Ubuntu Forums are not Canonical

[jimmybgood]

Howdy,

I joined recently in order to download a patch. I hesitated when I was required to give out personal information for such a trivial concern, but thought, "Well, Canonical are the good guys, what can it hurt?"

I even examined the copyright notice at the bottom of the page:

"Official Ubuntu Forums. Ubuntu Logo, Ubuntu and Canonical are trademarks of Canonical Ltd.
vBulletin Version 3.5.3 - Copyright ©2000 - 2006, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd."

The way I interpreted this, was that this forum is run by Canonical using the vBulletin software copyrighted by Jelsoft Enterprises.

Much to my surprise, I discovered buried in posts that this forum is private and not connected with Canonical. Had I known this, I would never have given out my private information, would not have joined and would have passed on the chance to download the patch.

This forum should make it much clearer that it is not run by Canonical.

[BitTorrentBuddha]

That's an awful paranoid and cynical outlook...
However, the "." in "Official Ubuntu Forums. Ubuntu Logo, Ubuntu and Canonical are trademarks of Canonical Ltd." states the end of one sentence and the beginning of a new one. Perhaps using a new line would make that a bit more clear? Official Ubuntu Forums
Ubuntu Logo, Ubuntu and Canonical are trademarks of Canonical Ltd.

[emperor]

Howdy,

I joined recently in order to download a patch. I hesitated when I was required to give out personal information for such a trivial concern, but thought, "Well, Canonical are the good guys, what can it hurt?"

I even examined the copyright notice at the bottom of the page:

"Official Ubuntu Forums. Ubuntu Logo, Ubuntu and Canonical are trademarks of Canonical Ltd.
vBulletin Version 3.5.3 - Copyright ©2000 - 2006, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd."

The way I interpreted this, was that this forum is run by Canonical using the vBulletin software copyrighted by Jelsoft Enterprises.

Much to my surprise, I discovered buried in posts that this forum is private and not connected with Canonical. Had I known this, I would never have given out my private information, would not have joined and would have passed on the chance to download the patch.

This forum should make it much clearer that it is not run by Canonical.

However, the forums are endorsed by Canonical as the "Offical" forums for Ubuntu. "Ubuntugeek", the founder of Ubuntuforums, is your friend, nothing to fear from this geek!

[BitTorrentBuddha]

Also, the only personal information you're required to enter is your date of birth, the rest is optional.

[jdong]

These forums are endorsed by Canonical as the official Ubuntu Forum, but is run by a staff of enthusiastic non-Canonical-employed volunteers dedicated to the spirit of Ubuntu.

As far as your personal information, we treat it with utmost respect. Only the forum administrators (ubuntu-geek, kassetra, KiwiNZ, and myself) have the level of access to view your registration data (not your password, of course - that's irreversibly encrypted). We don't go around browsing through our user's information or sell it off for beer money :). We care about Ubuntu users and would never do anything like that :)

[Jucato]

While I do admit that a sort of disclaimer would be nice, and a proper formatting of the copyright lines at the bottom would be good (I've also heard someone else misinterpret those), they're not absolutely necessary, IMHO. While the forums do not necessarily reflect the opinions/views of Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu), it does reflect the opinions/views of the Ubuntu community, which is a very integral and important part of the Ubuntu distribution. In most cases, you don't need the signed approval of Canonical for some issues. Also, if you want, there are other support options, both free and paid support from Canonical. Just browse through the main Ubuntu page to see the choices.

As for downloading a patch, what patch was that? AFAIK, you do not need to register in order to download here. (I may be wrong, as I have not tried to do that). Also, if it was a security patch, there is no need to download them from the forum, as they are available through the repositories as well.

[az]

The forums have been running on Canonical servers for a few weeks now....

http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?host=ubuntuforums.org&position=limited&lookup=Wait..


Does that make you feel better?

It is all one big happy family and it all comes out in the wash...

[aysiu]

I just don't know where you got the idea that Canonical is good and the forum owners are bad.

[Jucato]

Maybe he got the impression (based probably on previous experience) that forums are run by fanboys and are not a good source of authoritative information.

I wonder what he thinks of mailing lists...

[jdong]

I just don't know where you got the idea that Canonical is good and the forum owners are bad.


Maybe he got the impression (based probably on previous experience) that forums are run by fanboys and are not a good source of authoritative information.

I wonder what he thinks of mailing lists...

Careful guys, I think you might be stretching it too far there. The OP never said anything about the forums being bad or a preference of one communications channel over another.

It's apparent that he is cautious with handing out his information, and Canonical has earned his trust but the forums administration has not.

It does raise a good point about privacy policy that I think should be discussed further. I have raised this issue to the staff and we will talk about the situation.

[Jucato]

You're right, I might be stretching it a bit too far. But the logical conclusions of his statements imply so.

Canonical is good
Ubuntuforums is not Canonical
Therefore, Ubuntuforums is not good.

Saying that he has privacy issues with the forums is the same as saying that the forums is not good (or good enough to be trusted). Or perhaps he just has privacy issues with forums in general, maybe because of prior experience, which was the root of my previous statement.

But anyway, I apologize to the OP if I have insulted you in any manner. It was unintentional.

@jdong: I would probably suggest having a FAQ tab up there (together with the Home, Gallery, etc). It could contain the most basic forum-related (no "how to use Ubuntu" questions, though) questions, like the relationship between Canonical, privacy, how to use the forums, how to use the search function, where to post what, etc. Or perhaps you could modify the About page to contain that.

[Ratatosk]

OK, now that I found this thread, I finally got around to registering on the Ubuntu forums anyways. Partly comforted by jdong, partly just to have my say.

To me it doesn't matter much whether the forums are run by Canonical or some other company/organization. I do however share the reluctance of jimmybgood to hand out personal information if I am not presented with very good reasons. Any organization that demands/collects any personal info at all from me simply needs to make crystal clear what it intends to do with it. That's how I feel.
________________________________________

Ubuntu Linux was an immensely happy experience to me, and when I found these forums they too seemed absolutely great. But, when I first tried to register, a good month ago, the required birth-date field instantly made me abort. :-( I couldn't believe it. And however long and hard I looked for it, I never found that stated reason I sought for this particular demand.

The age/birth-date can be publicly shown as part of ones personal profile, apparently. But it can also - thankfully - be made hidden. So why the required field? :confused:
________________________________________

The need for my e-mail address isn't explicitly explained either, of course. But that one seems to make much more immediate sense. (Presumably PMs + some check on troublemakers.) Once I had started worrying about it, however, I was further struck by the seeming lack of at least a promise to keep my e-mail address private. :shock:

Self-evident if they are good guys? Probably. But why not be explicit, like others are?

Now, the response in this thread - of administrator jdong to the concerns of jimmybgood - did impress and comfort me. It would have been nice to have his assurances made available from the registration page.


Ubuntu Forums Privacy Policy

I did find a privacy policy page for the Ubuntu Forums (http://ubuntuforums.org/index.php?page=privacy), but it doesn't seem to be linked to from the registration page. (Or did I merely fail to see a link that is there?)
More importantly, very little seems to be said in it about what the maintainers actually will or won't do with the collected information.

The policy page does contain overviews of the types of information collected, which is nice. (Not everybody might be aware that for instance search requests are recorded on a personal basis.)

There are also a couple of, mostly nonspecific, statements to the effect that information (not altogether surprisingly) will be used to facilitate the functionality of the forums themselves:
E.g. without "certain information, we may not be able to provide you with some services". Or it (information via cookies) will allow the forums to "enhance your experience at Ubuntuforums.org". And information about the Internet connections of forum members/visitors can be used - "among other things" (?) - "to improve the delivery of our web pages to you".

What is not explicitly said on the privacy page, but is stated in the forum rules (available when registering), is that "the IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions". Controlling troublemakers does seem to be a legitimate use of personal information for any forum, perhaps somewhat covered by the general purpose of "enhancing the experience" of the majority. (I am of course assuming that the requirement for an e-mail address when registering also silently serves this purpose.)

Still no light at all shed on what use will be made of the mystery required birth dates.

Also what I really miss is a statement that the information will be used only for these internal purposes, and that it won't be passed on to third parties. (Or if the forum owners do intend to pass information along, the reasons and circumstances for this.)

[rai4shu2]

You actually feel obligated to put your *real* birth date?

[Ratatosk]

Well, I really, really hate to lie. :)
Although I guess entering an obviously nonsensical date could hardly count as a lie, could it?

On a completely unrelated note 8-[, it seems that a 105-year-old Ubuntu user who truthfully wants to give his/her birth date, as sternly demanded by the Ubuntu Forums, will be out of luck:
If you try entering a birthyear of 1901 or earlier, the registering page will tell you "You have entered an invalid birthday". (But 1902 is OK.)

[mozetti]

On a completely unrelated note 8-[, it seems that a 105-year-old Ubuntu user who truthfully wants to give his/her birth date, as sternly demanded by the Ubuntu Forums, will be out of luck:
If you try entering a birthyear of 1901 or earlier, the registering page will tell you "You have entered an invalid birthday". (But 1902 is OK.)

Well of course! I mean, 104 years is an easily attainable age, but assuming someone would live to be 105 is just absurd! ;)

And, AFAIK, the reason an email address is required is to reduce spam -- without email confirmation, bots could automatically create accounts and spam the forums. Requiring user interaction via an email confirmation eliminates this.