Why attitudes matter

[Scott Glaser]

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:53:44 -0500
Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 2010-11-26 at 00:51 +0000, Clive Hills wrote:
> > People who come to #fedora are in general looking for *realtime*
> > assistance. Mailling lists don't do that. 
> > IRC can be harsh and brutal. You may need a thick skin. I don't
> > believe #fedora is worse than anywhere else on IRC.
> > Some of the quoted comments in this person's blog made me wince. I
> > aim to always be LBGT friendly and not say anything that might be
> > misconstrued. 
> 
> IRC really need not be 'brutal' and 'harsh' and so many Fedora IRC
> channels are great examples of that....
> 
> ~m
> 
> 
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I have a suggestion, before making comments about how things are being
handled in the Fedora IRC channel, maybe all of those making the
generalizations based on a one sided view of an event posted in a
blog, might actually want to spend some serious time in the #fedora
channel. By serious time I mean more than 10 or 20 minutes a day, more
like 8 - 10 hours a day for about a month. 

then spend some time in #centos, #ubuntu, or any other distributions
IRC help channel. Take a look at the interactions, yes there are times
when people are not going to be pleased or happy with the results they
receive, but as a whole the support in #fedora is far better than that
received in many other distribution support channels. 

There are time where Channel OPs/Helpers my need to be brutal, or
should I say brutally honest. Typically when it comes to dealing with
individuals that continually come into the channel and refuse to listen
to the help provided or wish to do things that are not supported
within the #fedora channel. However these instances are very few based
on the volume of users that are helped.

Before you pass judgment on the people that support in #fedora based on
that blog, try what I have stated above, then opinions may be
formulated as to how bad or how good the #fedora channel is as a
whole. I believe that we the operators and helpers that support #fedora
on IRC tend to do a better than average job in providing support to
Fedora end users. Oh and btw, we do have a code of conduct and some
general rules for how support is handled in the #fedora channel.

Here are the channel guidelines: 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Channel_FAQ

Here are the Operator guidelines:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/IRC_operators_code_of_conduct

Here are the Helper guidelines:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/IRC_helpers_code_of_conduct

I hope this sheds some light on the topic.

Scott Glaser
Fedora Unity Founder
Fedora IRC Support SIG