I like the video series idea. Maybe have a video on top of a wiki format to “introduce” the wiki or cater to those that learn better with visuals.
@wendell how would you feel about community members making L1 forum videos in the L1 spirit (but probably not in name)?
I think this should either be a clearly separate thing by the community and marked that way, or be closely curated by Wendell or someone he trusts. The quality has to be good.
Personally I’ve run into a lot of issues using both Nvidia and AMD cards. For instance, no one told me not to use the script on Nvidia’s site, and that completely wrecked my drivers. Then it was next to impossible to actually figure out how to get them updated. God forbid you’re on a laptop and trying to sort out Bumblebee.
With AMD, I used AMD’s drivers from their website, but no WINE/DXVK would work, because I had no idea about Mesa. Then when I installed Mesa, I still had issues until I installed the DXVK libraries and a newer kernel. Most of the guides I’ve seen are fragmented, or don’t work well with other guides to do other things. I think the application definitely exists for a one-click solution to install the most up to date drivers and libraries for a system. I’d have loved it if I could click a button and get the most up to date offering from Nvidia.
Apart from burning the linux section to the ground? 
The category probably isn’t any worse than it was years ago. Linux discussion is certainly more prevalent now that there is little windows or general nerdy conversation, so the turmoil is far more apparent without the good stuff to drown it out.
Probably the best option is to make Linux appear as more of a common tool along side other operating systems when promoting projects or diy topics.
I’m not sure what can be done to improve the topics without first encouraging users to be open to ideas, understanding and most of all disagreements.
Also, maybe a rollup thread that’s like a FAQ, that links to successful topics that answer some of the most common questions. Make this common knowledge to all linux category dwellers so duplicate topics can be linked and closed.
Wikis/guide(non-wiki) on the different package managers. Heimdallr did a great one back in the day. Would have to bribe him to do more. 
Okay, since I said I’ll write something up over the weekend, I totally didn’t do that.
Regarding
So here are my thoughts from this morning while driving to work:
First things that comes to my mind is that we need to transform the way people ask for help. In the last days I looked through some of the threads and participated in some on both sides of the “help situation”.
My findings:
But:
Things we need to do to improve how the conduct an efficient way of helping people and people solve their problems with the knowledge of others:
TO QUICKLY SUMMARIZE:
Yeah, that’s my first thoughts on this topic of “helpdeks” and the Linux Help Questions since that’s where the most people start out and get into the tech and our forum. (I guess!?)
Lets make Linux Section Great Again!
@AnotherDev I don’t want you to think I already forgot about this thread. I am still writing some stuff down for the Linux section, but I am quite busy at the moment. This mission is important to me.
Too late, everyone hates me, t’was all for naught
Nonsense!!!
Someone was editing my wiki. And then they stopped and never contributed the edit.
I scared them away. I is sad. But at least two users edited or added things to the wiki. We are getting there folks.
I was going to raise that (wiki) as something positive in the linux world. The arch wiki by itself is perhaps one of the most consistently useful bodies of work on getting things to work in the linux world.
Of course, it is focused on arch, but perhaps it can offer a guide-post as to what and how people need to see to do things in linux and a method of communicating that?
As with all things linux, the variety of distros and speed of obsolescence is a constant issue.
That was me, probably? Sorry, got distracted, I’ll finish what I started.
That could go so wrong so quickly though. xD
Not always an option to ‘try it’ without understanding first what it is youre doing and cause a potentially irreversible actual problem.
Always an option since most problems are a) not on a critical live system, mostly privat computer with a problem and b) the fixes that are proposed are rarely deleting files and / or can’t be reversed.
The bigger problem is an arrogant newby that has a question and doesn’t try a proposed fix so the situation is unclear whether or not a problem is still there. So the people who help in their spare time are putting their time and knowledge into this and not even get the feedback if it helped or not.
That, to me, is way more problematic than a newby who borked his first linux installation or driver that is outdated or something.
A lot of people who try to help people in this forum work in IT and the hourly rate that those people could charge is way above what anybody would like to spend. And to not even try what they suggested!?
Dude… You gotta be a dense piece of work to pull such thing off and expect to get help again.
I’d like to help ! I’ll get some thought together
You have a point. The “feedback” part especially. If you´re not gonna try it. you´re gonna have some reason for that. If you don´t communicate that reason that´s not very friendly to the guy who is trying to help you.
I love this idea as I’m just wetting my toes in the vast and oh so stormy waters of Linux. I love it because it will help me as well.
I find that there is a problem with asking questions in tech in general. This could be solved by simply requiring to read a short and to the point “Guide to asking questions” topic. Or maybe even “A short and to the point guide to asking questions”
The problem is, that people don’t know how to be specific and what to be specific about if they have a problem. This needs to be addressed in a guide. Posting system specs, settings, what you’ve already tried and what the results, if any, there were. Should not be more than a few minutes to read and move on by creating a topic and actually asking. There maybe no stupid question, but the quality of a question definitely dictates the quality of the answer.
Now, the part about the categories. More specifically writing guides or about projects you’ve completed and not just asking questions.
I would LOVE to see this from all the users. I’m learning Linux right now from the beginning and while I am tech savvy, I fail miserably with linux. My first Linux steps are with a pair of RPi3b+s and Centos 7 for these devices. The amount of time and search going into searching why the bluetooth mouse is moving slowly and how to repair this, was insane. I’m now searching how to make these things accessible to Putty from my main PC. Guess how this is going…
Not to drone on for too long, but I just saw a video on Bash in Linux, where Wendell said he just* learned about some of the shortcuts after years of doing things the long way, and honestly a quick setup (there already is one comprehensive write up, I’m aware) and start guide with best practices, shortcuts and maybe, as someone already mentioned common commands and parallel commands in other distros (apt-get/yum) would be fabulous.
I’m not knowledgeable enough to comprehensively add something worthy of a wow to this subforum, but I’m willing to at least help with formatting large bodies of text and some grammar, if nothing else. Then, later on, I’ll be sure to contribute in some more meaningful way.
*video is from June 2016
Note: I’m aware that some of the things I mentioned are a big undertaking.