The Future of the Forum

[donald187]

I read the forum. Looking for stuff I can understand or maybe learn a bit. I've even tried to help a few times. And it's been a help to me. I'll miss it if it goes.

[tomdkat]

I don't post here, nor do I read the forum very often. I just don't have the time I used to. However, I find it an EXTREMELY valuable resource! On the rare occasion I do have an Ubuntu question, I actually start looking here first. If I don't find what I need, I might do a web search. I don't use "Ask Ubuntu" unless I have to and that's usually only if I get a hit there in a web search.

I would be willing to donate some money to help keep this forum going. I started a new thread today because I need some help with an upgrade issue I'm dealing with.

I'm one of the "outliers" who still does most of my computing on my desktop (which I'm on now) or my laptop.

If the decision is made to switch to new forum software, I would be willing to "pitch in" to help cover those costs as well. I used to moderate a forum, so I fully understand what it takes to keep one running.

I really like this forum and would hate to see it go away, if that can be prevented.

Peace...

[him610]

These forums are my goto place for advice, assistance, and just plain old finding out what issues other folks are experiencing. I can not always help OPs, oftentimes I don't even know what they are talking about, but for things I can help them with, I try.
I go to some of the other forums, Debian and XFCE mainly, but none of them have the familiar, patient, knowledegable, moderators and responders that frequent these Ubuntu forums. I feel as if they are all old friends even though we have never really met.

Original eight comments - my thoughts

1. AskUbuntu v. forums - My preference is Ubuntu Forums

2. IRC/Chat - I tried that and never could get used to IRC/Chat.

3. A forum is a useful or essential venue for non-developer users testing a development version. - I agree; although, I normally download and use the stable LTS releases.

4. We need to have arguments in place in case the Community Council takes the easy option of retiring the forum and simply directing users to AskUbuntu. Yes, I agree that we need positive arguments for keeping Ubuntu Forums alive.

5. Is the option of building a completely new forum on more up to date software a viable one? - Software development is hard - includes migration to newer versions. There needs to be skilled, knowledgeable, dedicated developers to make a go of it.

6. Several currently active staff members have expressed a willingness to take on leadership roles should a reborn forum be built on new software, or to continue for as long as it is possible that the current software can be kept going. Yes, I think I would be open to that in my own limited way.

7. What about archiving and making available all the material here? If worse comes to worse, then an archive would be a viable option.

8. Could Ubuntu Discourse be persuaded to launch a technical support section? Note: Ubuntu Discourse currently states: "However, the community has a number of platforms where you can seek and provide support." - Is not Ubuntu Forums one of those support platforms?

Ubuntu Forums is a source for learning Ubuntu. - This was not mentioned in the 8 comments.
I have always looked upon Ubuntu Forums as a learning platform. Where else do newbies go for advice?
Personally, I have learned a great deal from just reading the advice and suggestions provided by the moderators and responders. My first visit here back in 2007 was to find out how to configure my Broadcom wifi card into my LAN.

Yes, it would be a sad day to bid farewell to Ubuntu Forums and all those who frequent the forums.

[wmichaelb2]

First, I heartily concur with the comments to at least archive this incredible wealth of material.
Second, one of the benefits of UF is it's parsing of issues by Ubuntu flavor. So for example, I'm running Ubuntu Studio, which has its own quirks and eccentricities unrelated to regular Ubuntu. MATE has others; Unity also. And so forth.
Third, yes I'm old, but I'm kind of used to the forum format. And it's worked for me. And my aged eyes don't like phone screens.
Fourth, I've used Stack Exchange, but it's a bit much for newcomers, and isn't Ubuntu specific.
Fifth, I've used Ask Ubuntu, but never got the quality of answers that I have found here.

[Dennis N]

The Fedora Forum seems to be using the same forum software. Anyone in charge checked with them if they have had similar concerns? What are their plans?

The Ubuntu Forum has vastly more visitors: I checked both within the last 5 minutes:
Ubuntu Forum:
There are currently 48285 users online. 46 members and 48239 guests
Compared to Fedora Forum:
There are currently 4744 users online. 18 members and 4726 guests

Ubuntu has 10 times as many users online.

I find it difficult to post code on forums that use markup language (Manjaro is one) with tiny clumsy editors or just text. I would miss the ease of use here and don't want to see it go.

[QIII]

Please understand that we do not wish to see the UF disappear. I think I can speak for all the Admins and Staff in saying that we all have a definite affection for the community, and that has kept us involved. This has not been an easy conversation for us -- and it is not sudden. We have occasionally spoken to one another about these matters for perhaps a decade.

Similar to coffeecat, I am a senior citizen, retired from the techie workforce and have other life concerns (like now being involved 24x7x365 in running the family farm). The time I have to devote to the Forums is greatly diminished.

Let me stress again: The Ubuntu Forums Staff members are all volunteers and we are not employees of Canonical. As such, we have no direct control or even influence over Canonical's decisions. We can only express our concerns and/or ask for assistance. Let me be blunt (if politic): Canonical has not been disposed to react with favor and vigorous urgency to our entreaties. Although the Ubuntu Forums are hosted on Canonical's servers by their sysadmins and we, the Staff, must all be Ubuntu Members and are approved by the Ubuntu Community Council (Admins must be directly approved individually), we serve in no official capacity as policy formers at Canonical.

I have personally asked that the UF take top billing as the primary support venue mentioned during the installation of Ubuntu, but you can see the result. We seem to get no billing at all.

While venues like AskUbuntu are valuable, Stack Exchange venues are better suited to the situations where 80% of queries can be answered with a single, straightforward answer, they are not well suited to the other 20% where a similar symptom arises from an extraordinary root cause. There is no room for a back-and-forth, one-on-one session of diagnosis to explore those cases where the "standard" answer does not apply or fails to achieve positive results.

The Ubuntu Forums are much better equipped to have discussions aimed at teasing out the details of an underlying cause of a symptom that, while it appears to be the same as symptoms encountered by other users, arises from entirely differenct causes. This is why we do not step in to close threads because a question has been asked before. You have all seen the threads where there is much back and forth between a user with a problem and those who are willing to help dig. In the digging, both the user and the assistant are able to learn deeper lessons about the workings of the OS and the conditions that can give rise to the symptoms. This develops a richer common experience base in the community.

Both approaches are valuable and necessary. But the deep-inquiry root cause exploration cannot be accomplished in a simple Q&A format.

As we discuss this matter here in the Forums community, perhaps a suggestion might be for the Forums community members to cite this thread and contact the Ubuntu Community Council and express your concern that:

1. Something must be done to raise awareness of the Forums community and increase involvement and,

2. If Canonical wishes to proceed with updating the software, it be done in a manner that does not impact the on-going activity of the Forums or depend too heavily on the efforts of the volunteer members to address difficulties in the upgrade which they have no ability to directly and immediately resolve.

This seems to me to be something that those who wish they could help in some way, but don't feel they have the "technical" capacity to do so, could do. But it should not be done in an accusatory or mutinous manner. Canonical is, after all, a business entity that must make a profit. They do that by selling professional support packages to enterprise businesses. They make no profit from what we do for individual users at the UF, so they do have an obligation to weigh the value of the use of their resources to run the UF against their use of resources to make revenue. That is simply a fact of life.

The ultimate fate of the Forums is in Canonical's hands.

[snowcrash1]

I agree with TeaForOne,

archive it, turn it into wikis and how-to's, but archive... I just got done upgrading my iMac and it limps if I follow the upgrade, and it's a total pain. So I started over with linux and New Software? That's kinda what we're deciding? It looks like I'm a newby to the forums, but I've been using them for over for a decade, since at least your foundation started. And a moderated forum is invaluable because we don't have UseNet anymore, and Reddit kinda sucks. It's hard to find stuff pertaining to gnu/linux outside of our silos and forums.

It's not hard to re-register

[snowcrash1]

Please understand that we do not wish to see the UF disappear. ... ... ...


This seems to me to be something that those who wish they could help in some way, but don't feel they have the "technical" capacity to do so, could do. But it should not be done in an accusatory or mutinous manner. Canonical is, after all, a business entity that must make a profit. They do that by selling professional support packages to enterprise businesses. They make no profit from what we do for individual users at the UF, so they do have an obligation to weigh the value of the use of their resources to run the UF against their use of resources to make revenue. That is simply a fact of life.

The ultimate fate of the Forums is in Canonical's hands.

I just thinks it behooves Canonical to support their software outside of corporate purview... financially. Adoption.. familiarity.. support... These are Ubuntu- kinda one-for-all All-for-one --The mouseketeers motto.

It's like training the trainer- if they want specialists - they have to support the general community they draw their trainers from, Us, right? It makes sense if they support us so they can write policies and how-to's and send technicians to their corporate sponsors. You know, you have to train the trainers that are working for Corporate, you know.
*snowcrash

[QIII]

Canonical trains their own support staff in-house. Remember -- their in-house support staff are their revenue generators. They do not directly make any revenue from the free OS itself. Our community is not the source of their support staff.

[Bashing-om]

Ouch !

Between the rock and a real hard place-

Look; there can be no doubt that these Forums have been and continue to be a vital part of what makes Ubuntu Ubuntu.
This fact is what we present to Canonical for "The ultimate fate of the Forums is in Canonical's hands". This Forum's existence benefits Canonical in more ways than direct revenue generation. The efforts of the community is largely what built Ubuntu into what it is today and this Forum fosters that effort. Here from the beginning!

So - what we see now is a need to upgrade software and the user base.
Consider the efforts to inplace upgrade the current Forum's server software as opposed to rolling out a whole new venue.

We know from past experience what pain and how difficult it is to upgrade - and there is less resources today than last;
Would it not be a better option then to roll new - take as much time as needed to slowly migrate over, and also slowly re-up our current user base ? A modern platform would go a long way in gaining new users. This option is of-course contingent on Canonical willing to foot the bill and assist in the migration - and that our present staff does not burn out !

Death should not be considered