Ubuntu Wiki

A Diff has been created to show the advantage of the newer, more gentle and polite wording over the current form of the guidelines.

The current Guidelines are unfortunately not representative of the Ubuntu community. For instance they contain a link to a page that states "You see, nobody on IRC gives a rat's ass where you are at any given point in the day." Not only is this unprofessional, and not cordial to new visitors of Ubuntu online, making such a statement on IRC would result in a kick. Much of the wording is very negative and even insulting. For instance, rather than stating the hope that people will not add spam to the Ubuntu bots, it tells people to not add stupid things to the bot. Also instead of asking people to be considerate, it tells them not to be annoying. Can we imagine going into a store and reading poster on their walls telling customers "Dont be Annoying"? Throughout the entire document language like this persists. The changes here present the same guidelines (not rules) in a pleasant manner. If we treat users with respect, then that same respect will be returned to us. It is with that in mind that the following comments have been made.

The current wording of the IRC Guidelines creates a sense that people are being commanded. It contains words such as "obey" and "dont". It also has a negative feel in some aspects. This proposal keeps most of the text the same with slight changes. The behavior hoped for remains the same but it places it within a context that can be positive rather than appear demanding. For instance, rather than the heading "Dont be annoying" we propose "Please be considerate". Dont be annoying immediately sets the reader in a negative frame of mind. The other wording accomplishes the same thing in a more positive way. Additionally, it emphasizes that Operators have a set of guidelines which they follow, the Leadership Code of Conduct. This encourages the reader and IRC participant that expectations do not apply just do them, but to leaders as well. It creates an understanding that we are equals, and an op is not 'superior' to the participant.

It is also proposed that the Freenode Channel Guidelines be linked here as well. Those, like these, are not rules, but only guidelines. Still, both sets of guidelines will help promote a friendly atmosphere in the channels. In fact it is probably a good idea to have aspects of the freenode channel guidelines here and in the Irc OP guidelines. If such a wiki page exists. If not, adding one, and linking it here would be very useful. The point being that those who might be asked to do certain things in IRC need to feel that the Ops asking are following a set of protocols as well. The user should feel that the ops will do the very same things they require of an irc user.

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.

It might be helpful if the following were reworded. Using terms like strict, imply some kind of control, almost parental, that the CoC doesnt. The wording throughout should actually reflect the CoC feeling. What we need to remember is that no one likes to be TOLD what to do. Using words like "strict" put out that kind of feeling. Also, it is probably good to remove the 'unwritten rules' statement altogether. There really should not be any unwritten rules. Unwritten rules put the user at a disadvantage because they can violate some rule without even realizing it. In addition unwritten rules lead to the possibility of rules being created at whim. A user should know exactly what is not allowed. A good example is profanity. If profanity is going to be forbidden, then exactly what is forbidden should be written someplace (perhaps in a separate link). The reason is that what is profane to one person is not profane to another. So an individual op might kick for one word, while other ops would not. Further, an op might kick for one word, but use another word themselves, which is considered profane. This creates angst among the users.

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. This link was at the beginning of the next paragraph. However it should be removed entirely. Perhaps an Ubuntu community member could create a polite way of explaining why away messages are discouraged. This link starts off right from the bat making the statement: "You see, nobody on IRC gives a rat's ass where you are at any given point in the day." As noted above, this is incredibly rude. We certainly would not make such a statement in a brochure about Ubuntu, so why do it here, when this IS our brochure?

• I.e. don't say something on a public channel just because you are away from your keyboard. And don't let your client do it for you automatically. Why? Imagine 600 people doing that. It's not a pretty sight. Also, 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 let the people who care know, do it silently with the command "/away Reason". Then when someone sends you a private message 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.

The following was changed from questions that get asked time and again to often. Time and again infers that people should not ask these questions. Its use is negative and also implies that the person has worn out their allowed use of said issue. It shows an exasperation on the hearer of the question. Repeating it twice only emphasizes this. We need to remember that many of the people coming to the ubuntu irc rooms are coming for the first time from Pidgin (or Gaim) almost automatically. Very many of them are used to chat programs like Yahoo and AOL messenger. So we should not imply to them that we are tired of hearing the same old questions. In fact, hearing the same old questions should actually be invigorating to us? Why? Because it demonstrates an influx of new Gnu/Linux users! 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 and follow the Leadership 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.

Perhaps the "and will not help you" part of the following should be removed. It implies a lack of willingness. Rather, simply stating that they cannot help, because it is not an ops channel...or some such similar thing, should be sufficient and will make the paragraph more friendly. After all, if someone were in -devel by mistake and asked for help, the members of the channel probably would help if they could. Also conflict escalation/resolution should be changed to conflict resolution. We are not looking to escalate conflicts, just resolve them peacefully.

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.