Freedom in Ubuntu forums?

**Pakia** · August 10th, 2009

I enjoyed the UF but have noticed a worrying trend. I was researching articles and came across this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1210639&page=3. It seems administrators have the right to decide what is right and wrong to the extent that the freedom of the forum itself is at risk. It is decided I cannot even comment on what was posted and thus this new thread. If I want to delete or corrupt my hard drive etc on purpose for the sake of research and further protection and development of a system why is this forum excluding it? I realize there is a fine line that a new user could be exposed to something dangerous but so what? Is that not the purpose of the sub categories of the forums? Go to the great guru rms`s site and see his opinions on this. Open source is the freedom to do it all again if you mess up (and believe me I do on a regular basis)with no cost and thus to learn (even if it is the hard way) as you go along. If a member posts a thread "this is how to corrupt your hard drive" and give a code then he or she is not being subversive they are giving me the opportunity to do so. A member has been banned for life and I doubt he was subversive as he still tried to explain his point and wanted back in to the forums.(no I do not know member) Sure monitoring is necessary to ensure a forum stays on track and such things as language use etc are controlled. A culture of fear has been instilled on us as a society in recent years and seems to be spilling over into this forum. Please feel free to comment - if you are allowed to.

**Tristam Green** · August 10th, 2009

Cool story, but I bet this should have been put in Forum Feedback with the rest of the threads about freedom/lack thereof on UF.

**chucky chuckaluck** · August 10th, 2009

the freedom battle was lost a long time ago. i don't think it's worth fighting anymore.

**Pakia** · August 10th, 2009

Like I said I tried on the specific thread but do not have the privilege.

**snowpine** · August 10th, 2009

This is a moderated forum. You must follow the rules to post here, and the "freedom of speech" argument simply doesn't apply.

**NovaAesa** · August 10th, 2009

As the main global moderator at another (non-linux) forum, I can totally understand where the mods here are coming from. People will always cry fowl - OMG YOUR TAKING AWAY MAI FREEDOMZ !!!ELEVENTLYONE. Forums aren't a place for free speech, save that for your blog or set up your own forums. Forums are run and controlled by the admins and mods, that's their job. They can't please everyone all the time, so they settle for the next best thing - pleasing most of the people most of the time. And I think they are doing quite a good job. Because Ubuntu is the more 'n00bish' distribution, there are bound to be lots of beginners here who won't know what certain commands do. This forum will most likely be the first impression of a Linux community, so it's probably best if they don't get mal-information from it.

Many people don't like how constrictive UF has become and have generally done something about it. Quite a few people have stopped posting in the off-topic sections and moved onto other forums with their other Linux friends. Maybe that's the sort of thing that you want to do. I think the same goes with the tech sections - if it's too restrictive, there's nothing stopping you from starting up your own forums.