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?
It’s not a Linux thing at all. I have a lot of different hobby interests and I find gatekeeping everywhere. I don’t even think it’s limited to hobbies. Gatekeeping seems to be a natural human social behaviour.
Idk about that. Every time I’m on an Amateur Radio board even the newest most repeated question is often answerd earnestly by multiple people often with enthusiasm and quality. If a community actually recognizes and accepts that they want to onboard new people, they don’t treat new people like burdens.
I see that as essentially having a community norm against gatekeeping. It’s not a feature of every community and it needs to be intentionally maintained. Gatekeeping in that light is a kind of Hobbesian state of nature behaviour that is being deliberately policed.
There’s so much denial here. Linux users even have their own pidgin for being toxic. “your fault: wrong distro”, “pebkac”, “skill issue”, “works fine on MY system” (same models can have different sound, wifi, and bluetooth chips). They can’t even get along with each other when different distros, init systems, display servers, etc., are discussed.
Sure, it goes on elsewhere: in Religion and Politics which is why both are banned from discussion in many bars/pubs.
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.