The Future of the Forum

[techniciancit]

Please don't close this forum. I'd love to try help where I can if you need? I've been admin and mod on many other forums. I'd rather this forum stay running, I tried asking a question on the askubuntu and instead of answering my cry for help, they downvoting my question. From personal experience forums have a great community. I know this is my 2nd post and you guys don't know me yet but I'd love to offer help. I've installed forums and set up my own a few times. Have you considered opening a discord server? I could help there as well.

[guiverc]

Have you considered opening a discord server? I could help there as well.

There already is the Ubuntu Hideout (discord server) https://discord.com/invite/ubuntu

Discord is more like IRC; a different format to a Forum (as I see it)

[coffeecat]

Thank you to everyone who has posted. I think that there are two clear messages to be derived from the discussion:

1. There is overwhelming support for the continuation of the forum in some form, using the same or a similar forum format as we have at the moment. I.e not AskUbuntu, IRC, Discord, Matrix, etc, etc.
2. There is a strong wish to keep the content of this forum as some sort of accessible archive.

This is to let you all know that the Community Council has started an initiative and there are preliminary discussions, informed by the content of this thread, just starting with a small but experienced number of volunteers.

I think it would be helpful for me to comment on a few points raised here:

Privacy Concerns. Some concerns have been raised about privacy issues particularly with regard to Discourse (I am NOT referring to Discord here – the two are very different). For those who have these concerns, please re-read ian-weisser’s post at #76. Relevant snippet:

Discourse Privacy Concerns have been raised. Those are always important. The information stored ("collected") by a Discourse instance is the same as vBulletin -- Your username, email, and password. A Discourse instance is not a privacy hoover.

If you are concerned about privacy on Discourse, you might as well be concerned about privacy on ubuntuforums running on vBulletin and ask for your account to be disabled. The same goes for phpbb or Simple Machines Forum or any other traditional format forum software.

Other forums software such as phpbb or Simple Machines Forum. I think those pushing such platforms are underestimating the huge effort needed to set up anew – possibly more than for upgrading vBulletin. Also such software would need to be hardened in the way vBulletin was by Canonical IS – more new effort – and integrated with Ubuntu SSO – probably another large effort.

Reddit. Seriously?! Ubuntuforums is the official community forum for Ubuntu, paid for by Canonical, run on Canonical servers, maintained by Canonical IS. The same needs to be true for any replacement platform.

Discourse. First, I wasn’t very clear about Discourse in my OP for which I apologise. I was referring to “Ubuntu Discourse” who don’t accept technical support questions, because it is a venue focussed on Ubuntu development and contribution. However, Canonical has experience with Discourse and has infrastructure to set up and mange new instances. And there are community members with experience of moderating on Discourse. A new instance could be called – say - UbuntuForums Discourse, or something similar. And this is what has been suggested and will be explored by the small group.

Archiving. This will not be forgotten, but whether this forum is made read-only, or some sort of migration into another platform (such as Discourse) occurs, or something else entirely, remains to be seen. Some interesting suggestions were made in this thread and these will be taken considered.

Thanks again to everyone. I don’t think there will be much more to add to this thread but we’ll keep the it open for a while in case someone has something new to say.

[1fallen2]

There already is the Ubuntu Hideout (discord server) https://discord.com/invite/ubuntu

Discord is more like IRC; a different format to a Forum (as I see it)

Just me, but that seems like a good possible.

However this is more like something I would use in a Developer Hangout.


BTW A big Thanks to @coffeecat for keeping us posted with current Info

[donald187]

If archiving the forum perhaps Google should be considered. I would imagine that if the current addresses remain the same that Google will still find them. But if completely new addresses are used maybe Google won't find them as before. Not that I'm a Google expert. Just the way I imagine it would work.

[Paddy Landau]

If archiving the forum perhaps Google should be considered. I would imagine that if the current addresses remain the same that Google will still find them. But if completely new addresses are used maybe Google won't find them as before. Not that I'm a Google expert. Just the way I imagine it would work.

This is an excellent point. When changing the URLs, Google will still find them, but they'll lose their ranking.

It would be preferable to retain the URLs as is.

[werewulf75]

This is an excellent point. When changing the URLs, Google will still find them, but they'll lose their ranking.

It would be preferable to retain the URLs as is.

It looks more and more like a vBulletin upgrade is still the best solution all-round. It would certainly have my vote.

[dragonfly41]

I referred in earlier posts in this thread to dumping UbuntuForums threads to WayBack Machine.
Today I read this. Google accessing Wayback Machine. Way to go. At least one way. Coupled with a freshly developed open source container (Laravel et al) which emulates vBulletin model. Note the scenario that vBulletin might later be swept up by another owner as I experienced in Atom discussion forum when Atom was "sunset" by Microsoft in favour of VS Code. So use n+1 principle in choosing the next vehicle. Granite foundations.

P.S. while digging around I found this report of past breach of vBulletin. Perhaps link the next generation forum to Proton.

[vidtek]

I too would be very sad to see UF disappear. It seems to me that Canonical has a vested interest in ensuring the continuation of the forum. The depth of knowledge contained in this forum could not hope to be replicated in a commercial environment with so many talented individuals giving freely of their time and expertise.

Many of the forum admin staff have reported a distinct lack of interest from the Canonical representatives with whom they are speaking. Maybe you are talking to the wrong people.
For Canonical to have risen to the size and depth it has in the industry, there has to be people of vision and imagination in their boardroom. It may also be the forum representatives may not be the best advocates as technicians and "geeks" are not the best salesmen! It would be informative to know how often the paid support staff in Canonical use this forum to assist with some esoteric fault they have difficulties with and are able to get assistance here.......I just wonder-maybe they could be an asset you could draw upon in your negotiations with Canonical.

Just my thoughts I hope they can be useful.

Cheers Tony

[wildmanne39]

Many of the forum admin staff have reported a distinct lack of interest from the Canonical representatives with whom they are speaking.

That is not the case Canonical is being very helpful and my understanding the discussions are on going and are between the Community Council, Community team and Canonical but in my opinion everyone's being very helpful in this process and to say that Canonical is not being supportive is not accurate and it is an unfair statement, the whole process has been positive so far to my knowledge so I really do not know where you are seeing that Admin/Staff say that Canonical has a lack of interest in this particular matter.