Hi, my name is Ian, and I’m nominating myself for a seat on the Ubuntu Communications Council.
The purpose of the Communications Council is to oversee the community’s many online venues: Discourse, Matrix, IRC, UbuntuForums, etc. The Communications Council ensures that each platform has enough admins and moderators, and that the Ubuntu Code of Conduct is fairly and evenly applied.
The Communications Council is subordinate to the Ubuntu Community Council. The Communications Council was created in early 2025 with appointed members until the first election in late 2025. This nomination is for the first election.
There is much work to be done: A read-only version of UbuntuForums is being hampered by GDPR requirements. Mailing lists are transitioning to newer venues. Both represent some thorny problems to solve.
I began helping my fellow users around 2007, and continue to pitch in to community support. I became an Ubuntu Member in 2011. I’ve helped to moderate Ubuntu Discourse since 2018. I helped facilitate the migration of UbuntuForums. I’m the primary architect of the Support and Help category’s “Start Here” tree.
I use my experience in the community to help break down barriers to technical understanding by new users and to encourage participation in the community by intermediate users.
I try to limit guidelines and other structure to what is necessary. We have platforms that permit the unlimited growth of subcategories and tags and more pages and various rules for the use of each. In the past, we have overbuilt platforms (wiki.ubuntu.com) and their structures until they became unmaintainable and hard to use. We DO need some rules and some guidelines, and I try to keep those maintainable.
You will be voting for a community participant with a clear track record: I show up to meetings. I listen. I contribute constructively. I obey the decision. I follow the Code of Conduct. I try to help people.
Thank you for your vote.