Ubuntu Community Schism

There is a definte split in the Ubuntu community. I think on one side, you've got the folks who read the list, idle in IRC, join the Ubuntu doc team or even become Ubuntu MOTU. Now before the doc team started kicking ass, a member of the unofficial Ubuntu forums created a monolithic one page guide on how to do common tasks. For the most part, the advice was alright, but there were a couple of mistakes. However, since he was the only one with control over it, nothing could be done to change it. Also, this created a rift. On one side the doc team was just starting out and now there was a fragmentation of knowledge. Let the people who are new to Ubuntu have one place to go for help, not seven because seven people want to write their own guides. Since the creation of this guide well over a year ago, it has not been updated. People still follow it and it does cause problems. There have since been other guides and I tend to agree with the response of why do this by yourself when you can help out the doc team and accomplish more as a team than you courself could ever do as an individual?

Another issue is the Automatix software created by another forum member. It is similar to EasyUbuntu in its goals, however, the creator of the software has not responded to several inquiries about his less than ideal methods of doing things. That combined with the fact that it has caused several totally hosed boxes leads me to not even want to try it myself. The developer of the software responds hostily that the IRC community and the mailing list community continue to spread FUD while the forum community has downloaded it several thousand times without problem.

I think as a whole, the community that sprang up around the forum does not understand that cooperation and team work is what makes Ubuntu (and other open source projects) so powerful. I also think that the communication between the two is a major issue. Why does the forum community have its own IRC channel, why do they not go into the larger main Ubuntu channel? Do they understand what their communications look like when they try to interface the mailing list through the forums?

Do they have any idea that as a person who interfaces that mailing list through a mail client that their message is totally worthless? Do they understand that those who use a newsreader or a web browser through Gmane will find the same? Again, I agree with the statement that those who run the unofficial Ubuntu forums could greatly improve them. I would even go as far as to say that they do a disservice given the current configuration. I just hope that Automatix doesn't get slashdotted again.

Addendum

Just caught this in #ubuntu-devel:

<jdong> floam: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=899834&postcount=7
<floam> and I thought nothing useful was ever stated on the fourms.
<jdong> floam: umm, what would make you think that?
<floam> jdong: just my last few years experience with the internet. webforums for Linux distributions tend to be places where cluebies spread false information and diseases
<floam> they are usually devoid of anyone important
<jdong> I see....
<jdong> there are developers who regularly are on the forums
<jdong> while it's true that any online community you're going to get some level of false information....
<floam> the signal-to-noise ratio is usally much worse for web forums than for the proper mailing lists
<jdong> I wouldn't say so... our forums just have monstrous proportions of traffic compared to the lists
<jdong> but we do acknowledge that problem... it's getting better though

And there's the entire kubuntu.de debacle. I agree with Matthew East's point about ignoring the dispute resolution mechanism.