Being the forums site away from the ubuntu.com server, people might get the wrong idea that it is not an official forum. Also, it looks disorganized that some sites like this one, brainstorm.ubuntu.com are hosted as branches of the ubuntu.com site, and others, like the forums already mentioned, are hosted separatedly.

Now, I know that if you browse for http://forums.ubuntu.com/ you will probably get redirected to ubuntuforums.org, but it is not the same thing.

To spread the brainstorm ideas for more people so we can have more users and more ideas too.

As the ubuntu userbase increases, ubuntuforums.org seems to be suffering from performance issues.

I suspect some of the performance hits can be eliminated by finding ways to reduce the load on the servers.

I often come across old Ubuntu Forums posts that answer a question I had, but the "Thanks" plugin does not allow me to thank them.

If dont log in, in the forum i cant see attachments like pictures...now i ask, where is the freedom of that? why a guest cant see the pictures???

Make an application that can evolve into whatever the user wants. For example, I download a generic application. It has all the basic stuff to be anything I want it to be. It doesn't do much without a little guidance. Let's call it a gwiz (for gelware wizard)

It has a few pulldowns for communication and it has basic library calls to common file system and audio video stuff. I pull down one of the menus and I say I'd like this program to be a game. Under games I choose card game.

It has listings for a couple common ones but I want to be able to play my favorite poker game. So there's a place to type and put in texas hold em. It sends out a signal to all of the other clients that a texas hold em card game would be nice.

The more people that request a specific program or function the higher rated it is in the development que. When the code is available it automatically updates. You can play the game to test it and make improvement suggestions.

When it's to your liking you can compile it and package it as a deb file. If enough people do this and the bug reports are low it should become a listing in the repo. This is like a two way development communication system between users and programmers.

The hardest part about programming is it's limited to the depth of our own personal experience. With an open source locater it would be easy to open an existing program and make improvements. Let's say I would really like it if it had another menu that did this, then re compile. Point and click community object programming. It's the future.

Help in many environments suck! Communities bring the needed answers in most cases. why not implement a context menu on any widget and get help in text, audio video or any combination from other users. Yes it is a big task but this is something where the power of active users really pays off.
2nd button click on everything :) and get help

Has anyone else noticed that often performing a google search can produce better (more relevant) results than using the search facility within Ubuntuforums.org

For example, my search term was 'mount enhanced cd' in the ubuntu forums - this resulted in only a few relevant hits.

However, using google with the search term 'ubuntu mount enhanced cd' produced far more relevant hits.

Note: None actually solved my problem of how ubuntu mounts an enhanced audio cd.

(I have gone used the Advanced Search options within Ubuntuforums.org, changing the sort order to relevancy, but this does not improve the situation).

Surely, this is fairly critical if users want to find solutions to their problems.

I would appreciate it if both the brainstorm and ubuntuforums.org would be protected via SSL for login and cookie exchanges.

Virtually all other sites related to the wiki, documentation, launchpad, etc, use SSL, and I wish the same could be said about these as well.

In a recent forum discussion, some felt that there's no point to protecting those sites. But most will agree that many people use the same password for everything, and even though a compromise of a forum password may not seem like much, it could be an issue elsewhere.

Case in point, all wiki modifications show the IP address of those that make the changes. If this person uses the same password for the wiki as their forum account, not only is it a risk to the wiki, but if their personal machine is remotely accessible via SSH, etc, then that user is also at risk if the password is also the same on their computer.

Yes... people need to follow best practices... but if you have the ability to help people and it comes at virtually no cost to you, then why not?

Hope others feel the same way. Thanks for listening.

When you visit sites related to ubuntu and linux like getdeb.net or distrowatch etc,click to the ads so they will have an income from this.That will keep communities active and better.It's so simple to give our support in that easy way.