#fedora and freenode registration

Paul W. Frields stickster at gmail.com
Fri Feb 12 14:57:07 UTC 2010


On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 12:27:36AM +0000, Robert 'Bob' Jensen wrote:
> 
> ----- "Mel Chua" <mel at redhat.com> wrote:
> > Yeah... my younger cousin hit this yesterday when trying to figure out
> > 
> > how to fix a botched F10 --> F12 upgrade. IRC familiarity, usually
> > good about following instructions... I got called from dinner to
> > explain what was going on, and ended up having to blink and squint
> > and click around
> > 
> > for a few minutes before figuring out what to type.
> > 
> > This had me a little worried about what happens to even less
> > experienced people who don't have a Fedora cousin eating dinner
> > downstairs.
> > 
> > I'll try to get her to write a draft of what would be a more useful 
> > message... where would we send that patch?
> > 
> 
> Please see my reply to Paul. If your cousin had asked "Hey what is
> going on" or even asked their help question someone normally will
> speak up and help get it sorted out, this did not happen in this
> case. Those that help in #Fedora are a limited few and do the best
> we can, many of us do keep an eye on the -unregistered channel
> looking for lost puppies.
> 
> In the past I have voiced my displeasure in the board making any
> kind of "rule" on #fedora. The members of the board have not been
> willing to commit to helping in the channel. I am willing to start
> making a schedule for people to serve the community by helping in
> the channels for a few hours every week. Why should they make the
> job that some of us choose to do that much harder? Helping in
> #fedora has not been this easy since the last ruling was made, I
> would hope that the board would defer any rules or judgements to
> those that are active and have been active for years helping in the
> channel.

I don't see anyone on the Board proposing to make any kind of ruling.
This list is where concerned community members like yourself can hash
out issues that generally affect the Fedora Project's overall
progress, appearance, and so on.  It's a good place for Kevin to ask
for opinions outside the ops group, and all that's happening is that
people are replying to the information he's provided.

Opening up the channel to unregistered users was meant to make it
easier for people to find help.  The ops group tried that, and given
the resurgence of IRC-based attacks, it's proved to be a bad choice.
So that behavior has been reverted, and Kevin has reported things have
improved, and we simply have to accept the cost of a little bit of
complication.  We tried a change, it didn't work, and so we fix it and
life goes on.

With the possible exception of a specific improvement that helps
people know which channel from which they got bumped when they end up
in an unregistered area, I think the behavior that the ops have chosen
is sane and defensible.  It might be helpful to record this decision
in the IRC SOP docs on the wiki, so that we have it for future
reference if the issue ever comes up again.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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