Ubuntu Forums vs Kubuntu Forums

[Snowhog]

I'm posting this only to show how 'exclusive' Ubuntu Forums has become; not the 'inclusive' entity that it was created to be.

A couple of years ago, I got extremely angry at a Moderator on Ubuntu Forums, and I let my emotions dictate how I responded to him/her. The result was my being banned.

In January of this year, I wrote to ubuntu-forums-council@lists.ubuntu.com respectfully requesting that my account be reinstated. This is what I wrote:

I would like to respectfully request reinstatement of my ubuntuforums.org account (Snowhog) -- it is currently banned. The action that resulted in my ban was totally my own doing, and the only excuse I have is that 'at that time' I was not in the best space. My outburst towards the Administrator/Moderator that resulted in the ban is regretted and I am truly sorry for my conduct.

Thank you.

I got no response, even though the automated reply stated:

Your mail to 'Ubuntu-forums-council' with the subject

Fwd: Account reinstatement

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

Post by non-member to a members-only list

Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision. If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:

I didn't follow up until this morning. This is what I sent to ubuntu-forums-council@lists.ubuntu.com as a forward of that January email:

It would be courteous to reply, even if it's to inform me the answer is 'No'.

Respectfully,

I got the following respone from Qlll (qiii@ubuntu.com) this evening:

Forgive us our inexcusable discourtesy.

No.

Geez. I thought my request was worded respectfully. I thought my follow-up (almost six months later, having received no response to my request) was respectful. Their reply was anything but respectful. It was condescending and childish, IMO.

I am so glad that we, here at KFN, treat our members with a higher degree of respect.

[notabug]

This does not speak well of Ubuntu Forums.

[chimak111]

This does not speak well of Ubuntu Forums.

True. And sad.

[Don B. Cilly]

Yes. Guess where that would go on Cipolla's stupidity graph

[oshunluvr]

My worst forum experience was at PCLinuxOS forum. I was threatened with expulsion by a moderator for simply mentioning the existence Kubuntu in a post. That was 2009. I immediately stopped recommending that distro to noob's and I've never gone back there. I've been here ever since.

[jglen490]

I forgot about PCLinuxOS - not that I really wanted to remember. They were bad news.

I agree that Ubuntu forums is on the crazy train, so is Linux Mint but for an entirely different reason.

[claydoh]

So you ticked off a moderator? How could you??
You know how they get sometimes...

My guess that is the real reason the person said no.

The forums have a resolution center, not sure if banning closes that part off.


But yeah I do understand why , back on the day, Ubuntu Forum had to take a heavy hand. It was *really* bad over there sometimes.
But that was well over a dozen years ago. No need to keep being ****s .
Even IRC, which is can be notoriously clique-ish, rude, and sometimes filled with anal retentive moderator-nazis with delusions of god-hood, Ubuntu has a procedure set up for these sorts of situations, and with specific things regarding ****ole heavy-handed mods . I would assume that the forums would, too, but I don't see it yet.


Just do what anyone else would do---- create a new account

[Snowhog]

Just do what anyone else would do---- create a new account

Hehe. No, I'll just remain persona-non-grata over there. I like it much better here anyway.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I'm sorry that happened to you, SH.

But, really, it's their loss.

I haven't logged in or even visited UF in...years...maybe 7? 8? Something like that. I didn't like its atmosphere.

Now I'm tempted to log in just to see what it's like over there now.

Or not...

[verndog]

My worst forum experience was at PCLinuxOS forum. I was threatened with expulsion by a moderator for simply mentioning the existence Kubuntu in a post. That was 2009. I immediately stopped recommending that distro to noob's and I've never gone back there. I've been here ever since.

My experience with PCLinuxOS forum as well. Badly managed.
Regarding Ubuntu forums, I've had very little to no confrontation with any mods. Very knowledgeable people using that forum.

[jglen490]

So until recently, I would pop into Ubuntu forums on occasion as well as Linux Mint. I found it oddly satisfying to help a new user, on either forum.

What has come to be so very apparent is that NO ONE searches for answers on either forum. They always ask about dual boot (won't touch those with a 10 foot pole), or some comment about installing in Legacy mode maybe a dozen times, and it still doesn't work - and what's a UEFI?

Done with being frustrated ...

[Snowhog]

So many are looking for the 'free beer'; they don't want to make even the slightest effort to search to see if their problem has been addressed already.

[jlittle]

... What has come to be so very apparent is that NO ONE searches for answers on either forum.

How can you say that? I imagine there's lots of people like me using search engines to search for a problem and getting hits across hundreds of forums, blogs, groups, mailing lists and bug trackers. Often I get a quick answer and carry on.

[claydoh]

How can you say that? I imagine there's lots of people like me using search engines to search for a problem and getting hits across hundreds of forums, blogs, groups, mailing lists and bug trackers. Often I get a quick answer and carry on.

I think he's talking about searching a forum. I myself see this a bit on various forums , Reddit and other places.

I think people are using a search engine, maybe, but not the one on the particular forum.

One simple example is dolphin and root, on KDEs forum. This is a commonly asked question asked very regularly, and searcing brings up plenty of recent discussion on the topic.


On Redditt, the crostini sub (the Linux comtainer implementation on ChromeOS) and the Gallium OS one get a lot of repeat questions, which is understandable considering that the user bases there are very often using Linux for the first time.


It does not bother me to much in any case, except for those who seem to know enough about a topic and clearly have been around a block at least once.


It's just the way things are sometimes.



Sent from my LG-H931 using Tapatalk

[jglen490]

How can you say that? I imagine there's lots of people like me using search engines to search for a problem and getting hits across hundreds of forums, blogs, groups, mailing lists and bug trackers. Often I get a quick answer and carry on.

I'm talking about the specific Ubuntu forums and Linux Mint forums sites. Those places are filled with people who have no concept of research. One new user had a problem with his Acer laptop, after installing Mint, and getting a no boot situation. I entered "acer install boot" into the Search box and there wre 1500 results, some of which had his exact situation.

I get asking questions when research yields ambiguous or conflicting answers.

O.K., it's not ALL users on those forums - that's hyperbole. But it is a very consistent behavior. Then when assistance is offered, with very specific inputs and explanations, then (NOT always) all too often the new user (< 100 posts) will challenge the answer given. Again, I get wanting some clarity, but a slap in the face is not worthy of further assistance. I'm done with both places. Mint has a statement at the top of the forum index page that says "There's no such thing as a stupid question ...", some people challenge that concept ...

This has nothing to do with the generally fine folks here on KFN - it's just a rant.