askubuntu.com - what do you think?

[SZVSZ]

So what do people think about askubuntu.com?

For those who don't know, this is (as far as I am aware) a for-profit ubuntu questions+answers site, created by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood. The way askubuntu.com works is people contribute their free labor to the site by answering and posing questions; and the owners make money from advertising revenues.

As far as I am aware, no profits from the revenues raised from askubuntu.com are directed back into linux or open-source software...

I've heard Atwood & Spolsky say they want to "become a part of the fabric of the web" with their ever-growing number of q+a sites. My translation of that, is this: they want to hoover up a whole bunch of people who were previously donating their efforts to non-profit community-based efforts, and harness the efforts of these folk in order to make themselves a nice chunk of $$change$$. In the process, the world will somehow benefit, because what the world needs is more q+a sites...

It makes me kind of sad thinking that revenues raised from a site like askubuntu.com flow entirely into private hands, and nothing gets paid back to open-source projects. Of course, Canonical is a for-profit organization, and I am not suggesting they deserve or need donations. But why not donate a portion of the profits to e.g., Debian, or any number of other worthy open source projects in need of funding.

I'm curious to hear what people think. If I'm completely wrong in my perception of this situation, I'll be interested to hear it.

edit: I guess what creeps me out the most about askubuntu.com is the way they use feel-good phrases like "community driven" to describe their site... you could just as accurately describe the site as "profit driven" - but they'd never put a description like that on their site! They are draping their profit-based corporation in the language of open source and free software... hoping that the vague, feel good connotations of the phrases they are using will trick people into somehow believing that contributing to their sites represents some kind of social or moral good...

And as MooPi and PaulW2U point out below, they also seem to be using the "offical" ubuntu colors, and have incorporated the word "ubuntu" into their domain name. Then again, maybe they have Canonical's blessing..?

[Giant Speck]

It's a threat to the Ubuntu Forums monopoly and must be crushed.

[pwnst*r]

I liek monies.

[tjeremiah]

so far so good.

[mobilediesel]

If someone provides a product or service that people are willing to pay for then they should get paid for it.

Why would that make you sad?

[chessnerd]

People have free will. They can choose to use a pay-for service which may or may not be better than a free alternative. Most askubuntu users probably know that Ubuntu Forums exists. If they want to go elsewhere, more power to them. The creators of the website are not evil, nor are they being monopolistic, they are simply being capitalistic. They also have no obligation to give any money back.

Ubuntu Forums is one of the most frequented Linux forums on the web. We have nothing to fear from askubuntu.com. In fact, some of the askubuntu members direct people here. Take this post for example: http://askubuntu.com/questions/5433 Note that the highest ranked answer sends the asker to this site.

If people want to pay to ask questions about a free operating system, that's fine. In many ways, it's little different from someone going around selling Ubuntu LiveCDs for $20 a piece and pocketing the profit. I don't think that's so bad.

[tjeremiah]

It's a threat to the Ubuntu Forums monopoly and must be crushed.

:lolflag:

[SZVSZ]

If someone provides a product or service that people are willing to pay for then they should get paid for it.

Why would that make you sad?

I guess what creeps me out the most about askubuntu.com is the way they use feel-good phrases like "community driven" to describe their site... you could just as accurately describe the site as "profit driven" - but they'd never put a description like that on their site! They are draping their profit-based corporation in the language of open source and free software... hoping that the vague, feel good connotations of the phrases they are using will trick people into somehow believing that contributing to these sites represents some kind of social or moral good... it's not like they are the only company doing this, for example Google does it all the time with their Android product.

It's not illegal, and maybe it's not even a bad thing. I just hope people understand what they are contributing to.

[mobilediesel]

I guess what creeps me out about askubuntu.com is the way they use feel-good "double speak" like "community driven" to describe their site... you could just as accurately describe the site as "profit motivated" - but they'd never put a description like that on their site! They are draping their profit-based corporation in the feel-good language of open source... hoping that the vague, feel good connotations of the phrases they are using will trick people into somehow believing that contributing to these sites represents some kind of social or moral good... it's not like they are the only company doing this, Google does it all the time for example with their Android product.

The way it works is people contribute their free labor to the site by answering and posing questions; and the owners make money from advertising revenues. No $$$ flows back to open source projects.

It's not illegal, and maybe it's not even a bad thing. I just hope people understand what they are contributing to. :)

From the About and FAQ pages on the entire Stack Exchange network makes it pretty clear how things work. I see nothing deceptive anywhere. BAnner ads at the top of the page aren't likely to make any of them loads of profit. They'll be lucky to break even and pay for the servers and bandwidth.

As for what people are contributing to: Once a clear answer to a question is posted, everyone gets to benefit from the answer whether they participated or not.

[badp]

This is a discussion forum.
That is a questions and answers site.

Here, replies are sorted chronologically.
There, replies are sorted by votes.

Here, discussion is allowed.
There, comments are a second class citizen.

Here, "what do you think" questions like this are allowed.
There, they are not because there can be no one accepted answer. Indeed, this discussion wouldn't have started there to begin with (example (http://askubuntu.com/questions/5561/what-does-your-ubuntu-desktop-look-like-closed)).

Q&A sites are worse at polls and chit chat.
Q&A sites are better at solving practical problems and giving objective answers.

Finally the only "ads" being served currently are for the site's chat.

I hope that helps you understand the differences, so next time you can use the best tool for the job. :)

By the way, the content there is released under a open license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/) and data dumps are made available on a monthly basis via BitTorrent (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/cc-wiki-dump/) to ensure no evil corporation can take over the content and put a paywall on it. ;)

Tangentially, you may be interested in this (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/53346/open-source-advertising-sidebar-2h-2010).

(Full disclosure, I am a regular user of the StackExchange network. (http://stackoverflow.com/users/13992?tab=accounts) I have no financial stake in it, however.)

[papangul]

@badp, can the format of stackexchange/askubuntu be implemented by anyone else? If not, then it is not compatible with free software principles(imagine that the "format" of a discussion forum is patented by a company).

[badp]

badp, can the format of stackexchange/askubuntu be implemented by anyone else? If not, then it is not compatible with free software principles(imagine that the "format" of a discussion forum is patented by a company).

The "best" FOSS clone out there is OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/) (more are here (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2267/stack-overflow-clones)).

[papangul]

The "best" FOSS clone out there is OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/) (more are here (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2267/stack-overflow-clones)).
Thanks, I feel relieved.:)

[MooPi]

I don't know and I'm not an authority on issues like this but "askubuntu.com" looks like a blantant ripoff/knockoff of the forum. They are using similar coloring and design features of ubuntu.com . Maybe imitation is the greatest form of compliment.

[badp]

I don't know and I'm not an authority on issues like this but "askubuntu.com" looks like a blantant ripoff/knockoff of the forum. They are using similar coloring and design features of ubuntu.com . Maybe imitation is the greatest form of compliment.

Read more about the design (http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/377/design-ideas-for-the-final-site) (PS: as far as I can see, ubuntuforums still hasn't caught up with the new Ubuntu identity :))

[PaulW2U]

They are using similar coloring and design features of ubuntu.com
That was my first thought too. It makes it look like an official Canonical site.

[Marco Ceppi]

I think the site is great - it's the reason I've been using it since Day 1 of Beta launch. The near ramblings of conspiracy the OP has worries me slightly, and shows me that they likely haven't used the platform yet other than "omg, it looks too good, must save the forums" I can understand that. If you look at what this site is about and what it is trying to achieve you may actually come to like it better.

http://sstatic.net/askubuntu/img/venn-diagram.png

Everything that falls outside of our little asterisk is quickly closed and pointed to the proper source.

Discussions and things of a "fun" nature go here
Extended support and discussions also go to IRC
Bugs & feature requests go to LaunchPad
Spam gets eradication

So what's left? Serious Questions with Serious answers. I'm sure you've all expereinced this - it's the biggest turn off here on the forums. 25 page issue - the fix you need is on page 13 - but you won't know that until you actually get through the entire posts, because there may have been a better fix later on.

The SE platform (and askubuntu) help to solve that - by doing so provides another - authoritative - source for users to get the right answer the first time. Toning down the frustrations of first time users (and long time users like me) and helping to better the image of Ubuntu as an OS for human beings.

The fact of the matter is: AskUbuntu isn't a part of the Canonical network, it has been community driven from day one by members of this community - and new comers to the Ubuntu platform. Feeding questions, providing answers (both crap and awesome) then voting on what works, what doesn't to bring the best answers to top of each question and to solve problems fpr this already great OS.

[SZVSZ]

The "best" FOSS clone out there is OSQA (http://www.osqa.net/) (more are here (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2267/stack-overflow-clones)).

I wonder if the admins of ubuntuforums.org would consider setting up an official "ask ubuntu"..?

[badp]

do the owners of askubuntu donate any of their revenues back to linux, ubuntu, debian?


Where is revenue made from exactly? There still are no ads.

Oh, and did you miss my link to the free advertisement slots for FOSS software for StackOverflow (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/53346/open-source-advertising-sidebar-2h-2010)? That's definitely a way to donate back on a site with 780k page views/day ;)

[lovinglinux]

The only thing I don't like is that the theme conveys the idea that is an official site. Other than that, looks good to me. I just registered there and I'm starting to play with.

[castrojo]

The only thing I don't like is that the theme conveys the idea that is an official site. Other than that, looks good to me. I just registered there and I'm starting to play with.

It's not an official site, read the bottom of the page. It was styled by someone on the Canonical design team though.

[TheNerdAL]

So Ask Ubuntu is out and I was wondering what will happen to the forums?

[SZVSZ]

So Ask Ubuntu is out and I was wondering what will happen to the forums?

maybe the admins of ubuntuforum.org will set up their own 'ask ubuntu' using an open source clone?

[Naiki Muliaina]

No, AskUbuntu however will be fantastic if it grows to a Yahoo answers size and search ability. We will still have all the 3rd party forums and the cafe if the support area poofs :)

Also, who owns Ask Ubuntu? Is it Canonical run or OMGUbuntu run?

[lovinglinux]

It's not an official site, read the bottom of the page. It was styled by someone on the Canonical design team though.

Still very confusing. If is not endorsed by Canonical, then it shouldn't be using the same theme.

[Naiki Muliaina]

Still very confusing. If is not endorsed by Canonical, then it shouldn't be using the same theme.

100% totally agree. Even if they put a 'Unofficial website' banner at the top it would be better, but that is so close to the Canonicals Ubuntu website it looks like it is official.

[MetaDark]

Still very confusing. If is not endorsed by Canonical, then it shouldn't be using the same theme.

Building a theme similar to the one used in Ubuntu is not illegal, why should they not be allowed to use a similar theme if the website is all about Ubuntu?

[TheNerdAL]

No, AskUbuntu however will be fantastic if it grows to a Yahoo answers size and search ability. We will still have all the 3rd party forums and the cafe if the support area poofs :)

Also, who owns Ask Ubuntu? Is it Canonical run or OMGUbuntu run?

I think none of them but one guy or team.

Don't beat me up, but I think I'm going to try it. It's been a while since I helped people.

[Naiki Muliaina]

I wont be using it then. If it gets an official 'endorsed by canonical' tag I will give it a go. If not I will stick with the forums. I don't like sites theming themselves so close to a main website they are easily mistaken as official.

[mobilediesel]

Still very confusing. If is not endorsed by Canonical, then it shouldn't be using the same theme.

The site fully acknowledges the owner of the trademark. Nothing confusing about it:

Ubuntu and Canonical are registered trademarks of Canonical Ltd.

[Naiki Muliaina]

The site fully acknowledges the owner of the trademark. Nothing confusing about it:

At a look though it does look like an officially endorsed website though. To close to Ubuntu's own site.

[TheNerdAL]

When is the forum going to update their theme? :confused:

[Phrea]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1591890

I really don't get why you have to open up a thread for absolutely everything and anything...

[lovinglinux]

Building a theme similar to the one used in Ubuntu is not illegal, why should they not be allowed to use a similar theme if the website is all about Ubuntu?

A while ago I tried to create a Firefox extension collection on Mozilla's Add-ons site that would allow any Ubuntu users to include extensions that could be useful for the community. The name of the collection was "Ubuntu Community Collection". I contacted Canonical and they asked me to change the name of the collection, because the name chosen could convey the idea that was an endorsed collection. Well I didn't changed the name, I simply dropped the idea entirely. So why would be this different? The site uses Ubuntu in the domain and uses the same theme as the official site. IMO, it should be stated that is an official site, endorsed by Canonical, or they should change the domain name and theme.

Perhaps they are paying for the branding privileges, but that isn't clear either.

[papangul]

I wont be using it then. If it gets an official 'endorsed by canonical' tag I will give it a go. If not I will stick with the forums. I don't like sites theming themselves so close to a main website they are easily mistaken as official.
Ubuntuforums didn't have the "official" tag for a long time. In that period the forum theme resembled closely to the ubuntu.com theme.(Can some forum official please tell us exactly when ubuntuforums became totally "official")

[Naiki Muliaina]

I can never remember adverts being run on Ubuntu Forums, will you be putting adverts on Ask Ubuntu? Or is this a project done for the love of something?

[cprofitt]

I would think it is more likely that the site would replace the launchpad 'answers' section.

[kaldor]

I would think it is more likely that the site would replace the launchpad 'answers' section.

I was thinking this also.

Why would AskUbuntu replace a forum?

[castrojo]

At a look though it does look like an officially endorsed website though. To close to Ubuntu's own site.

The site follows the branding guidelines (http://design.canonical.com/the-toolkit/guides-for-websites/).

[Naiki Muliaina]

The site follows the branding guidelines (http://design.canonical.com/the-toolkit/guides-for-websites/).

It may follow branding guidelines but I still don't like seeing unofficial sites being so close to main websites they are easily mistakable as being official.

Especially if they are for profit and not community orientated such as Ubuntu Forums.

Unfortunately he hasn't answered my question of whether or not they are going to use advertising on the website on the other thread, so all I have to go on is the OP saying they are 'for profit'. Not much god either is it, cant take everything you read on a interwebs forum as truth can you?

[castrojo]

It may follow branding guidelines but I still don't like seeing unofficial sites being so close to main websites they are easily mistakable as being official.

Please read the guidelines, they were designed for such a purpose.


Especially if they are for profit and not community orientated such as Ubuntu Forums.

What part of SE isn't community oriented? I've been on there for 2 months and it's been run entirely by the community.


Unfortunately he hasn't answered my question of whether or not they are going to use advertising on the website on the other thread, so all I have to go on is the OP saying they are 'for profit'. Not much god either is it, cant take everything you read on a interwebs forum as truth can you?

The other SE sites use ads so I don't expect this SE to be any different.

[el_joni]

People have free will. They can choose to use a pay-for service which may or may not be better than a free alternative.

If people want to pay to ask questions about a free operating system, that's fine.

I agree with your sentiment about free will, but you got the payment thing entirely wrong. Asking questions at askubuntu is free; answering questions is free. As badp pointed out, the content is also free, i.e., available under a CC license.

For those curious about their business model, you could read their blog where they talk relatively openly about it. E.g.
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/04/changes-to-stack-exchange/
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/05/announcing-our-series-a/


Ubuntu Forums is one of the most frequented Linux forums on the web. We have nothing to fear from askubuntu.com.

I predict askubuntu.com will sooner or later become the most popular (or "canonical", even) place to get answers for Ubuntu questions. (Much like stackoverflow.com for programming questions.) This is simply because the format is better for Q&A, and the site already seems to have a lot of momentum going. Other than that, yes, nothing to fear. :)

By the way, they do appear to have some co-operation with Canonical. For example, one of the most active community builders at askubuntu, Jorge Castro (http://askubuntu.com/users/235/jorge-castro), is a Canonical employee. Also, I read somewhere that the official (non-beta) launch of the site was "preponed (http://english.stackexchange.com/q/808/120)" to coincide with 10.10 release.

badp is correct (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9946940&postcount=10) in pointing out the key differences between this forum and askubuntu. I wish I could upvote his post, but can't. :|

[ticopelp]

Doubtful. Having more information available for people who need it is rarely a bad thing.

[castrojo]

For example, one of the most active community builders at askubuntu, Jorge Castro (http://askubuntu.com/users/235/jorge-castro), is a Canonical employee. Also, I read somewhere that the official (non-beta) launch of the site was "preponed (http://english.stackexchange.com/q/808/120)" to co-incide with 10.10 release.

A bunch of us who happen to work at Canonical are also on stackexchange (and the forums). Though our participation in both places is something that we do to support the community, it's not something that we do to give any "blessing" to any site as to how "official" it is. (Full Disclosure: I am Jorge)

(Nice use of the word preponed!)

[lovinglinux]

The site follows the branding guidelines (http://design.canonical.com/the-toolkit/guides-for-websites/).

I haven't read the guidelines yet, but using askubuntu as an example, I presume anyone here in the forums could build a blog with the same theme, as long as they follow the guidelines. Don't you think it would be detrimental to Ubuntu brand?

[23meg]

Definitely no, but in terms of encouraging and facilitating the kind of communication required by busy people who need technical support, Stack Exchange runs circles around the antiquated bulletin board / forum paradigm, thus it's a better tool for the times.

[ticopelp]

Please read the guidelines, they were designed for such a purpose.

Exactly.

Personally I think choice is good, and I don't really see the problem with a Linux-based website making a profit, or how companies making profit from Ubuntu is bad for Ubuntu. Even if you take the least charitable read and say that Askubuntu gives nothing back (which I don't think is true), that still makes them little more than a drop in the community bucket.


I haven't read the guidelines yet, but using askubuntu as an example, I presume anyone here in the forums could build a blog with the same theme, as long as they follow the guidelines. Don't you think it would be detrimental to Ubuntu brand?

Give 'em a read first. :-\"

[castrojo]

People have been using the ubuntu logos and themes for years for personal blogs, just because the logos and themes look much better now doesn't mean anything.

[Naiki Muliaina]

Please read the guidelines, they were designed for such a purpose.

I have read the guidelines. My opinion on this sort of thing is not Ubuntu specific.



What part of SE isn't community oriented? I've been on there for 2 months and it's been run entirely by the community.

Was AskUbuntu set up to make a profit or to help the community?



The other SE sites use ads so I don't expect this SE to be any different.

I would expect so too, but after 2 months with no ad's it was uncertain. Waiting for beta to end maybe.

[castrojo]

Was AskUbuntu set up to make a profit or to help the community?

It was proposed by Evan Dandrea on Area 51, here's the information (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/7716/ubuntu) on the proposal.

After enough people voted and committed the site was launched into beta, and then on 10.10 it went final. If you browse the threads on meta (http://meta.askubuntu.com/) you can probably find more information on the voting for the domain name, etc.

[perspectoff]

I never notice Ads on any site.

I use AdBlock Plus and NoScript (in Firefox, Konqueror, and other Gecko-based browsers) so that all ads are turned off.

I couldn't tell you which sites have ads and which ones don't.

The problem with ads is that they usually are based on cross-scripts, which are a significant security risk.

Who wants an ad that scans your system, sends information about you to a central repository in order to monitor your behavior, and then places an ad that slows down your browser as well?

Having said that, it does cost money to host a website (although not that much, these days). I do contribute to sites that include ads (from which I get no share), but their income is not really that significant from ads. Only huge websites make any significant amount of money from ads. That ship has sailed 5 to 10 years ago.

The difference is whether the content can be retrieved without scripts. I neither visit nor contribute to any project that requires a visitor to allow scripts to access content. (Ok, with limited exceptions like Ubuntu
Forums, where there aren't any ads anyway).

Folks, that practice is what allows script-based malware to intrude on the public's computers.

So if the website under discussion allows a visitor to choose whether to allow the scripts or to block them yet the content is still accessible even if the scripts are blocked, then it is a website from which the community can benefit.

If it only allows content to be viewed when scripts are allowed (so that the ads are visible) then it is a menace.

[NightwishFan]

Personally I think the site is great. All my questions have been answered so far and I am happy to help answer any questions I know. The interface is great, and the new theme looks amazing. :)

It does not replace the forums because it is a solid Q&A site.

[MisterGaribaldi]

@ OP:

Hardly. There's no way a paid-support system is going to replace an already-established free forum with the weight and respectability of this one.

[Naiki Muliaina]

Link and stuff

Thankyou for the link. I will have a read.

I am not against somebody making money off of Ubuntu. I long for the day industrious young fellows make good products for Linux. My negative opinion is simply something looking close to official when it is not official. Even a simple unofficial sig at the top of the page would remove most of my negative opinion towards it.

I do however need to read you linkage first, will help form a better opinion.

[KiwiNZ]

Ubuntuforums didn't have the "official" tag for a long time. In that period the forum theme resembled closely to the ubuntu.com theme.(Can some forum official please tell us exactly when ubuntuforums became totally "official")

Ubuntu Forums were awarded the Official title by Canonical in November 2004.
Canonical became the owners of the Forums in 2007.

[lovinglinux]

thankyou for the link. I will have a read.

I am not against somebody making money off of ubuntu. I long for the day industrious young fellows make good products for linux. My negative opinion is simply something looking close to official when it is not official. Even a simple unofficial sig at the top of the page would remove most of my negative opinion towards it.

I do however need to read you linkage first, will help form a better opinion.

+1

[phsmit]

Jeff Atwood (one of the owners) tweeted (http://twitter.com/#!/codinghorror/status/26956720810)


ubuntu 10.10 launched -- and ubuntu.se.com is now http://askubuntu.com with blessing of Canonical


So they have clearly an endorsement from Canonical

[Naiki Muliaina]

Jeff Atwood (one of the owners) tweeted (http://twitter.com/#!/codinghorror/status/26956720810)

So they have clearly an endorsement from Canonical

They are still a profit based company out to make money and not part of canonical, yet have a website so closely resembling canonicals at first look you could think they were a canonical website.

I haven't finished going through all the stuff on the links yet, but at the moment I still feel uneasy(?) without that distinction being clear on the AskUbuntu website.

[laceration]

This website is done by the same people who do http://stackoverflow.com/.

If I a have a programming problem and do a search on it and a stackoverflow link comes up, it will probably be the first link I click because I think its a great format.

If I a have a linux problem and do a search on it and an ubuntuforums link comes up, it will probably be the first link I click.

This new website looks splendid, even if it is derivative. http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk is another site that took its design cues from ubuntu. There aren't too many original designs anyways. Adapting a design that you share a common theme with and doing it competently is fine with me.

I don't see any ads there, so the op's fud seems unwarranted.

askubuntu.com probably will steal some thunder from ubuntuforums because it will be good.

[lovinglinux]

It is endorsed indeed. So, I'm fine with the theme now.

http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/434/what-is-stackexchange-is-askubuntu-officially-related-to-ubuntu-canonical

[MacUntu]

Why do I need 20 rep points to join the chat? Why do I need 50 rep points to comment on answers? Why do I need a Gravatar account to change the avatar? I find it difficult to quickly distinguish between answers and the Ubuntu font gives me a headache (would be easy to change on my end, though). Sorry, nothing for me.

[el_joni]

There's no way a paid-support system is going to replace an already-established free forum with the weight and respectability of this one.

It is not a paid service, as has been pointed out already in this thread.


They are still a profit based company out to make money and not part of canonical

Why fuss about a company being for-profit? That seems a tad ironical given that e.g. Canonical Ltd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_Ltd.) is for-profit. (I don't know if they are making profit currently, but that's what they are.) And before you point out how many FOSS projects Canonical sponsors, etc, yes, they're exceptional. The company behind askubuntu.com (Stack Overflow Internet Services) also happens to sponsor (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/stack-overflow-sponsors-haproxy/) some projects, but much more imporantly they provide quality services for free (which, among other things, help reduce our depency on traditional forum software (http://twitter.com/el_joni/status/24496056611)...).

I guess my point is, being for-profit doesn't automatically mean thoroughly evil.

[Naiki Muliaina]

Why fuss about a company being for-profit?

Read my posts. It is not just about the website being for profit.

[dv3500ea]

Why do I need 20 rep points to join the chat? Why do I need 50 rep points to comment on answers?

Because askubuntu is a demeritocracy. This actually works in favour of the community because high rep members can take moderation into their own hands.

Also, to anyone who is still worrying about askubuntu replacing ubuntuforums: don't. Askubuntu is better than the forums at Q+A (surprise surprise - that is what it was designed for) but it is much worse at troubleshooting. We are currently trying to figure out the best way to redirect people to the forums for these sorts of question. (see: http://meta.askubuntu.com/q/437/667)

Hopefully the forums, askubuntu and launchpad bugs can find ways to work together to best serve the community.

[badp]

Why do I need 20 rep points to join the chat? Why do I need 50 rep points to comment on answers?

Two reasons: setting a bar against spam and giving an incentive for positive contribution.

Anyway, reputation is completely optional - the core features are available to everybody without having to login. You don't even have to give your email address.

By the way, launchpad login is supported. Enter the following OpenID login:


launchpad.net/~your_username_here


Why do I need a Gravatar account to change the avatar?

Because gravatar gives you an avatar on many sites and blogs. Again, completely optional.

The idea of the StackExchange network is very UNIXy: do one thing and do it well. AskUbuntu doesn't do accounts (OpenID provides that), AskUbuntu doesn't do images (Gravatar and Imgur do that), AskUbuntu doesn't do private messages (use those forums for that).


the Ubuntu font gives me a headache

The font is mandated by the guidelines. You know where the launchpad project page is :)

[MacUntu]

This actually works in favour of the community
Well, it obviously doesn't if it scares users away. Also, I wouldn't call adding information to answers or joining a chat moderation or administration.

[lovinglinux]

Anyone experiencing rendering issues with Firefox 4.0b8pre?

It doesn't occur on all askubuntu pages, but when it happens is really annoying.

[badp]

Anyone experiencing rendering issues with Firefox 4.0b8pre?

It doesn't occur on all askubuntu pages, but when it happens is really annoying.

Have you tried notifying the designers about it (http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/ask?title=Problem+with+Firefox+rendering:+white+ba r+covers+questions&tags=bug+design)? I've filled in the title and tags for you. :)

[MacUntu]

--

[castrojo]

Well, it obviously doesn't if it scares users away. Also, I wouldn't call adding information to answers or joining a chat moderation or administration.

If you have more information to add to someone's answer, take their information, integrate it into your own answer, give them credit for the information, and bask in the glory of getting the reputation for putting together a better answer.

See here (http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/252/how-do-i-demote-my-own-answer-and-encourage-people-to-see-the-more-detailed-one) for more info and an example.

EDIT: The rep cap is there to help prevent junky "drive by" answers from cluttering the site. It can be frustrating at first (Even for existing ubuntu developers, there's no exception to the rules!) However if you concentrate on giving high quality answers (and asking good questions) the good stuff floats to the top and the system works.

[lovinglinux]

Arrrrrrgggggghhhh!

The site is driving me crazy. It keeps asking if I'm a human (captcha) even being logged in. I can't even post bug reports.

[cgroza]

Any way, I think people have a greater chance to get a solution here than there because UF has more users and members than askubuntu.

[badp]

It keeps asking if I'm a human (captcha) even being logged in.

Yes, that's by design. (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/1343/how-often-do-captchas-appear/2293#2293)

[lovinglinux]

Yes, that's by design. (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/1343/how-often-do-captchas-appear/2293#2293)

I though Canonical was against captcha because of usability issues.

Is really annoying. Now I want to post a bug report, but...


Oops! Your question couldn't be submitted because:

users with less than 125 reputation can only post questions every 20 minutes; try again later.

[jpeddicord]

Overall, I like it. I was skeptical about it for quite some time, but Jorge (whiprush) convinced me to try it at OLF a few weeks ago. It flows really well for support, and encourages everyone to contribute to questions and answers.

This may sound weird coming from a forum staffer, but I feel it captures support better than we do at the moment. However, some people prefer the forum feel over the Stack Exchange way of doing things, and that's where we excel.

And while it is commercially sponsored by Stack Overflow, I think they keep their hands off the site enough to keep the community in control.

[gintovan]

Meh, I personally hate sites like that with passion, so I'm not gonna use it. But I have no problem with it being there, I'm sure it will be useful to some.

[castrojo]

This may sound weird coming from a forum staffer, but I feel it captures support better than we do at the moment. However, some people prefer the forum feel over the Stack Exchange way of doing things, and that's where we excel.

I think both sites complement each other quite nicely. This was asked on meta before and there are a bunch of answers on the differences.

http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/234/why-this-over-the-ubuntu-forums

[el_joni]

I though Canonical was against captcha because of usability issues.

Askubuntu.com may be "blessed" by Canonical, to some extent, but it's not by Canonical.

You should check this out:
What is stackexchange? Is askubuntu officially related to Ubuntu/canonical? (http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/434/what-is-stackexchange-is-askubuntu-officially-related-to-ubuntu-canonical)

[Mr. Picklesworth]

I agree with your sentiment about free will, but you got the payment thing entirely wrong. Asking questions at askubuntu is free; answering questions is free. As badp pointed out, the content is also free, i.e., available under a CC license.

Which actually makes it more free than the forum ;)
Not that I have anything wrong with the forum's freeness, but the ability to grab the content in a neutral format is pretty cool. I didn't realize they did that!

I think it's pretty ugly that people are questioning whether the site is “community”-run and then, in the same breath, attacking it for being “unofficial” (not created by Ubuntu's benevolent corporate sponsor).

[Naiki Muliaina]

Askubuntu.com may be "blessed" by Canonical, to some extent, but it's not by Canonical.

You should check this out:
What is stackexchange? Is askubuntu officially related to Ubuntu/canonical? (http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/434/what-is-stackexchange-is-askubuntu-officially-related-to-ubuntu-canonical)

See that's why I feel there should be some sort of distinction made at the top of the site.


I find it strange that people are questioning whether the site is “community”-run and then, in the same breath, attacking it for being “unofficial” (not created by Ubuntu's benevolent corporate sponsor).

Its not being attacked, its being discussed ;)

[badp]

Which actually makes it more free than the forum ;)

Yeah, it's really surprising to discover you guys haven't picked a license for the forums... (not that I can see.)

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Its not being attacked, its being discussed ;)

Oops, you're right. My inner voice is out of tune today. Carry on, then!

[Naiki Muliaina]

Oops, you're right. My inner voice is out of tune today. Carry on, then!

I normally pepper my posts with smileys to try to convey 'I am not being stroppy'. I seem to have left my smileometer in bed today though. Pardon me :)

[badp]

Before some of you "finds out", calls "conspiracy" or something:

For the reasons of practicality Jeff explains in this blog post (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/05/giving-up-on-microsoft.html), AskUbuntu currently runs on a Microsoft stack (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/09/what-was-stack-overflow-built-with/) -- Windows Server, ASP.NET, C#, MS SQL Server. (http://twitter.com/#!/codinghorror/status/26534088986)

Ideas are worthless without execution (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/01/cultivate-teams-not-ideas.html) and since the site founders happened to know .NET best they chose it to provide the best execution they could possibly provide.

Related discussion (http://chat.askubuntu.com/rooms/3/conversation/yes-askubuntu-runs-on-a-microsoft-stack)

Flame on. :-\"

[Naiki Muliaina]

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ3wgBIb2iw4vYwUhISz_7zEr6nLakzV l08LEDax52CX2KEuws&t=1&usg=__KYINRpJ9CWwLk7VgKuC_PRU4ysE=

[MacUntu]

I find it difficult to quickly distinguish between answers and the Ubuntu font gives me a headache

Using this custom style sheet pretty much fixed it:


a, p, h2, span, .user-info, .question-summary, .comment-text, #system-message {
font-family: sans-serif!important;
}

.answer {
border-bottom-width: 0px!important;
border-top-color: #cccccc!important;
border-top-width: 5px!important;
}

[jpeddicord]

Which actually makes it more free than the forum ;)
Not that I have anything wrong with the forum's freeness, but the ability to grab the content in a neutral format is pretty cool. I didn't realize they did that!

I like that as well -- no one can really say that the data is kept hostage as it can be pulled off of the site when needed. The stack overflow folks are really doing all the right things with the site.

FWIW, we're CC-BY-licensed as well. See the bottom of the forum CoC.

[TheNerdAL]

I asked a question on the site and I got a good answer really quick. I like it. :D

[ibuclaw]

I see the Stack Overflow guys ended up not merging Ubuntu with the Unix forums on their site then...

[lovinglinux]

I asked a question on the site and I got a good answer really quick. I like it. :D

I must admit I'm liking it too. I got a quick good answer to a question that was left unanswered here in the forums even after bumping it and posting again after a few a months.

The only thing I don't like is the Captcha, which fails most of the time and is driving me crazy.

[rcartaino]

"askubuntu.com" looks like a blantant ripoff/knockoff of the forum.

Askubuntu.com looks like the Ubuntu forums because it was designed by Mat Tomaszewski (MT) who is one of Canonical's User and Experience design folks. They specifically followed their own brand guideline.

[Marco Ceppi]

For those ready to scream that it's not a free opensource solution - you'd need to look at your own forum software too. vBulletin is not a FREE solution. http://www.vbulletin.com/ Someone is shelling out money each year for a license. A great thing about AskUbuntu is no community member (or Canonical) has to pay for the platform - it's a part of StackOverflow's business model to provide these communities and maintain the codebase and server behind them. Money that goes for the vBulletin license does not go anywhere near FOSS projects. However, it does provide you with the tools to make Ubuntu great. Just like AskUbuntu is another tool to make Ubuntu great.

I made a similar comparison earlier but:

StackOverflow is to AskUbuntu as Canonical is to Ubuntu.

StackOverflow, Inc. governs the platform and puts the man hours into maintaining the site. However, the community members of AskUbuntu (like myself - one of the community appointed moderators) keeps the site alive by trimming, improving, moderating, and participating. Issues with the sites and feature requests are provided to StackOverflow, Inc whom typically turn around the changes quite quickly to keep the community going.

[papangul]

I think it's pretty ugly that people are questioning whether the site is “community”-run and then, in the same breath, attacking it for being “unofficial” (not created by Ubuntu's benevolent corporate sponsor).
I changed my signature a bit after reading this.:twisted:

[Marco Ceppi]

Jeff Atwood just posted this about AskUbuntu on the StackOverflow blog:

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/ubuntu-stack-exchange-is-askubuntu-com/

[trampster]

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/ubuntu-stack-exchange-is-askubuntu-com/

This points out that AskUbuntu is in partnership with Canonical. So we can stop arguing about the theme.

It is not a paid service as people keep on saying. It is free to use, the questions and answers are made available under the Creative Commons.

It is a very good platform for asking questions and finding answers. Much better then a forum. The best answer to a question is always first in the list.

It is not a platform for discussion. Such questions are closed very quickly.

[lovinglinux]

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/ubuntu-stack-exchange-is-askubuntu-com/

This points out that AskUbuntu is in partnership with Canonical. So we can stop arguing about the theme.

Nobody is arguing about the anymore. It is already clear that is authorized by Canonical.

[macewan]

Competition is good.

[Oxwivi]

What stupid and useless venture when there's already an official QA site up.

[lovinglinux]

What stupid and useless venture when there's already an official QA site up.

Have you tried it? I guess not.

I don't use Launchpad for Q&A, but I'm using askubuntu everyday now and like it a lot (except for the captcha that drives me crazy).

[mainerror]

People have free will. They can choose to use a pay-for service which may or may not be better than a free alternative. Most askubuntu users probably know that Ubuntu Forums exists. If they want to go elsewhere, more power to them. The creators of the website are not evil, nor are they being monopolistic, they are simply being capitalistic. They also have no obligation to give any money back.

Ubuntu Forums is one of the most frequented Linux forums on the web. We have nothing to fear from askubuntu.com. In fact, some of the askubuntu members direct people here. Take this post for example: http://askubuntu.com/questions/5433 Note that the highest ranked answer sends the asker to this site.

If people want to pay to ask questions about a free operating system, that's fine. In many ways, it's little different from someone going around selling Ubuntu LiveCDs for $20 a piece and pocketing the profit. I don't think that's so bad.

I'd just like to point something out. It seems you got that completely wrong. No stackexchange site is a paid service. It is a completely free platform trying to provide a place to ask questions and get a response to your question. The owners get a revenue from the advertisements on their pages which is totally OK. They have to somehow pay their servers.

@OP: When they said community driven they meant that the whole site is moderated by their community. When you answer a question and it is of use then you get a reward in form of points. These points will unlock certain functionalities like editing posts, voting to lock, delete posts and more. So if you participate and contribute to the community then you will be able to help. Hence community driven.

I'm a regular user of StackOverflow which helped me quite often with my projects. I don't see anything wrong in having a Q&A site for ubuntu too. It will only get you answers to your problems more quickly without having forum trolls around or random people debating about something completely different. It simply focuses on problem solving.

[ade234uk]

Lets rewind 12 years shall we. If you had a problem with a piece of hardware not working with your distro, it would take you hours if not days to sort the problem out. That would be after going through dozens and dozens of pages of gobbledygook each with a different answer.

Those where the days when most people gave up on Linux after a few days.

Those where they days when you just wished Linux would become more popular and you wished everything worked out the box.

Lets move forward 12 years to today. You need an answer, you can get it straight away, and 9 times out of 10 the solution works.
Most of your hardware is found and everything works out the box.

And as regards site like this, well it all helps to make Ubuntu more popular and get more people using Linux which is a big plus in my eyes and the more help newbies can get the better.

[lovinglinux]

@OP: When they said community driven they meant that the whole site is moderated by their community. When you answer a question and it is of use then you get a reward in form of points. These points will unlock certain functionalities like editing posts, voting to lock, delete posts and more. So if you participate and contribute to the community then you will be able to help. Hence community driven.

I'm a regular user of StackOverflow which helped me quite often with my projects. I don't see anything wrong in having a Q&A site for ubuntu too. It will only get you answers to your problems more quickly without having forum trolls around or random people debating about something completely different. It simply focuses on problem solving.

I just got a -1 vote on a question that I have posted along with the answer (http://askubuntu.com/questions/6462/where-is-the-statusbar-in-firefox-4-how-do-i-get-it-back), which I believe will be very useful for Firefox 4 users. Is that normal on such community? I don't have many questions to ask, so I'm trying to be proactive.

[ibuclaw]

I just got a -1 vote on a question that I have posted along with the answer (http://askubuntu.com/questions/6462/where-is-the-statusbar-in-firefox-4-how-do-i-get-it-back), which I believe will be very useful for Firefox 4 users. Is that normal on such community? I don't have many questions to ask, so I'm trying to be proactive.

Hmm... I'm starting to see askubuntu as a web version of #ubuntu on IRC...

[lovinglinux]

Hmm... I'm starting to see askubuntu as a web version of #ubuntu on IRC...

Why?

BTW, my question was closed! :lol:

[mainerror]

You can read the reason for this in the closing comment. This is no question about Ubuntu. You should have posted this question on http://superuser.com

[lovinglinux]

You can read the reason for this in the closing comment. This is no question about Ubuntu. You should have posted this question on http://superuser.com

I know. I have read that, I was just making a comment. I don't see why is not related to Ubuntu. That sort of question is posted here all the time. But I'm not here to debate the reasons of the moderation on another site. Besides, I'm sure that question will be asked again by someone else.

[ibuclaw]

Why?

This:

You can read the reason for this in the closing comment. This is no question about Ubuntu. You should have posted this question on http://superuser.com

For those that have been in #ubuntu or give support there know that it is a 'basic' support channel. Anything outside the scope of just using Ubuntu tends to be frowned upon there. I've even seen one user booted from the channel because he asked a question about a problem he was having with a custom kernel. OK - he kicked off a bit beforehand, but was pushed rather provocatively. ;)

[lovinglinux]

For those that have been in #ubuntu or give support there know that it is a 'basic' support channel. Anything outside the scope of just using Ubuntu tends to be frowned upon there. I've even seen one user booted from the channel because he asked a question about a problem he was having with a custom kernel. OK - he kicked off a bit beforehand, but was pushed rather provocatively. ;)

Let's hope not, otherwise I'm screwed, since what I like the most is to give support for Ubuntu Firefox users.

I'm already coding a Firefox extension to get data from askubuntu.com :)

[mainerror]

Then you have to register to superuser.com and answer Firefox questions there. ;)

Firefox != Ubuntu.

[papangul]

In my opinion, askubuntu should allow questions related to any software that can be run on ubuntu(except windows programs run on wine). It will be assumed that the person asking the question runs that software on ubuntu.

[ibuclaw]

Let's hope not, otherwise I'm screwed, since what I like the most is to give support for Ubuntu Firefox users.

Well, you'll be glad to know that there's no (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2624729#post2624729) such (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6954008#post6954008) thing (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8508341#post8508341) as (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1846311#post1846311) a (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8826759#post8826759) dumb (http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9573555#post9573555) question (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2316500#post2316500) here. :)

I'm already coding a Firefox extension to get data from askubuntu.com :)
Wicked!

[NightwishFan]

Well, you'll be glad to know that there's no (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2624729#post2624729) such (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6954008#post6954008) thing (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8508341#post8508341) as (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1846311#post1846311) a (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8826759#post8826759) dumb (http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9573555#post9573555) question (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2316500#post2316500) here. :)

Wicked!

Nice links. :)

[lovinglinux]

Wicked!

The extension is already working, but I want to add more features before releasing it. I should have the first version ready probably today or tomorrow.

Features:


easy access to unanswered questions and other data
option to alert when new questions are available
option to control the frequency of new questions checking
option to control the number of questions displayed in the menu
option to display user reputation and badges


The extension button is the one on the far left. It is currently showing my reputation and number of bronze badges, along with unanswered questions in the popup menu.

http://goo.gl/s2mZ

[mainerror]

In my opinion, askubuntu should allow questions related to any software that can be run on ubuntu(except windows programs run on wine). It will be assumed that the person asking the question runs that software on ubuntu.

His question was not related to Ubuntu in any way. Questions related to Ubuntu and software in conjunction with Ubuntu is endorsed.

He has asked a question only related to Firefox and it was the wrong place. It is like going to your local computer shop to buy some meat. You ain't gonna get it there. Same applies to a Q&A site network which has a specialized site for different types of questions.

[jpeddicord]

The extension is already working, but I want to add more features before releasing it. I should have the first version ready probably today or tomorrow.

Features:


easy access to unanswered questions and other data
option to alert when new questions are available
option to control the frequency of new questions checking
option to control the number of questions displayed in the menu
option to display user reputation and badges


The extension button is the one on the far left. It is currently showing my reputation and number of bronze badges, along with unanswered questions in the popup menu.

http://goo.gl/s2mZ

Sleek. You should post this on meta.askubuntu, if you haven't already.

[Marco Ceppi]

I know. I have read that, I was just making a comment. I don't see why is not related to Ubuntu. That sort of question is posted here all the time. But I'm not here to debate the reasons of the moderation on another site. Besides, I'm sure that question will be asked again by someone else.


We're accepting questions about software packages - but only if the content is related to edits/modifications that were made by Ubuntu - not the upstream. Removal of the status bar was something performed by the upstream not the Ubuntu team.

[lovinglinux]

His question was not related to Ubuntu in any way. Questions related to Ubuntu and software in conjunction with Ubuntu is endorsed.

In my opinion, any question regarding applications installed with Ubuntu by default should be allowed. The case under discussion is a particular one, because I wasn't an user asking for help, but I was sharing something I thought would be useful. But lets say an Ubuntu novice who just installed a new Ubuntu version shipped with Firefox 4, finds that some of his extensions buttons are no longer showing because there is no statusbar. What are you gonna do, redirect him/she to superuser.com?

I don't think so. I consider this counter-productive and annoying, because I want to get all my support on the same place, where I can click my profile and get the list of all my questions, comments, answers and so on. Is not the same as asking the user to post in the Multimedia sub-forum or moving the thread to it. You are forcing the user to switch sites, make an additional registration, manage multiple profiles an track two different sets of user data. Doing that just because the question is regarding a particular feature of an application, not necessarily not dependent on the Ubuntu platform, but installed by default, is unfriendly in my opinion.


He has asked a question only related to Firefox and it was the wrong place. It is like going to your local computer shop to buy some meat. You ain't gonna get it there. Same applies to a Q&A site network which has a specialized site for different types of questions.

Your analogy doesn't make any sense. It could be true if I was asking how to wash my T-shirts without damaging the fabric.

[Marco Ceppi]

Awesome plugin too! There is also an Indicator applet out there for those users not using Firefox: https://launchpad.net/stackapplet

[lovinglinux]

Sleek. You should post this on meta.askubuntu, if you haven't already.

Thanks. I have implemented user tags now, but is not ready for release yet. I will post on meta.askubuntu as soon as I upload the first version. I guess I can't post it on askubuntu :)

[rajeev1204]

Ubuntu needs to revise their design guidelines unless they are a charitable organization happy with others feeding off their branding .But thats canonical's problem really not ours.

As others have mentioned here before, it looks like an official support site and although canonical maybe ok with it, in other circles or businesses this is downright illegal .

Also, you dont need to frame guidelines to prove someone is feeding off your branding .Just putting a line ' all trademarks acknowledged' doesnt do squat .It is still illegal.

I dont want to give anyone copyright lessons here, but in most democratic countries, the creator of the content is the moral owner and once proved beyond doubt also the legal owner without even filing for a copyright .If canonical (for example i mean ) goes to court, they dont even need a lawyer to argue this case.Its that simple.

Look at the bottom of the page , site design / logo © 2010 stack overflow internet services, inc .Nonsense.

"The laws are quite simple ,Its the men in shiny suits who make it complicated" - myself.

[cpmman]

I'm using askubuntu everyday now and like it a lot (except for the captcha that drives me crazy).

It has often occurred to me that a test for sobriety might improve some of the forum posts I see. Perhaps this is a simple method - not perfect but a start. Post in haste and regret at leisure.

I am an enthusiastic user of some of your elegant extensions and askubuntu's decision in this matter is arbitrary.

"Doing that just because the question is regarding a particular feature of an application, not necessarily not dependent on the Ubuntu platform, but installed by default, is unfriendly in my opinion." - Agreed.

[mainerror]

In my opinion, any question regarding applications installed with Ubuntu by default should be allowed. The case under discussion is a particular one, because I wasn't an user asking for help, but I was sharing something I thought would be useful. But lets say an Ubuntu novice who just installed a new Ubuntu version shipped with Firefox 4, finds that some of his extensions buttons are no longer showing because there is no statusbar. What are you gonna do, redirect him/she to superuser.com?

I don't think so. I consider this counter-productive and annoying, because I want to get all my support on the same place, where I can click my profile and get the list of all my questions, comments, answers and so on. Is not the same as asking the user to post in the Multimedia sub-forum or moving the thread to it. You are forcing the user to switch sites, make an additional registration, manage multiple profiles an track two different sets of user data. Doing that just because the question is regarding a particular feature of an application, not necessarily not dependent on the Ubuntu platform, but installed by default, is unfriendly in my opinion.

You really really have to start learning the stackexchange principle before you start arguing about how hard it'd be to track multiple accounts for different sites. It is a site-network where you have only one account for every sub-site. On the top left of all stackexchange sites you have a information dropdown button called "StackExchange". This button indicates answers to your questions and comments to your answers and so on across all sites.

So yes it makes perfectly sense to redirect a user to the right section/sub-site when the question is not about the main Q&A topic. The exact same answer would be valid for the Windows version of the Firefox 4 beta. So if there would be a Windows stackexchange sub-site would you say it is ok to duplicate your question for Windows too if it is the exact same thing because it is not OS related? Such a redundancy is not OK fro good reasons.

[lovinglinux]

You really really have to start learning the stackexchange principle before you start arguing about how hard it'd be to track multiple accounts for different sites. It is a site-network where you have only one account for every sub-site. On the top left of all stackexchange sites you have a information dropdown button called "StackExchange". This button indicates answers to your questions and comments to your answers and so on across all sites.

So yes it makes perfectly sense to redirect a user to the right section/sub-site when the question is not about the main Q&A topic. The exact same answer would be valid for the Windows version of the Firefox 4 beta. So if there would be a Windows stackexchange sub-site would you say it is ok to duplicate your question for Windows too if it is the exact same thing because it is not OS related? Such a redundancy is not OK fro good reasons.

Before continuing with this discussion, let me be clear that I'm enjoying the site a lot. I haven't used it much in the last couple of days because my new extension development is taking more time than I expected. Anyway, I really like the site design, the features and everything else. I even wish Mozilla had a dedicated Stack Exchange site for add-ons development and Firefox support. I would use them a lot, since both corresponding sites at Mozilla are painful to use. Nevertheless, I still believe forcing the user to post again on a sub-site is not good.

I have registered on stackoverflow and superuser yesterday. When I did that I realized the accounts are somewhat integrated and the Open ID process of logging in make it almost painless. Nevertheless, it is still inconvenient to be forced to re-post on a different sub-site. Although the Stack Exchange menu does inform you about new activity on multiple sites, there is no centralized user control panel and it keeps alerting me about messages with no new activity. The same applies to alerts on my username icon. I currently have accounts for askubuntu, meta.askubuntu, stackoverflow, superuser and stackpps. I don't picture me using superuser very much, but I will use askubuntu a lot and I wish I could post about Firfefox features exclusively there. As long as a question is not totally unrelated to the sub-site, I think that should be the user choice. For that matter, I still believe any Firefox question is suitable for askubuntu, as long it doesn't involve another OS.

I must admit that when you consider redundancy, then it makes sense to redirect the user. But it is somewhat unfriendly, specially considering that askubuntu is not a regular Stack Exchange Q&A site. An Ubuntu user that reaches that site would expect to get support for anything related to his OS there and not be censored and redirected to another site, which has nothing to do with Ubuntu. This is particularly important, considering the site looks a lot like an official one and have Canonical "blessing".

[mainerror]

Before continuing with this discussion, let me be clear that I'm enjoying the site a lot. I haven't used it much in the last couple of days because my new extension development is taking more time than I expected. Anyway, I really like the site design, the features and everything else. I even wish Mozilla had a dedicated Stack Exchange site for add-ons development and Firefox support. I would use them a lot, since both corresponding sites at Mozilla are painful to use. Nevertheless, I still believe forcing the user to post again on a sub-site is not good.

I have registered on stackoverflow and superuser yesterday. When I did that I realized the accounts are somewhat integrated and the Open ID process of logging in make it almost painless. Nevertheless, it is still inconvenient to be forced to re-post on a different sub-site. Although the Stack Exchange menu does inform you about new activity on multiple sites, there is no centralized user control panel and it keeps alerting me about messages with no new activity. The same applies to alerts on my username icon. I currently have accounts for askubuntu, meta.askubuntu, stackoverflow, superuser and stackpps. I don't picture me using superuser very much, but I will use askubuntu a lot and I wish I could post about Firfefox features exclusively there. As long as a question is not totally unrelated to the sub-site, I think that should be the user choice. For that matter, I still believe any Firefox question is suitable for askubuntu, as long it doesn't involve another OS.

I must admit that when you consider redundancy, then it makes sense to redirect the user. But it is somewhat unfriendly, specially considering that askubuntu is not a regular Stack Exchange Q&A site. An Ubuntu user that reaches that site would expect to get support for anything related to his OS there and not be censored and redirected to another site, which has nothing to do with Ubuntu. This is particularly important, considering the site looks a lot like an official one and have Canonical "blessing".

Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to convince you to like anything. ;)

I'm just trying to get some things clear. I'm kind of with you regarding the question if it is unfriendly to down-vote new users especially without providing a comment on why the question got down-voted but still there is a FAQ page with very interesting content. Let me quote the interesting part.


What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking subjective or argumentative questions. If you must ask a subjective question, make sure it meets the six guidelines for great subjective questions, or it will be closed.

If you want to talk about the site itself, please don't do it here. Visit our meta-discussion site where you can talk about things like what questions are appropriate, what tags we should use, suggest a feature, or generally discuss how Ubuntu - Stack Exchange works.

If your question is about …

Programming, ask on Stack Overflow.
Networking, servers, or maintaining other people's PCs and contains no source code, ask on Server Fault.
General computer software or hardware troubleshooting, ask on Super User.
Web design and HTML/CSS layout, and your job title is "designer", ask on Doctype.
(from http://askubuntu.com/faq)

Now if it is about software only or to be more precise if it is about software functions which are the same on every other operating system then it really should be posted on SuperUser.com.

And to to get another thing right. askubuntu.com was and still is a regular stackexchange site. There is absolutely nothing special about it except that the designers maybe got Canonicals permission to copy parts of the design. This site was proposed on area51.stackexchange.com made it through the definition, commitment and beta-testing phase like any other stackexchange site.

Maybe you are interested in pushing this project http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/22177/internet-browsers
;)

[lovinglinux]

Maybe you are interested in pushing this project http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/22177/internet-browsers
;)

Interesting.

Here is my first proposal:

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/22767/mozilla-applications

Please vote :)

[ctyc]

don't sweat it bro, just keep using this site.

[papangul]

<joke>Here is my proposal: Open a stackexchange "Reception" site for resolving the issue about where to post the the question first.

Or stackexchange should appoint a traffic police force to redirect people to the proper site.</joke>

Seriously, a question might have already been asked on ubuntuforums or launchpad or linuxquestions, etc, nobody cares about that, what is the big deal if a question regarding firefox's interface is duplicated on a stackexchange windows site?

[mainerror]

<joke>Here is my proposal: Open a stackexchange "Reception" site for resolving the issue about where to post the the question first.

Or stackexchange should appoint a traffic police force to redirect people to the proper site.</joke>

There is it's called FAQ pages. ;)



Seriously, a question might have already been asked on ubuntuforums or launchpad or linuxquestions, etc, nobody cares about that, what is the big deal if a question regarding firefox's interface is duplicated on a stackexchange windows site?

Well if everyone would put it that way then what is the point in having different sites for different problems? You could then simply have a Q&A site where you could ask whatever you want and eventually you'll end up having a kind of forum only not that bloated.

[lovinglinux]

I don't want to be a pita, but I want to understand why such a question like this (http://askubuntu.com/questions/7840), which is totally subjective and has nothing to do with Ubuntu directly can stay on the site while a Firefox feature question can't? If the logic applied to close my question was applied to this one, it should be closed too and the poster should be asked to post it on unix.stackexchange.com.

BTW, it looks to me that such question would be better placed in the forum Community Cafe.

[castrojo]

I don't want to be a pita, but I want to understand why such a question like this (http://askubuntu.com/questions/7840), which is totally subjective and has nothing to do with Ubuntu directly can stay on the site while a Firefox feature question can't?

Once you get enough rep you can vote to close the question. I agree with you, I've voted to close it. (Questions need 4 votes to close or a moderator to close it)

[lovinglinux]

Once you get enough rep you can vote to close the question. I agree with you, I've voted to close it. (Questions need 4 votes to close or a moderator to close it)

Thanks for the info. I guess I need to stop complaining and read the freaking FAQ :)

I will have some spare time now that I finished my AskUbuntu extension (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1598882).

Please let me know what you think about it.

Support thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1598882
Home page: http://askubuntu-extension.blogspot.com
GitHub downloads: http://github.com/lovinglinux/askubuntu/downloads
Mozilla page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/242568/

Enjoy!

http://goo.gl/x3Pu

[mainerror]

I don't want to be a pita, but I want to understand why such a question like this (http://askubuntu.com/questions/7840), which is totally subjective and has nothing to do with Ubuntu directly can stay on the site while a Firefox feature question can't? If the logic applied to close my question was applied to this one, it should be closed too and the poster should be asked to post it on unix.stackexchange.com.

BTW, it looks to me that such question would be better placed in the forum Community Cafe.

I totally agree.

FYI you can flag questions for moderators attention. I did that right now.

[stefanlasiewski]

Is that normal on such community? I don't have many questions to ask, so I'm trying to be proactive.

The SO community tries to keep things strictly organized. But the question about "What is appropriate for SuperUser or ServerFault or AskUbuntu.com?" is a constant and ongoing question. AskUbuntu is one of the newer sites, and so we're still working on what's appropriate there.

I would like to point out that you got 453 (http://askubuntu.com/users/2950?tab=reputationhistory) reputation in about a week, which is pretty darn good. In fact, you're one of the top users of the site (http://stackexchange.com/leagues/31/month/askubuntu) this week.

For those of you who are interested in asking questions for Unix/Linux/FreeBSD (any Unix, not just Ubuntu. We take everything that AskUbuntu doesn't want :), check us out at http://unix.stackexchange.com/ .

-= Stefan

[lovinglinux]

I would like to point out that you got 453 (http://askubuntu.com/users/2950?tab=reputationhistory) reputation in about a week, which is pretty darn good. In fact, you're one of the top users of the site (http://stackexchange.com/leagues/31/month/askubuntu) this week.

That is weird, because I haven't replied much and my replies doesn't seem to be very popular :)

I guess I earned that reputation because I had to register on various SO sites.

[mainerror]

That is weird, because I haven't replied much and my replies doesn't seem to be very popular :)

I guess I earned that reputation because I had to register on various SO sites.

You get 100 rep on every new SE site you register to when you have more than s/correctNumber/?/ registrations to different SE sites.

[lovinglinux]

You get 100 rep on every new SE site you register to when you have more than s/correctNumber/?/ registrations to different SE sites.

That's it. I have registered at supersuser, stackoverflow, area51 and stackapps, not to mention 2 metas.

[noctrine]

You only get that reputation bonus once, and only for having over a specific reputation on one of the other sites (I believe 200) you earned that reputation fair and square.

You can see your reputation breakdown here: http://askubuntu.com/users/2950?tab=reputationhistory

[lovinglinux]

You only get that reputation bonus once, and only for having over a specific reputation on one of the other sites (I believe 200) you earned that reputation fair and square.

You can see your reputation breakdown here: http://askubuntu.com/users/2950?tab=reputationhistory

Indeed :)

[mainerror]

You only get that reputation bonus once, and only for having over a specific reputation on one of the other sites (I believe 200) you earned that reputation fair and square.

You can see your reputation breakdown here: http://askubuntu.com/users/2950?tab=reputationhistory

Once on every new SE site your are registering to.