Too much power is a dangerous thing….. particularly in my hands

This is embarassing but I was encouraged to blog about my mistake to save others from making a similar mistake (although I doubt anyone else would!).

Back towards the end of June I read the following blogpost which I found on planet ubuntu:

http://fitoschido.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/ways-to-be-an-awesome-community-member-help-out-with-user-questions/

I was curious about this and so I went about signing up just to see how it would go.  Unfortunately, during the sign up process, I inadvertently signed up the entire Ubuntu-ie launchpad Team as an answer contact for Ubuntu answers. I made this monumental mistake by clicking a checkbox in the signup process. I did not give this process enough attention and wrongly assumed I was just confirming my membership of the team. I did not realise that I had made the mistake until I checked e-mails a couple of days later (I don’t always check my e-mail daily).  I was shocked, not only at the huge level of mails, but also by the number of team members deactivating their memberships of the ubuntu-ie launchpad team.  I was confused and I still did not fully understand what had happened. Had I done this? Was I the cause of team members deactivating the memberships?  It slowly dawned on me that I was the culprit.  I felt sick.  Thankfully Laura Czajkowski had already stepped in and sorted things out.  Through the Ubuntu Ireland mailing list I sincerely apologised for the flood of ask ubuntu e-mails that people had received.  It was never my intention to sign up the Ubuntu-ie launchpad team to this service.  I learned a valuable lesson through this unfortunate experience.  As an administrator of the Ubuntu Ireland Team I need to be a lot more careful when dealing with Team matters online.  Yes indeed…. too much power is a dangerous thing.