Good-bye Ubuntu Discourse

Lounge
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I first started using Ubuntu in 2010 just after the Lucid Lynx release. For many years I enjoyed posting on the Ubuntu Forums. I became involved in support, the Ubuntu Newsletter, bug reports and became an Ubuntu Member in 2015.

For reasons that I do not wish to expand upon several of my posts on Ubuntu Forums were questioned creating a ‘toxic’ atmosphere as far as I was concerned. I left after asking for my forum profile to be ‘locked’ so that I could make no further posts.

Since then, I have worked on cleaning up the large backlog of outstanding bug reports by either closing them as being fixed, invalid or asking if they are still relevant in any current release of Ubuntu.

I have only occasionally posted here on Ubuntu Discourse in recent times but alas when I decided to today, I was met with a “Did you even bother to read” type of response.

Here we go again I thought. I have little more to say now other than “Good-bye” Ubuntu Discourse.

Last month I bought a new laptop.

Does it run Ubuntu? No.

An Ubuntu flavour? No

Windows? Yes

I recently switched to Kubuntu which I will continue to use for as long as my aging PC will last but then I’m done.

My ISP’s ‘web safe’ filter will shortly disable access to https://discourse.ubuntu.com/ so I won’t see any reply that anyone makes but thank you Ubuntu for the last fifteen years. Ubuntu has served me well and may well do for some time yet. It gave me a reason to contribute to something that I believed in.

But today I think a little differently hence my post here.

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Hi Paul,

For what it’s worth, your help triaging bugs on Launchpad has been invaluable over the years. I cannot express my gratitude for what you have done in so many ways, so it pains me to see you go.

If that’s the reason, then please, please flag it with the reason as “something else”, and explain what happened. That is a disrespectful Code of Conduct violation and we would like to deal with it as moderators.

With that, the last thing I was to do is see you leave this community as you have been absolutely wonderful to have triaging bugs and answering questions.

Wishing you all the best!

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Paul,

I don’t believe we ever interacted directly on Ubuntu Forums (or here) but I am certainly well aware of the hard work you have put in over the years.

I, too, have had my doubts at times about continued contributions when I received a negative response or comment.

But, here is the important thing to consider; your contributions and Ubuntu humanity far outweigh any toxicity or negativity.

Maybe consider a break but don’t burn any bridges yet; it would be a shame and loss to the entire community.

In any event, wishing you all the very best no matter what you decide to do.

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I to really wish you would reconsider. I have been on the forum for the last 17 years and am very familiar with your work and the user you mentioned I believe is new to Ubuntu discourse and he overreacted probably out of frustration.

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Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa (Inf. III, 51)

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I have been posting in the Ubuntu forums for years, when I first started it was a great experience but over time things changed. This happens but if you really enjoy helping people then you just have to overlook the ignorance of some people and keep doing what you enjoy doing.

Paul I wish you would reconsider and hang around a bit longer this community needs people like your self to help other understand how to use Linux… best wishes my friend

I see some mods from the Ubuntu forums here as well and these are the mods I really enjoyed when I was posting on the Ubuntu forums…Like Wild_Man and Oldfred, Ian Weisser

There are a few more but these particular individuals are and were, the top ranking mods on Ubuntu forums without a doubt and for that I will always be greatful for all the help they provided

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Paul,

If you do ever read this, your contributions to bug triage are deeply appreciated. From what I see, you are the dominant force in getting bugs to their correct developers. So I really hope this is just about Discourse and doesn’t include Launchpad, even though your activity there seems to have ceased 7 days ago.

Toxicity comes in many forms. A few years ago when closing old bugs en masse like you do, I found the frequency to be around 0.25% of cases. About one in 400 people would angrily abuse me, not for closing the old bug but for the fact it hadn’t been fixed instead. But this was enlightening. To know how few these people were compared to the rest of the contributors gave me renewed confidence to carry on. I hope that you can still, somewhere in the community.

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I can get on board with that, I struggle to stay motivated myself, and a timeout sure helped renew my stay.
@paulw2u I have known you for many years now @ UF and here in Discourse.
I will miss you for sure! :wink:

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Can I make a suggestion that you compromise. By all means enter the new Windows world but keep another door into Ubuntu by dualbooting so you might switch into Ubuntu. It is quite easy if you follow OldFred threads. That’s what I have with Windows in my Dell Tower but I can switch to Ubuntu (or other distro) running in a separate USB 3.0 container. And to cut through the grub jungle I installed rEFInd. But if your are in Windows land there is a package named EasyUEFI. Of course you have to payout now for such pleasures but there is a free trial.