Ubuntu IRC is a real turn-off

[matt_symes]

Hi

Just to say that the #ubuntu channel is different than the #ubuntuforums channel.

In the #ubuntuforums channel you can meet some of the moderators and admin staff. It's a chat channel and not a support channel so don't ask support questions but come in and say hello.

I would like to think we are friendly and approachable but you can be the judge of that when you come into the channel.

See my signature for webchat.

Kind regards

[bodhi.zazen]

#ubuntu is a mixed bag

1. First and foremost, please keep in mind, traditionally the forums has been somewhat isolated from the ubuntu community and we are trying to integrate.

2. This is not the place for feedback to the IRC group, you should direct this feedback to the Irc Council

3. As with the forums, #ubuntu is a large channel with all the advantages and disadvantages that go with it.

4. IRC sort of has different standards of behavior.

5. "Bot abuse" happens , no doubt, but what do you expect ?

"How do I set up Apache?" is not a great question either. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP is not a bad answer to this question.

If the question is repeated, "How do I set up Apache?", without any indication the questioner has read the link, or has a more specific question, what do you expect on IRC ? again " https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP " .

You can not honestly expect people to type out that link.

Is it bot abuse ? or lack or reading / poor questions ?

6. #ubuntu is a large community. 1630 users in the channel right now. Some of them will act badly. When you see bad behavior:

a. Bring it to the attention of the IRC Council.
b. Act as a catalyst.

http://freenode.net/channel_guidelines.shtml
http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml

c. Do not generalize. One bad person != the entire irc community is bad.

7. Other channels mentioned in this thread:

#ubuntuforums - This is a channel to discuss Forums Policies / Procedures with staff between FC meetings. If forums policy is not under active discussion , it is then a social channel to meet with the staff and other community members.

#ubuntu-beginners - This is a channel run by the Beginner Team as an alternate, less crowded support channel. You are welcome to provide IRC support there as well as send users new to IRC to this channel for support.

[Bachstelze]

To me #ubuntu feels like a call center, too many people seems like they follow a script and don't really know anything. People in a call center will ask you to reboot, people in ubuntu will ask you to pastebin a log or something, even if it's clearly irrelevant to the problem at hand. My advice about #ubuntu: just don't go there. The fact that IRC is definitely not suitable for tech support with so much people talking at the same time doesn't help: in the forums everyone has their own thread and it's a lot less messy.