That doesn’t apply to Linux communities on Lemmy though, but I meet a lot of Linux communities, that are toxic and beginner-unfriendly. People, who have voluntarily decided to maintain a community, behave like I broke into their house at 3 AM with my questions. If I ask a question, there will be a 20% chance to get any relevant response, but a 100% chance of being nagged with some bullshit. It especially applies to the behaviour of mods. For instance, a dude was messing with me because I have searched for a binary on the official internet database, instead of quering it via package manager.
I wish I could just avoid junkyards like that, but I can’t: I haven’t found another active community for Void Linux.
As far as I can tell from my experience, it is something specific to Linux or IT communities.
So why is it like this?
I think you misunderstood me. I’m not saying that gatekeeping doesn’t exist in Linux communities. It absolutely does, and I wouldn’t quibble if you said Linux was rife with gatekeeping.
What I’m saying is that gatekeeping isn’t unique to Linux in any way. Gatekeeping is everywhere, and I argue that it’s a default social behaviour that arises in communities above a certain size, unless specifically guarded against through community norms.