The Debian IRC channel
Hi All.
Yesterday I was testing the new Fedora Core 3 and since I needed some
information I connected to the fedora channel on irc.freenode.net. I
also connected to the linux channel.
In both these channels I asked a couple of questions and I quickly
discovered that people on the channel was very very friendly and
helpfull. That actually surprised me alot since I am used to a (after my
opinion) a very unfriendly atmosphere on the debian channel. I know that
the debian channel isn't part of the officiel debian community.
Now since I found there was such a big difference I adressed the issue
on the debian channel afterwards. Quickly a lot of people "pm" me and
agreed. I only posted a couple of messages advicing people to maintain
the freenode policy of helpfullness and kindness and I stated that the
normally unfriendly atmosphere was damanging to debian since many people
don't know that the channel isn't debians official channel. Also I
stated that the debian community in general is known to be very friendly
and helpful.
Saying that I soon experienced a lot of rudeness and after only posting
I think about 5 messages in total I got banned. And since I sit on a wan
which has only one public IP the entire wan is actually banned.
The reason why I post this here is because I wan't to raise the question
wether or not it's a good idea to have an official debian irc channel
which would have the good community spirit?
I also consider the current channel as a very unhelpful channel and in
many cases people who are trying debian for the first time goes there
only to find a lot of insults if they don't understand at first or if
they have missed to find some kind of related information. Instead of
helping to solve the problem people there might actually be a cause for
other people to quit trying to solve the problems and give up.
On the channel there is always a lot of people connected but it seems
that only a clique of the same people are answering the questions.
I know that these mailing list a the best place to get help, but if a
person needs help here and now an irc channel can be very beneficial
which I experienced at both fedora and linux channel yesterday.
What do you think?
Regards,
Kim
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