Re: [fpc-other] Re Downward spiral
HSN via fpc-other said on Sat, 27 May 2023 12:05:42 + >I want to let you know >thatNickolay is both a Lazarus developer and the owner of #fpc on >Libera irc. Nicolay is well known in this community. Everyone who >appreciates the work that he does should help support his channel >whenever they have a chance and hopefully chat with him when he is >online. There is also the #fpc-dev channel on Libera to meet at. It's kind of hard for the 31 of us who are banned to support Nicolay by chatting on his channel. SteveT Steve Litt Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm ___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
Re: [fpc-other] Re Downward spiral
Tomas Hajny via fpc-other said on Sun, 28 May 2023 17:12:23 +0200 >Both >forums and mailing lists provide higher chances to get response from >one of the FPC core team members in case of complex issues where >support of other FPC users and developers may not be sufficient. True. However, in a well attended IRC channel run in a reasonable manner, answers to simple questions come through much quicker with IRC than with forums and mailing lists. SteveT Steve Litt Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm ___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
Re: [fpc-other] Downward spiral
On 5/26/2023 3:31 AM, HSN via fpc-other wrote: Irc is the best chat platform for people who are present and available to chat. It also has notifications so it’s not necessary to watch it constantly. You can do other things on or near your computer while irc is running. It even works on mobile devices. Just in case someone tries to yap about discord, please preemptively read this article. http://shystudios.us/blog/discord/discord.html Discord is just a modern version of IRC. I personally see no difference between the two, except that discord is harder to access, since you can't use just any old client to connect like you can with irc. Hopefully that will change as time goes on, but for me, there's no functional difference. ___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
Re: [fpc-other] Re Downward spiral
On 2023-05-27 14:05, HSN via fpc-other wrote: Joanna, . . One of the ways that they can do this is by helping other users in real-time chat. I suspect that many people who use fpc/Lazarus are either unaware of irc real-time chat, have been chased away by people sabotaging it or have been discouraged from trying it by people who want this project to fail. . . I'm sorry to say that, but your continuing attempts to blame external enemies for limited/declining IRC channel popularity rather than accepting or at least just considering repeated arguments clearly showing other reasons won't change anything. See e.g. the Wikipedia article about IRC showing clear trends (unrelated to FPC). The reasons of these general trends should be very understandable for people with good analytical skills (as expected for most developers). . . People using project are more likely listen to the advice of developers that announce where the chat channel is than someone whom they don’t know promoting a channel. I want to let you know that Nickolay is both a Lazarus developer and the owner of #fpc on Libera irc. Nicolay is well known in this community. Everyone who appreciates the work that he does should help support his channel whenever they have a chance and hopefully chat with him when he is online. There is also the #fpc-dev channel on Libera to meet at. Nikolay and Charlie, two FPC core team members at least occasionally joining IRC, both explicitly confirmed that their IRC availability had been limited, which was one of the reasons why the FPC core team decided that no IRC channel should be considered as official. Both forums and mailing lists provide higher chances to get response from one of the FPC core team members in case of complex issues where support of other FPC users and developers may not be sufficient. There are no guarantees to get answer for just any question for any of the channels (it's a hobby project and nobody gets paid for support), but the probability is clear (chances for finding a solution is further improved by possibility to search through previous discussions in the forum or the mailing list archive). Obviously, anybody can still use whatever channel meeting their needs and preferences and people providing support in whatever channel rather than just seeking for help with their own issues are very welcome in any case regardless from the used channel, but that doesn't change the overall situation. Tomas ___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
[fpc-other] Downward spiral
In addition to lack of chat support we also have the problem of people who hate pascal and want to sabotage fpc project infiltrating our support channels to cause trouble and waste our time. Even the bug tracker has been trolled by someone complaining about pascal not being more like c. Sent from ProtonMail Mobile___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
[fpc-other] Re Downward spiral
How many people actually use fpc/Lazarus ? I was told there were thousands and thousands of downloads. Does this mean that there are this many people using it? Or is it being downloaded for for other reasons? If it is the former, there should be no shortage of people around to participate in forums and chat. Is enough being done to make people aware of ways to be involved in the fpc community? Fpc is an open source hobby project where people donate their time. Users of fpc should be encouraged to donate their time as well to help make the project better. One of the ways that they can do this is by helping other users in real-time chat. I suspect that many people who use fpc/Lazarus are either unaware of irc real-time chat, have been chased away by people sabotaging it or have been discouraged from trying it by people who want this project to fail. When I first started using Lazarus in 2015, it was my understanding there was chat support. The irc channel was very helpful and I learned a lot of things. I never imagined that the chat support would ever cease to exist. What is there to prevent the same thing from happening again to the forums or mailing lists? So far as I can tell , nothing at all. I’ve had questions go unanswered in the forums before, so support from forums is not guaranteed. There should be more options for support not less. I had to figure out how to solve the problem all by myself with no help whatsoever. People who are less fond of fpc would probably just get frustrated and leave. This would not be the first time that an online community that I care about has disappeared. A chat channel is much like a canary in a coal mine. It is small element in the project and may to some people seem to not do anything useful and be irrelevant and frivolous. It easy for people who don’t need it to not care about it disappearing. I assure you there are people who need chat and most of them quietly leave rather than complain. It’s not a good idea to look the other way as parts of your community start to disappear, even if you don’t want to participate in them they still are still vital. People using project are more likely listen to the advice of developers that announce where the chat channel is than someone whom they don’t know promoting a channel. I want to let you know thatNickolay is both a Lazarus developer and the owner of #fpc on Libera irc. Nicolay is well known in this community. Everyone who appreciates the work that he does should help support his channel whenever they have a chance and hopefully chat with him when he is online. There is also the #fpc-dev channel on Libera to meet at. Sent from ProtonMail Mobile___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
