Forum Archive Decision

[Joeb454]

As the discussion in this thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1721627) lead to almost a 10-1 vote against closing the archives the Forum Council, along with the staff team, have decided that we will not be removing the archives as previously planned.

This isn't to say that they will remain here indefinitely - as was stated in the above thread, some of the content could (and should) be migrated to the wiki.

We will undoubtedly be looking to shrink the archives in future, as the database for this forum is considerable in size and we will look to trim it down wherever possible to improve both performance and maintainability. When this time comes, I expect that it will be approached in a different manner to the way it was approached this time.

Thank you all for your input on the matter, it was greatly appreciated.

[Thewhistlingwind]

I still say that the best method would be temporary distribution by torrent for interested mirrors, then removal of whatever is deemed unnecessary.

EDIT: When the time comes, of course.

[earthpigg]

This isn't to say that they will remain here indefinitely - as was stated in the above thread, some of the content could (and should) be migrated to the wiki.

is there a process (or has a discussion about creating one occurred) by witch content of a thread is -

1) forum members can hit a button, to nominate for inclusion in the wiki
2) volunteer verifies information to be accurate
3) folks go along and format the content for the wiki

?

here is what i currently see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/Wiki/Tasks/Forum/import

so, i suppose all we need is a 'nominate' button on the forum... and i'd suggest making users agree to a copyleft license ahead of time rather than retro-actively seek permission.

in fact, i think i'm going to ponder adding a WTFPL tag to my sig :)

edit: got a 500 error when logging into wiki. hrm. e-mailed it to webmaster.

[earthpigg]

why does the ubuntu wiki deviate from established wiki norms by so much?

no 'article of the day/month/whatever', no 'random article', nothing that encourages exploring the information available, no friendly 'edit' button that doesn't require creating yet another login (it isn't integrated with ubuntuforums.org logins, but we are trying to encourage ubuntuforums.org users to help teh migration process?).

i hestitate to say it, but the only real way to navigate around the ubuntu wiki seems to be by putting "ubuntu wiki" in a google search.

blek.

[earthpigg]

if all i had to do was hit 'random article' or 'most popular articles' and look for copy-editing errors, typos, or obsolete information to update with a friendly 'edit' button after logging in, i'd probably be on it.

ya know what, disregard all of my above criticism of the wiki. we all know it to be a weak area, but this thread isn't the right place for that discussion.

what is the appropriate venue to discuss the wiki, and improvements thereof?

(please don't let it be a bug report form or a 1993-style mailing list...)

EDIT: here, i'll toss out a positive suggestion that is relevant to this thread :)

To address the initial concerns that brought the 'remove archive from public view' discussion to light. What if, for threads created over X years/months ago, a disclaimer/warning was automatically displayed.


Notice: This thread was created over X years ago, when Ubuntu __.__ was the most current release. The information below may be out of date or obsolete.

[Dry Lips]

As the discussion in this thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1721627) lead to almost a 10-1 vote against closing the archives the Forum Council, along with the staff team, have decided that we will not be removing the archives as previously planned.

This isn't to say that they will remain here indefinitely - as was stated in the above thread, some of the content could (and should) be migrated to the wiki.

We will undoubtedly looking to shrink the archives in future, as the database for this forum is considerable in size and we will look to trim it down wherever possible to improve both performance and maintainability. When this time comes, I expect that it will be approached in a different manner to the way it was approached this time.

Thank you all for your input on the matter, it was greatly appreciated.
I definitively agree that even if you decide to keep the archives, the wiki and the community documentation should receive more attention from now on!

[unknownPoster]

I know it doesn't matter now, but the Ubuntu Wiki is a failure in comparison to other wikis such as Arch or Gentoo. Perhaps the eventual closing of the archives will lead to the improvement of the Ubuntu Wiki.

[earthpigg]

edit: redacted, to allow this thread to continue on-topic. new thread on the ubuntu wiki here. (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1732139)

[earthpigg]

EDIT: below put in quotes. Discuss this here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1732139) if it interests you, allow this thread to continue on-topic.


how hard would it be to simply redo the ubuntu wiki as an unofficial thing?

-grab the whole arch wiki.

-re-post it as an unofficial pre-alpha-quality alternative ubuntu wiki.

-put a 'this hasn't been translated yet, and shouldn't be referenced by non-technical users' banner on every article.

-solicit volunteers to systematically begin going through and translate from arch-speak into ubuntu-speak, nixing entire articles that simply do not apply, changing package names where needed, et cetera. this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold) being the operative guidance. once that has been done to any given article, and a few folks have vetted/verified this, the above banner goes away.

-import articles from the ubuntu wiki and ubuntuforums.org as appropriate.

-in a nutshell, fork the arch wiki so it may end up being as useful to ubuntu users that have never used Arch.

edit: proof of concept (http://editthis.info/earthpigs_playground/SSH)

[stmiller]

I know it doesn't matter now, but the Ubuntu Wiki is a failure in comparison to other wikis such as Arch or Gentoo. Perhaps the eventual closing of the archives will lead to the improvement of the Ubuntu Wiki.

++

[themarker0]

Why not merge that data out of the database, and turn it into static pages? That way it puts very little stress on the server, and it takes no SQL queries.

[ikt]

Why not merge that data out of the database, and turn it into static pages? That way it puts very little stress on the server, and it takes no SQL queries.

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=298&daysprune=-1&order=desc&sort=replycount

Is there any noticeable performance impact from having such giganto-freakin huge threads?

Most forums I know of have a limit of around 200 pages before they open up a 'part 2' thread, and some of the bigger threads in that forum would be up to part 100 by now. (like this: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1666322)

[elico]

i think that one of main problems is that if i will try to search for something i wont find it.
so w wiki with a good search\wiki+forums search will be very helpful.

if there is an option to make an offline version of the forums any archive like on on another server it can be very nice.

[bodhi.zazen]

As I said in the other discussion thread on this topic, the community needs to understand that the forums has a huge database and there may come a time when we can no longer support the archives.

Going through literally gigabytes of text is a huge task and will require community participation.

I again strongly urge the forums community to become more active with the wiki.

As far as the complaints with the Ubuntu wiki, I would remind you, as with other communities, the wiki is what we make of it.

So if the wiki is not to your liking -> don't complain here, get involved and use it / update it

[TechZilla]

Yes mirroring would be a great comprimise, if they have to go. They do sometimes help me with software that is not current, as of 2011.

[searchfgold6789]

I agree, at the vary least the archives should be filtered through and it should be determined what information should be kept and used and what information shouldn't, and it should be a community effort!

[mcandre]

Thank goodness!

I can't count how many times I Googled an Ubuntu problem and the forums came to the rescue. If the archives are deleted, resolving dependency conflicts, performing GUI actions with terminal commands, and debugging Mac hardware problems will become difficult to impossible.

[racie]

1) forum members can hit a button, to nominate for inclusion in the wiki
2) volunteer verifies information to be accurate
3) folks go along and format the content for the wiki

?

so, i suppose all we need is a 'nominate' button on the forum...

I think this is a terrific idea. Once most of the useful info is transferred to the wiki, I'd have no problem getting rid of the archives.

[poodoopealeoaph]

sorry that the idea of the wiki didn't come into play the last time that the issue was put up. I would say that, as long as the wiki of the information would be available, I would say that you should get rid of the archives.... I thought that getting rid of the archives would mean getting rid of the information all together but now that I realize your intentions, I would say that the archives should be no more! I would much rather read a wiki than to be through with ubuntuforums any day!!

[poodoopealeoaph]

As I said in the other discussion thread on this topic, the community needs to understand that the forums has a huge database and there may come a time when we can no longer support the archives.

Going through literally gigabytes of text is a huge task and will require community participation.

I again strongly urge the forums community to become more active with the wiki.

As far as the complaints with the Ubuntu wiki, I would remind you, as with other communities, the wiki is what we make of it.

So if the wiki is not to your liking -> don't complain here, get involved and use it / update it

wise words indeed! if you know the cure to a common bug you should just put it in the wiki and stop just making post after post about it! we all need to realize that we need to conserve on how much we post and make new threads because the servers that run this website are not indefinite! we need to conserve just like we need to with fossil fuels!

we should have a worldbuntu day! this would constitute that we have a day where no one drives anywhere or buys any gas and we all take a day off of posting on Ubuntuforums so we don't ruin the great things on the world!!!

[rifter]

I know it won't help the space problem but wouldn't moving the archives to another database help the performance issues? The devil might be in the details of the forum software or database.

Mirrors sound like a good solution and I think the idea of at least migrating the stuff to the wiki at least means the data will not get lost. I know I end up using info from archived threads a lot. Some questions are just very infrequent and then again if things are already answered in an archived thread it's better to get the answer there than start a new thread.

I look forward to seeing how this gets resolved. This forum is an invaluable resource for a lot of people.

[rifter]

Why not merge that data out of the database, and turn it into static pages? That way it puts very little stress on the server, and it takes no SQL queries.

That sounds like an excellent idea to me. After all by definition an archived thread is not going to be getting any new updates, so static pages are more than fine.

[kansasnoob]

Would it be possible to separate the dev archives from the others?

IMHO the dev archives still do contain quite valuable info :D

Or at the very least hold the dev archives for 12 months beyond the EOL date. For instance both Karmic and Hardy will reach EOL this month but there is undoubtedly still some good stuff in those dev cycle notes.

Just a thought :D

[mörgæs]

When this time comes, I expect that it will be approached in a different manner to the way it was approached this time.

Does this mean that there will not be a vote next time?

[bodhi.zazen]

Does this mean that there will not be a vote next time?

It depends on what, if any problem arises.

Our first choice is of course to keep everything.

Speculation about what disaster might happen and how to manage it is exactly that. In the unlikely event some massive system failure occurred, and the database is corrupt or lost, what would be the point of a poll ?

With that in mind, if there are options or choices, yes will will look to the community for input. The will of the community will be weighed against technical limitations and we will do the best we can.

The old saying applies, it is not if a problem will happen, but when and are we prepared to manage it.

Redundancy / backups are an important strategy, and again, I highly advise, we as a community take a look at the Ubuntu wiki. We have the user base to rival the Arch wiki, it just take a redirection of effort and input from community members.

[Supergoo]

First off , it was nice to see Ubuntu listen to its users thank you . I am wondering how big the archives would be ? Heck I would register and pay for a website for 5 or 10 years and give it to Ubuntu , to keep all that great knowledge alive. It is interesting to see how far Ubuntu has come.

[forrestcupp]

we should have a worldbuntu day! this would constitute that we have a day where no one drives anywhere or buys any gas and we all take a day off of posting on Ubuntuforums so we don't ruin the great things on the world!!!

That's kind of extreme. The forums exist for people to use. There are a lot of people who come here for help who don't even know about the wiki.

The archives are one thing, but encouraging people to not post in the active forums is kind of extreme.

[vinayvivek90]

if all i had to do was hit 'random article' or 'most popular articles' and look for copy-editing errors, typos, or obsolete information to update with a friendly 'edit' button after logging in, i'd probably be on it.

ya know what, disregard all of my above criticism of the wiki. we all know it to be a weak area, but this thread isn't the right place for that discussion.

what is the appropriate venue to discuss the wiki, and improvements thereof?

(please don't let it be a bug report form or a 1993-style mailing list...)

EDIT: here, i'll toss out a positive suggestion that is relevant to this thread :)

To address the initial concerns that brought the 'remove archive from public view' discussion to light. What if, for threads created over X years/months ago, a disclaimer/warning was automatically displayed.
Screenname: Earthpig : Thank You ! Reading your comments , i think earth is not just full of pigs but I don't see it going the either way. It all comes back to how google ranks webpages. It only helps if Ubuntu Wiki gains support and recommendations.

[kingbilly]

Count me in for moving archived content to the Wiki/New Wiki. I will gladly assist. The wiki needs some new blood.

[spibou]

As the discussion in this thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1721627) lead to almost a 10-1 vote against closing the archives the Forum Council, along with the staff team, have decided that we will not be removing the archives as previously planned.
I'm glad to hear that. I didn't read the whole 29 pages of the thread linked to above so I don't know if the point I'm about to make was brought up but here it is: Apart from usefulness , and the archives are useful , they are also an important part of computing history. 100 years into the future historians and some computer enthusiasts will want to know what personal computing was like in the old days and one way to find out would be by reading archives like the ones of this forum. And even the people here , some of whom are teenagers , would want to revisit decades into the future what computing was like back in the day. So whatever else you decide to do please don't make it be /bin/rm -R some-dir .

Here's a suggestion: why not create a compressed tar file of the stuff you may want to erase now or in the future and make it available online either as a straight download or a torrent ? You can even burn it onto cds and start selling it. I don't expect you'd get many purchases but you'd get some , I would certainly buy it. And you can donate some of those cds to museums on computing history. They may not find it terribly exciting now but there will come a time when it will be seen as valuable.

Consider the analogous case of Dejanews and then Google preserving and making available online a large chunk of the history of Usenet. Sometimes I go to googlegroups and read threads which are more than 15 years old and some of it is fascinating stuff. So when the time comes that you no longer have the necessary resources to continue making available the archive in its present form please don't just erase it but try to make it available in one of the formats I suggest above.


This isn't to say that they will remain here indefinitely - as was stated in the above thread, some of the content could (and should) be migrated to the wiki.
Even if you do this I still think you should preserve the present format of the archive in one of the ways I suggest above. Note also that , unlike Usenet , there's no easy way for any of us to create our own personal archive of even new stuff.

[COKEDUDE]

As I said in the other discussion thread on this topic, the community needs to understand that the forums has a huge database and there may come a time when we can no longer support the archives.

Going through literally gigabytes of text is a huge task and will require community participation.

I again strongly urge the forums community to become more active with the wiki.

As far as the complaints with the Ubuntu wiki, I would remind you, as with other communities, the wiki is what we make of it.

So if the wiki is not to your liking -> don't complain here, get involved and use it / update it

How big is the database?

[ikt]

How big is the database?

huge

[poodel]

Hello all, I just made this account because I wanted to give feedback from people that didn't have a forum account.

I was very angry when I first discovered the archives had been closed, as I was under the impression that it was to force people into making forum accounts. Not that I don't like forums, but I don't fancy having an account to maintain on every forum that I want to visit. Anyway, I read your reasons for closing down the archives (so I see I was wrong) and I'd beg to differ.

I'm a Linux Mint user, so that's the main reason I'm not active on this forum. When I encounter a problem, the first thing I do, like everyone should, is google it. In a lot of cases, I find an exact match of my problem on the ubuntuforums, most of which have the tempting banner [SOLVED].

NOTHING is more frustrating than seeing your problem has been solved, but not being able to see what the solution is. I'm talking about really specific problems, a lot of them didn't have any results besides the ubuntuforums. Things like driver issues with very rare hardware etc. Luckily, I was able to see these threads with the cache feature of google. In that manner, I solved more than 5 problems with my own machine and countless others of my friends or fellow users on the Linux Mint support channels.

If the archives will be locked down for public view too long however, google will stop showing up the results in it's search engine AND we won't have the ability to see the cached page anymore. This is harmful for the complete linux community IMHO. Why? Because a lot of newcomers in the Linux world use distributions that are quite similar to Ubuntu. Especially GNOME problems etc. are very well documented on this forums. For these people not being able any more to find the solution of their problem on the internet, is a vast turn off.

If I use windows for example, and I encounter a problem, the last thing I'd want to do is not being able to see the solution because I don't have a forum account of their forums. More so it would enrage me that they require you to be a forum member in order to get help. This will causes a steep increase in the number of question asked on all linux related forums because people can't find the answer on-line anymore. Not a great problem per se, but some of these questions could only have been answered after months of working on the problem, if it was very specific, only the author of the original thread might remember the solution.

I understand that your reasons were the danger of people destroying their systems with incompatible solutions etc. but please consider that people already accept using forum information at their own risk. If someone were to answer a question on this forum with "Just type shred /dev/sda" the asker could already have done that before someone would have stopped him, who's fault are such situations? The user of course. It's his task to process information he finds on-line and consider it safe or not. A simple banner above the archived threads like "YOU COULD CAUSE HARM TO YOUR SYSTEM WITH THESE INSTRUCTIONS. THESE COULD BE OUTDATED" maybe in a bright red flashing highlight should do the trick.

I'm begging you for the sake of linux users all over the internet. Stop locking down the archived threads!

[bodhi.zazen]

Hello all, I just made this account because I wanted to give feedback from people that didn't have a forum account.

There is no decision that will make all people happy, this decision works best for most, but not all people.

The question is are you willing to help ? If there is information in the archives that you feel is important you should transcribe it to the wiki.

The wiki is after all community maintained.

If you are not willing to help, then please do not complain.

[forrestcupp]

The question is are you willing to help ? If there is information in the archives that you feel is important you should transcribe it to the wiki.
Sometimes people think they have to contribute hundreds of pages to a wiki to be of any value, so they don't do anything at all. That's not true; even small contributions can help.

When I was ripping my DVDs to my hard drive, I was using TMDb, The Open Movie Database, a lot for info and cover art. As I waited for a DVD to rip, I would just enter whatever information I could find in the page for that movie that I was ripping. I may have only entered information for a few movies at a time, but that's a lot more helpful than thinking a little bit won't help and doing nothing at all.

The point is, if you find one thread from the archives that helps you out, transcribing only that one thread is worth the little bit of time it would take.

[Thewhistlingwind]

Sometimes people think they have to contribute hundreds of pages to a wiki to be of any value, so they don't do anything at all. That's not true; even small contributions can help.


A lot of the time, it's the little things that are the most important anyway.