edit: I ain't complaining. If reddit engagement is dying and forums are taking it's place,
Forums are more private and I generally hate reddit :)
I want to know just who these people are? I mean, the success of forums have been a surprise to me. And recently, in my experience Tech reddits (linux distros and such) haven't been getting as much attention as they used to get.
If I have a question regarding MX Linux or someone has asked a question regrading it, it seems reasonable to me that I would find it on Reddit. Since there are generally more people on reddit than on forums and reddit is like a super forum with almost everything under the sun attached to it and showing up in your feed. So, I might not be passionate enough to just stay on MX forum, but I will get enough variety on reddit that I will be able to stay interested and browse it more.
I don't know enough about MX Linux to frequent the forums, not do I want to know/read every small issue someone else has. But, if I come across a post on reddit while I am just browsing through my feed, I will make sure I try to help them as much as possible, but yeah, I don't see myself going to forums to try and help people. So, I don't get why forums are so successful.
Are there really so many people to frequent forums and provide answers to people who seem to be in trouble. I love MX but it's not my passion and frankly, I am surprised that there are many people for whom it seems like it is.
Idk anything about Linux forums, but as far as forums in general:
This is legitimately my husband's favorite thing to do. He's not into Linux, he's into garden tractors and mowers, but he loves the enthusiast forums and Facebook groups he's in and is very active.
Generally, he loves helping people who want to learn, and specifically, he is nuts about helping people learn to care for their machines and save them from the junkyard. He will spend hours on the phone and days over email helping people troubleshoot things, purely for the joy of helping.
And when he's not helping somebody, he's talking to other tractor nerds about how cool their tractors are and how best to take care of them! ๐๐ฅฐ
So yes, there are people who like to hang around to give help, some people just really, really, really love to help.