Ubuntu Forums: Censorship and the Forums

Posted January 22, 2007 ago at 7:33 pm. 14 comments

[These are my opinions, and may not reflect the opinions of other people on the forums]

Last week the Ubuntu Forums had issues come up where users were accusing Ubuntu Forum staff of censorship of posts, especially in the Backyard area of the forums. While all Ubuntu Forum Administrator and Staff respect the right of Free Speech, we do jail or remove posts to keep the forums focused on its technical support function, family friendly, spam-free, and safe from hate speech.

1. Technical Support: The main mission for the Ubuntu Forums is provide a community-driven source of support for Ubuntu. This support is important to everyone, especially new users to Ubuntu. Everyone was new to Linux/Ubuntu at one point. When someone posts a beginners question and they get the response “God, your stupid” or “RTFM”, it does not educate the new user and may scare them away from the Ubuntu Community. We remove these post and may give a warning to the person.
2. Family Friendly/Work Safe: The age kids start using computers and the Internet gets younger every year. The Ubuntu Forum needs to be a safe place for kids to explore and learn about Ubuntu. While we understand that nudity can be art, even a wallpaper nude lady with a Ubuntu tattoo, there are better place for it than the Ubuntu Forums.
   [added: 23-Jan-2006: Also, I think it is important for the Ubuntu Forums to be safe to view at work.]
3. Spam-Free: Really, don’t we have enough spam. We do allow people to post services related to Linux or Ubuntu in the Community Marketplace section of the forums, but we still remove posts that we consider spam from there.
4. Safe from Hate Speech: The Ubuntu Forums has 226,284 users as of 22-Jan-2006, which about 70% have been active in the last month. These users are from all over the world, from almost every race, country, religion and sexual orientation on the planet. While the forums welcome lively discussion, the forum’s staff may lock a thread were the debate becomes to heated. The mission of the Ubuntu Forums to provide a safe place for any one to get technical support on Ubuntu, no matter on the skin color or personal beliefs.

The Backyard is the place on the forums were the Ubuntu Forums staff take a more hands off approach, at least on how posts relate to Ubuntu/Linux. The Ubuntu Code of Conduit, Forum guidelines, and Backyard guidelines is still apply there. Some people consider that an infringement of free speech and censorship. Remember free speech does not allow people to force other people to hear their beliefs or does it protect hate speech.

There is an RFC about the future of the Backyard on next months agenda of the Forum Council. I would like to get feedback from the community on this topic.

mike(dot)basinger(at)ubuntu(dot)com