This page exists to show the difference between the current IRCGuidelines and the Proposed IRC Guidelines. It is hoped that by viewing the difference, members of the community can see the advantage to using the proposed guidelines in presenting a nicer view of the Ubuntu IRC experience. To see this difference please click Show Changes.

Preamble

The #ubuntu IRC channel is growing very quickly, with over a thousand people in the channel all the time. Keeping a pleasant atmosphere in #ubuntu has been the main cause for it to be such an attractive place to both new and experienced users. #ubuntu is the home for quite a few people that provide support to anyone that needs it. The operators of the channel do lots of work to keep the channel friendly and to keep people happy.

This is made possible because they adhere to a certain set of unwritten rules, which over time have become stricter. Lately, more people have been wondering about what is allowed and what not, especially since the operators are becoming more strict.

Channel guidelines

The Code of Conduct should always be followed

• This one should not need further explanation, the Code of Conduct forms the basics of the pleasant atmosphere in Ubuntu. Being nice to each other, being cooperative and respecting each other is a must. Ops will naturally lead by example, as the Leadership Code of Conduct shows.

Please do not flood the channel

• Flooding the channel disrupts all conversations. Please don't do it. If you want to show large texts, such as errors, use the pastebin

Please do not use public away messages

• Please don't. Imagine 600 people doing that. It's not a pretty sight. Changing your nick to user-away is frowned upon. If you use away messages, you may get kicked without warning. Given that you are away, a warning would not help anyway; consider a kick to be a warning since it can be followed by a ban if you don't stop using them. On that same thread, you shouldn't spam the channel with the music you are playing currently. If you want to set away do it silently with "/away Reason" then when someone uses your name they are told you are away and the channel is not disturbed. This is a help channel, not a social one. #ubuntu-offtopic is the social channel frequented by quite a few users of #ubuntu

How to ask for help in the channel

• This is a little howto that explains how to get the best out of your experience looking for help this link is not on the Ubuntu site.

Time to ask

• The time of the day you ask at will influence who gets to read the question. People may not be there with the answers, please be patient.

Please do not repeat your question every few minutes

• #ubuntu is a support channel, this means lots of people are asking questions. We do our best to answer them all but are not omniscient. If you don't get answers immediately, please wait a few minutes before asking again. If it's busy: wait even longer. If no one answers: don't get mad, maybe no one who is around right now knows. You can always try the ubuntu-users mailinglist.

Bot abuse

• #ubuntu has an infobot called ubotu. Please do not abuse this bot, or use a lot of triggers in a short amount of time. Adding spam to the bot will cause you to be excluded from the channel. More info on ubotu can be found on his wikipage.

English, please

• #ubuntu is an English language channel. There are Ubuntu channels in other languages. If you speak in #ubuntu in another language you will be pointed to these channels. The infobot has triggers like !es for Spanish, !nl for Dutch, !fr for French and so on.

Language and Subject

• All the #ubuntu channels are visited by people whose ages vary, and whose tolerances of language and subject choice vary equally as much. Please be considerate of everyone and keep all the #ubuntu channels family friendly. For general chatter you can visit #ubuntu-offtopic, but please be aware that there are limits to behavior and subjects in there also. When using any #ubuntu channel, please avoid the use of swearing and take touchy subject choices such as war, race, religion, politics (unless related to software licensing), gender, sexuality, drugs, questionable legal activities, removing of ones self from the planet are taken to other channels such as #off-topic or ##politics. (Note Freenode Policy when you join those channels.)

Please be considerate

• Flooding, away messages, repeating and bot abuse are not the only ways you can be annoying. Personal attacks when things don't go as planned, continued misbehaving after you have been advised against, and similar behavior might result a ban.

When helping: please be helpful

• #ubuntu welcomes any help, but we do ask you to stay as helpful as possible. If you get stuck, say so instead of guessing; someone else will step up and continue. There are heaps of information available on the wiki, in the infobot and at other places. Try to familiarize yourself with that information. Telling people to RTFM or to "just google it" is not very polite, find them a url or at least give them some directions to documentation they can use. Please try to avoid outdated, or possibly wrong information.

Please do not ask for operator privileges

• Being an operator is not a privilege, it is a responsibility. It requires a great deal of time and effort to be expended by the operator. Ops are there to be helpful, offer advice, provide information, and to assist in keeping the atmosphere of the channel calm (among many other duties). Whenever #ubuntu or other Ubuntu channels need new operators, we will ask the helpful and polite members of the chat whether they want to take the responsibility. We hope that all will be understanding and not ask for operator privileges.

Please use !ops trigger only when necessary

• Ubotu has a trigger called !ops which will call all #ubuntu operators. This trigger is only to be used in case of channel abuse (flooding, trolling etc...). Abusing this trigger for other things will cause undue stress and distraction for the channel operators, who may remove you from the channel.

Please do not bring bots

• There already are 2 bots: ubuntulog (logging) and ubotu (factoids) - there really is no need for more bots.

Please do not enable talking scripts

• This includes !seen scripts, can you imagine if just five or six people had one enabled against ! and someone called it? That's half a dozen lines of spam which is just not needed. Please "/msg seenserv <nick>" instead.

Here are several common questions that get asked often

• Common Questions that get asked often on IRC, they may save you frustration and time if you check it out.

The operators in #ubuntu have all signed the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. Most of them are also Ubuntu Members, which means they are active contributors to Ubuntu and the Ubuntu community. This however does not mean they stand above others. They do their best to keep #ubuntu a friendly place, but they're also human so they make mistakes. If you disagree with the decision of an operator, then talk to that operator about it in a polite manner. Cursing and swearing will not help, so please don't do that. If talking to the operator personally does not give you a solution you like, you are more than welcome to join the operators channel.

In #ubuntu-ops you will be able to publicly discuss the matter with other Ubuntu operators. Please join this channel for conflict escalation/resolution and not #ubuntu-devel. The people in there cannot and will not help you. If no other ops are available, you can contact the IRC council via the ubuntu-irc mailinglist.

If neither helps, write down the issue and bring it to the next Community Council meeting. You should make full, unedited logs available of anything you don't agree with.