I used to be active on the ubuntu forums from mid 2005 until maybe 2010 or so.
Today I tried to follow a link to an ubuntuforums thread from a ycombinator news discussion, and the ubuntuforums thread link just redirects to the index of ubuntu discourse.
I want to ask - are all the old threads from ubuntuforums just gone forever? I think that’s an absolute disaster because there was so much important historical information on those forums, including things like how to fix certain problems with running linux with certain obscure bits of hardware etc.
That would be really sad. Is there an archive available?
At the very least, I would like to be able to read the post that I was trying to find earlier today.
That’s very sad that it’s currently no longer available and that its fate is apparently hanging in the balance.
If any of the stakeholders involved sees this thread, I would like to appeal to you, please consider publicly archiving the old ubuntuforums somehow, so the useful information and history will survive and remain accessible to us all. Even if it’s just something like exporting all the threads as static html and sending that to archive.org for them to keep.
Before the actual move to Discourse, we were assured that after the “grace period” ending 9th January, the old forums would continue as read only. It’s most regrettable that currently this is not available. I have been away since last December until recently due to health issues, and hoping to find an answer to a problem wanted to do a search in the old forums only to find I couldn’t get there. Very disappointing. Luckily I’d already had a Discourse account since the middle of '24 at least.
You are a stakeholder, too.
If you are willing to help do the work, you can help make it happen.
This is accurate.
The original intent didn’t work out for a couple reasons.
We don’t like that any more than you do.
The Forums software is now so outdated that it (oversimplifying) requires a bespoke environment to operate safely on the internet, even in “read only” mode. Canonical ran that bespoke environment for years, and is no longer willing to expend the engineering time required to host it and maintain it.
No other server owner has offered to host the software and database (for free).
The volunteers that stepped up to convert the database into a read-only form were stymied by GDPR. Oversimplifying: A read-only archive cannot easily comply with GDPR, and that creates potential liability.
No volunteers have offered to spend the time required to curate a compliant read-only archive.
Those are the problems: Solutions within those constraints are welcome.
Archiving the old forum is a work in progress and we are pushing for it to happen as soon as possible.
The reason it was taken off line is because hackers were making it impossible to use anyway and more harm was being done with it being online then good which is very unfortunate, no one wanted this to be the case.
I will bring this matter up again in our meeting next week that was specifically created a year ago and still continues for archiving the forum and making discourse the best platform we can for everyone and the friendliest.
Many thanks for the info, @ian-weisser - I now can understand the problems in relation to maintaining the old forums in read-only form. A crying shame, but it is what it is. I might be able to find a bit of time to help curating a GDPR compliant read-only archive, so count me in as a volunteer. Mind you, I think it’ll take a whole lot of volunteers and a heck of a lot of time, as the old forum’s simply huge.
Thank you. If there is anything I could do, I would be willing to help. I don’t know if I would be of much use though, I’m an amateur/hobbyist computer user with only a little bit of programming knowledge. But still willing to help if I can.
What should I do from here? Feel free to contact me privately.
@dusthillresident We’ll need a whole lot of volunteers to save this baby, so welcome! The old forums are just humongous and it will take a lot of work in all sorts of areas I’m sure, and requiring all kinds of skills. There’s bound to be something almost anyone can help with.
You are a stakeholder, too. If you are willing to help do the work, you can help make it happen.
How are things going? I haven’t heard back after I offered to help. Perhaps I’m not a stakeholder after all, even if I am the New User of the Month award winner.
To my knowledge GDPR is still holding up the progress but we will bring this up again in our meeting on Thursday. This really does need to be completed asap.
I just sent a message to several people that can check on the status of the forum archive and hopefully do some pushing to get it done.
Luckily I’d already had a Discourse account since the middle of '24 at least.
