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We're the only community I've seen that has an additional navigation bar at the top which contains nothing but links to an off-site company/organization website.

Does Canonical pay Stack Exchange to run this site? Are Canonical employees part of the moderation team and/or helping to run the site?

The Ubuntu nav-bar referred to above is no longer shown (it was removed during a site redesign) but it looked like this:

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No.

There isn't a commercial relationship with SE and Canonical. Ask Ubuntu was first proposed as a community effort and reached enough critical mass to get the support of Canonical. (Things like the theme matching, etc.)

Marco Ceppi is a moderator for Ask Ubuntu but he's been a moderator long before he was employed by Canonical. There's really no distinction on AU if someone works for Canonical or not, we're all just part of the same community.

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    If someone is a Canonical employee, shouldn't they disclose that in their profile or we have some symbol to indicate it? When things get heated between users, it would be nice to know people's motivations.
    – SnakeDoc
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 18:16
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    I've been participating in this site for five years, "things getting heated" isn't really a thing here. Who I work for has never really been an issue. I don't get paid to be here, I'm here because this site is awesome and useful for people.
    – Jorge Castro
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 18:20
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    By "heated" I meant disagreement. Example would be when people try to effect change in the site - it seems natural Canonical employees would have an interest to keep this site as-is in it's current state, but what's best for Canonical may not always be what's best for the community. If/when that time comes, it will cause a conflict for Canonical employees, especially ones in Moderator positions.
    – SnakeDoc
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 18:27
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    @SnakeDoc what a loaded comment. Is somebody paying you to write stuff like that?
    – muru
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 20:04
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    You need to be more specific as to what you want to change, speculation doesn't really fit here either, heh.
    – Jorge Castro
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 21:10
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    @SnakeDoc: Not being an employee of Canonical I can only say that Canonical doesn't interfere in Ask Ubuntu at all. Only one of the mods actually works for Canonical and I never even noticed by his behaviour he was... (Actually, I only found out today) ;-)
    – Fabby
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 22:03
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    @SnakeDoc Being an employee of Canonical does not mean something special on AU. We are all community members. We all love this site. You will never find a difference between employee and non-employee here.
    – Sylvain Pineau
    Commented Oct 16, 2015 at 8:25
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    To be honest, @SnakeDoc, my experience with Canonical employees on this site and elsewhere is super-positive. They respect high degrees of community involvement and transparency. The issue you raise could be more important with regards to Stack Exchange personal, some of whom have taken up issues with mods in public, etc (these are exceptions!). Believe me, Canonical are the least of your worries here. Don't forget someone owns StackExchange.
    – don.joey
    Commented Oct 16, 2015 at 13:52
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    On another note: some of the best answers are written by Canonical people. Also many of them use their reputation to give away reputation to topics that are harder to research or new. That is their right and it is part of the StackExchange philosophy. Where this site goes is decided here (in meta) and in the StackExchange office, not at Canonical.
    – don.joey
    Commented Oct 16, 2015 at 13:55
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    I've had Canonical employees answer some of my questions and they've been incredibly helpful. This one readily comes to mind: What in the world is wrong with my Ubuntu Touch app?
    – Nathan Osman
    Commented Oct 16, 2015 at 16:50
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    I've had nothing but good interactions with employees. I'm pretty new to this community but not new to others. I dare say, on the off-chance, something goes awry then you, I, or anyone can just setup shop elsewhere and help people there. That's the "open" part of open source. It works for forums too.
    – KGIII
    Commented Oct 16, 2015 at 18:53
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    This really seems like a non-issue to me I have never had a problem because of a Canonical employee being a moderator or dealing with a moderator that is not a Canonical employee in either case all has gone well. As for disclosing who is a Canonical employee that is really something that people become aware of just by participating in the community and does not have a bearing hear in my opinion.
    – Wild Man
    Commented Oct 17, 2015 at 3:50
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    What's more, all current Ask Ubuntu moderators have been elected by the community. Those elections were, presumably, done in light of those users' participation here on the site and perhaps, to a lesser degree, their participation elsewhere on the Stack Exchange network.
    – user
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 18:50
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    Now that there is no commercial tie between them, why on earth some moderators close questions which exceed Canonical official LTS date? A few of my questions regarding 13.04 closed by moderators asserting that it's ended official support.
    – kenn
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 15:35
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    @SnakeDoc - dealing with EOL questions has been discussed many times over many years. The last time we debated this was here and the consensus of the community was closing EOL questions for the reasons discussed.
    – fossfreedom Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2015 at 20:03

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