As I said, I found IRC particularly useful when I first got started with Habari and had the occasional technical question.
There are two reasons I am now a less frequent visitor Firstly, I rarely have any technical Habari related issues to discuss or, more specifically, have not got much to offer and contribute. Secondly, some of the content and discussions is a little puerile for my taste. Occasionally, I am genuinely shocked by the lack of respect, intelligent adults show to each other. I'm no prude but it's like coming into a pub where everyone knows each other and has been drinking all day. On Mar 31, 5:13 pm, Chris Meller <[email protected]> wrote: > Branching off this conversation into its own thread so we don't clutter an > unrelated issue. > > On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Owen Winkler <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The IRC channel is of late typically not very respectful of visitors. > > Mibbit has the ability to display some backlog, and there's no telling > > what talk or links will appear in there even if people are civil when > > obvious new Mibbit users show up. > > I think "not respectful" is perhaps not the best choice of words. The > content may not be appropriate for all visitors, but it's not as if anyone > has been rude to a visitor (at least not that I've seen, and I'm generally > around a good part of the day). > > > <snip> > > > This brings up the tangential issue of IRC conduct lately. > > > I have absolutely no problem using the IRC channel as a social gathering > > place, but regulars there need to keep in mind that users are told to > > come to that channel for help. I simply can't imagine the image that > > we're portraying to church website builders, serious business people, > > and parents of web-savvy children who come to IRC for help on our > > recommendation to do so. Some of the stuff going on there is outright > > shameful. > > Particularly in the last couple of days we have had a rise in the number of > links to pictures and similar content that I personally would not take an > interest in or share, especially with strangers. Toning those down would be > fine with me. > > On the other hand, I think it's important to recognize that obviously not > everyone agrees with my definition of "appropriate" content (otherwise they > wouldn't be sharing these links either), so we need to respect the opinions > of others. > > > It's harrowing that people who supposedly have the authority to keep the > > channel in check are often the ones responsible for the noise. > > Again, I think this comes down to the meritocracy concept and the idea that > other people have differing views. Unless you're being verbally abusive or > spamming, no one feels comfortable taking an authoritarian role and telling > anyone something's unacceptable. > > Lately, the channel has become a festering link dump. I'm personally > > > sick of seeing tons of unsolicited links to whatever latest found > > YouTube video looks "cool". At least one out of every three of the > > recent round of "unexplained photos" links seemed inappropriate for the > > channel. While I admit to appreciating some of these links for their > > simple humor, I don't believe that they're always appropriate for the > > kind of environment that would encourage tentative users to return. > > Agreed. While I don't think we should expect the channel to be 100% > business, I think we may have passed that fine line lately. Encouraging > everyone to filter themselves ever so slightly more than they have been in > the past week or two would probably be a good thing. > > > One might say that the links don't hurt anyone; that nobody complains. > > I have been off IRC lately for the past couple of days, specifically > > because the signal/noise ratio has dropped below my willingness to > > filter it. But more importantly, when I did return last night, I > > received more than one complaint via private message about the > > appropriateness of some of the content in the channel. > > No one has complained in the channel. I would encourage anyone who does have > a problem to speak up rather than bottle it up or funnel it to you. Like I > said, it's meritocracy. There is no final authority and no one should expect > you to take on that role. If there's a problem, speak up. I seriously doubt > anyone would be anything but receptive, particularly about this kind of > thing. > > At the same time it's not necessarily the channel's fault if you no longer > find it valuable enough to hang around. We'd love to have you around again, > but if that means killing off the community atmosphere by requiring that > only Habari ever be discussed I don't think it's a good trade. > > > I would like to see some steps taken to correct this. I think that IRC > > has been a great resource for the project and a great way for > > participants to communicate both about it and informally to build online > > friendships within our project, and I would like to continue to use it > > that way. It might be useful to write out a loose code of conduct so > > that there are some boundaries for what is acceptable. We have a bunch > > of new channel ops -- It should be easier for them to point at some > > "rules" when someone is being abusive or puerile. > > As usual, I don't think rules or policies are what we need. With the number > of differing opinions and viewpoints we have I don't think we could ever > reasonably expect to come up with any substantial list we could all agree > on. We're all adults, we should be able to tell for ourselves what's over > the top for our relaxed IRC environment. At the same time I think it's the > responsibility of everyone else to help point out things that they don't > deem as appropriate. > > IRC should be fun. I don't think we've ever seriously gotten in the way of > shop talk, but that doesn't mean we don't need to tone down some of the more > risque content that's been increasingly popular lately. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
