docker, containers, network and so on. And I did it mostly all by myself.

I tried posting to reddit, and I was also reading the sub thoroughly, but I was sad to see that beginners weren't always welcome. Many many downvotes, lots of "have you tried google" and more downvotes. I ended up creating a post to talk about this state of the sub, stating that veterans weren't welcoming at all. This post got a lot of traction and upvotes, comforting me in the idea that I was not alone.

It was important to draw a line between lazy posters, those who don't know how to use the search function, and those stuck in the anomalous state of knowledge. I know this might look like a thin line, but in reality, it is not. Because most of the time, a person really willing to learn (even though it is the most simple thing) will go into more details and passion than a lazy crowdsourcing newcomer.

I'm fleeing reddit because of the shitshow it is now (among other things), and I'm really happy to use Lemmy. From what I have seen, it is more consensual and a lot less toxic. I'd love to keep it that way, and I really hope this community will follow this direction.

That's why I decided to create a post on some sundays, when I'll have time, directly targeting the noob audience. I believe it will be a quick tutorial on how to install some popular service using docker. If I see that people dislike it, I'll stop.

But I really hope that we'll all remember that we all had to start somewhere, that we don't all have the same skills, capabilities and time.

I hope this wasn't too long of a post and that it wasn't too hard to understand. English is not my mother tongue.

See you all on sunday, have fun :)