New Ubuntu Support Site Debuts
Just in time for the Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) release, Stack Exchange has introduced a new website, called askubuntu.com, dedicated to Q&A for Ubuntu users, developers and partners. Here’s a look, and some thoughts on where the site fits into the Ubuntu ecosystem.
Made live on October 10, the same day Ubuntu 10.10 debuted, askubuntu.com describes itself as a “free, community-driven” resource. For now, it remains in public beta.
The site is similar in design and philosophy to the variety of other applications hosted by Stack Exchange, such as Server Fault and Super User. Its basic premise is that users can post questions, with or without first creating an account, and receive answers that are then subject to promotion or demotion by others who vote for or against them.
Unique Value?
Any Ubuntu user or Canonical partner who’s been around the block once or twice is likely familiar with at least one of several other sites offering community-driven Ubuntu support. The most obvious is the Ubuntu Forums, the oldest and probably most popular resource for users seeking help in a wide variety of categories (full disclosure: I am a moderator on the Ubuntu Forums). In addition, Canonical hosts Launchpad Answers, which has a section devoted to Ubuntu that receives quite a bit of traffic. Finally, a number of third-party sites host forums for Ubuntu users in languages other than English.
askubuntu.com, then, is only the latest arrival to a party that’s been in full swing for some time now. But with features that set it apart–such as the ability to post without creating an account, and a design that makes it easy to locate the best solutions within a long and complex thread–it’s a useful new resource for the Ubuntu community.
This isn’t to say that other Ubuntu support sites, whether run by Canonical or third parties, are inferior. Each one of them is unique in its own way, and may be more appropriate in one situation than in another.
The advent of askubuntu.com is also a sign that the Ubuntu community continues to grow, not only through Canonical’s endeavors but also independently. And for those who might worry that the distribution is poised to go the way of Slackware or Mandriva, cresting and then declining into oblivion, that’s a reassuring fact.
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As another example for community growth not involving Canonical I’d like to point at the German community ubuntuusers.de.
They actually grew so fast, that phpbb and moinmoin wiki weren’t enough anymore. They developed their own python-based webportal stack which will hopefully soon be released as opensource. It is using the django framework and runs on a light python webapp server (gunicorn, just moved away from apache).
Dakira: The VAR Guy thanks you for that additional link. He plans to check it out.
-TVG
@The VAR Guy: not much to see, yet, for a non-german crowd as there’s no source-release, yet (they still have to clean it up so that it can work anywhere else other than their server-farm. But what I like about Inyoka is that you really notice it is one software and not several patched-together solutions as it is everywhere else. You use wiki-syntax everywhere (forum, comments, wiki) which really reduced the entrance barrier for new community members to participate in the wiki. Another thing that will be great when Inyoka’s released, is that you can be sure it will scale.
dakira: I especially like the wiki-syntax idea–it seems like a great idea that I haven’t seen anywhere else (besides on wikis, obviously).
I’d also love to see their code released, particularly to play with the wiki bits. It would be great to have another alternative to MoinMoin, which can get slow without a database, and Mediawiki, which is often overkill on when all you need is a relatively simple wiki.
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You definitely know what youre talking about, why throw away your intelligence on
just posting videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something enlightening to read?