What's wrong with Ubuntuforums?

Well, in short, nothing's wrong with Ubuntuforums; on the other hand, everything's wrong with Ubuntuforums.

Say what?

There's nothing wrong with a large community of people attempting to help one another out with an alien technology. Absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever. However, the problem exists where each member is considered as credible as the next in all given subjects, since there are multiple ways of getting things done in Linux and a number of ways to find out the solution to any given problem. There is a fundamental flaw that needs to be addressed here. Every human being is physically capable of discovering some way of making brain surgery work, regardless of what impediments they might otherwise have in life. Does that mean all people are well-suited to being brain surgeons? Absolutely not. Some are better suited to mechanical work, and still others are more adept at handling social issues. This is why we have Presidents, technicians, and grocery baggers. So what happens when everyone tries to solve the problems of others with no central authority for the relative validity of those "solutions"? In short, Ubuntuforums.

That being said, there are a few basic steps that can be addressed to improve the overall workflow on Ubuntuforums, some of which Canonical has already addressed in the formation of certain core teams. Here is my proposal: take this to its logical end, with teams that have greater experience with certain parts of the system being differed to first. Here's an example to see my point:

Current situation: Sally is having issues with her BlueTooth connection between her cellular phone and PC. She enters Ubuntuforums and posts a question regarding the issue. A number of replies are issued, with everything from a really technical answer to a simple "change your distribution". The actual answer that she needs is eventually lost in the flurry of frustrated replies, where insults get levelled. The answer may be elsewhere on the forums, but she never sees it. Sally leaves the Ubuntu community, frustrated and confused at the complete lack of help even though somebody posted the "right" answer.

Proposed situation: Sally is having issues with her BlueTooth connection between her cellular phones and PC. She enters Ubuntuforums and posts a question regarding the issue. A number of replies are issued, with everything from a really technical answer to a simple "change your distribution". A member of the BlueTooth stack team notices the issue, fixes it, and top-posts a solution to her issue and the thread is closed; failing that, a conversation begins between Sally and the BlueTooth stack team with appropriate information being provided to fix her issue; failing even that, the issue is handed to the BlueTooth implementation team, who works with Sally to attempt to solve her issue. When all else fails, the continuing dialog between Sally, the teams, and the general public attempts to find a solution to Sally's issue. That way, everyone can contribute, but people will be looking to people with experience in a particular field first. Once an acceptable answer to the issue is discovered, it is top-posted and the thread is closed.

The basic concept here is that discussions that are vital to development can take place, but the solutions are made obvious as soon as they're available. Perhaps that can make Ubuntuforums a nicer, more informative place to visit for all.