I think he was referring to one op in particular.

One op triggered this e-mail directly, but it's not exactly a new occurrence in that channel. At least 3 other ops are outright rude whenever I encounter them, however I haven't had the displeasure of that since I rejoined the channel. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 11 June 2008 20:45:59 Druid wrote:

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Francis Earl wrote:

...

I have been in the IRC channel on freenode now for a few days, and I am utterly appalled.

(lots of bla bla bla deleted)

Have you talked to any operator of the channel? I doubt it. Its better to create fuss to come here complain screaming so you can steer emotional answer probably because you had a personal problem in irc and wanted to look like a very influentional person. I could probably bet you used the phrase "I have contacts and you will see when I come back!".

I have the opposite experience, #suse used to be (and I would be surprised if it still isnt) a good irc place. And the problems from irc stay in irc, dont try to be extra smart and think you will get your "vengeance" by "denouncing" the irc in this list.

Sorry, your email has been marked as troll in here.

I do not want to get into this discussion, but this answer looks exactly what the user was talking about. Hugo Costelha --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Have you talked to any operator of the channel? I doubt it.

My exact complaints relate to a couple of the operators.

I could probably bet you used the phrase "I have contacts and you will see when I come back!".

You'd lose whatever you wagered.

I have the opposite experience, #suse used to be (and I would be surprised if it still isnt) a good irc place.

I've been there on and off for about 6 years... it's always been bad.

And the problems from irc stay in irc

It's a project issue. I knew it would be ignored by many though. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

How do you figure? Do you know that it's active project participants (not just openSUSE users) that are offending you?

How is that relevant? You don't believe participants should be required to hold a certain level of professionalism when on official platforms for project communication? I'm not saying disagreements aren't allowed, they are healthy for any project, but outright rudeness? I'll point towards Debian as an example of where that gets you... it gets you a spin-off like Ubuntu. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

...

How is that relevant? You don't believe participants should be required to hold a certain level of professionalism when on official platforms for project communication?

No only do I not believe that, I don't believe it's possible.

Of course it's possible, all it takes is some small amount of respect maintained in all disagreements etc. The mood would be lifted significantly if that would occur.

You're dealing with human beings. Some are nice most of the time. Some are rude most of the time. No one is nice all the time and very few are rude all the time.

I agree, but you should respect everyone you encounter, no matter how much you dislike them or whatever your mood. Most communication is in text, how hard is it to re-read what you write, and modify it to eliminate anything that could be perceived negatively? If you can't, your argument will be ignored anyway, you'll just work the other person up even more.

...

I'll point towards Debian as an example of where that gets you... it gets you a spin-off like Ubuntu.

I know nothing of either of those projects beyond their existence.

Many people are moving from Debian to Ubuntu due to general mood of the project. Every Ubuntu user and maintainer/developer is required to fulfill certain behavioral standards everywhere, and I think it's obvious it's really worked for Ubuntu. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

I meant that it is not possible to _effectively_ require that people maintain some (inherently subjective) standard of civility in a forum that is open to all and which attracts hundreds or thousands of participants.

I believe it's possible, Ubuntu is already at that kind of level, and certainly is managing it.

Not true. Not everyone deserves respect. It's reasonable to expect a minimal degree of respect from someone you don't know as a kind of default, but over time, an individual either earns respect by their conduct or does not.

You should respect anyone that contributes something to the project, no matter how small it may be. That should demand respect from others, if nothing else. Wanting to see OpenSUSE do better is another good reason to respect everyone, they have the same overall goal as you.

Can you support this claim? It seems foolish to me. I would rather be chastised by someone who knows what they're talking about if I ask questions stupidly than I would hang around with a bunch of people who won't call a spade a spade.

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7543606709.html will have to do, as I can't find Scott James Remnants blog on the topic... it links to Matthew Garretts blog though. It lists several situations where bickering and general lack of respect caused friction, and has a few examples of prominent developers going elsewhere (Scott for instance wrote dpkg, so he was a pretty big deal to Debian). There are lots of user blogs out there too, but those aren't as important as this I think.

But now you're back to talking about principals, not the general user community, which is why I asked you if any openSUSE project participant had offended you.

3-4 of the ops in #opensuse over the course of years, I rarely stick around because I get sick of their attitudes. I'd rather not make this a personal discussion though, it will go no where good if that occurs. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Wow....

As I was just reminded, and finally remembered myself, our friend Francis Earl is no more no less than mr lunitik, old time troll (but I must say its a bit of cluelessness sometimes) that for millions of times wanted to tell the ops and people at suse what to do. For millions of times he gave wrong advice at the suse irc channels. For millions of time he was trolling suse and novell in our channel and in other channels, notably ##linux at freenode.

You "remembered" because I made another aware of it. Someone that actually stuck up for me when I was banned from #ubuntu. To state that I am a troll is a little fetching, I have consistently had issues with the ops elitist attitudes, and have attempted to assist where I could. I'm coming from other distro's though, so sometimes there is an easier way to do it in SUSE. If the attitude of #suse was any better, I'd have stuck around long enough to enlighten myself and give the correct advice. Yes, I was misled about Novell dealings in the past, or maybe I just don't care anymore, I'm not entirely sure which, but I am hardly the only person to have voiced such concerns.

The ops know better, the people in there know better, they dont need your wonderful help on doing nothing and giving orders.

Why do they know better? They are born with this knowledge? The way they interact sometimes, you'd think they were. I am no n00b, yet I am treated as such because I do not know every function of yast or sax, because it has annoyed me when they've changed things I've set manually?

You need to be in there DOING it to know a thing or another about what has to be done, or what works, or whatever.

As I've said, I've been around IRC for almost 10 years, much of that time, I've assisted many people. I have been known to devote 10+ hours a day to assisting people on IRC, but I can admit I am ignorant to SUSE ways of doing things. That is no reason to persecute anyone.

Lunitik, Francis, or whatever: the mask has fallen down.

Again I state that *I* made people aware, it isn't some investigation you've completed. STOP trolling this thread, thank you. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:34 PM, Francis Earl wrote:

(lysergic trollage deleted)

Go away, well-known-suse-troll. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:39 PM, Druid wrote:

...

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:34 PM, Francis Earl wrote:

(admission he is a troll) (admission that at least 4 ops identify him as annoying troll)

forgot the (confessed he was banned also in #ubuntu) parenthesis --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Druid wrote:

And the problems from irc stay in irc

No, they don't. If people are having problems in IRC, they should feel free to speak up on -project. Maybe the problem is legitimate, maybe it's not -- but we should never try to tell people that they're unwelcome to express concerns on this list. And they're also likely to tell their friends, family and anyone else "hey, the people over on #suse are rude, so I bet the whole community is like that." Problems on IRC spread, and if people are being rude, it reflects badly on the entire project. Whether that's *fair* or not, that's the way it is. A basic rule of thumb is that people will remember and relate negative experiences more than positive ones. So, some new user comes into channel, everyone's nice, they're helpful -- they go away happy, but (sadly) are less likely to tell anyone. If they have a negative experience, they will go out of their way to tell their friends, family, and anyone that expresses an interest about it. We have a wonderful distro, and an excellent community -- I hope that a few negative voices will not detract from that. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net http://zonker.opensuse.org/ http://www.dissociatedpress.net/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 11 June 2008 16:49:29 Francis Earl wrote:

a relatively simple question - an op said "No one cares" when the answer was

That's rather a mispresentation and shortened to your favor of what was said.

When I called this op on what I saw as ill behavior, I was informed I would be banned from the channel if I questioned them again.

You try to moderate a moderator after affronting him before so much that he kicked you as warning and then really wonder about this reaction? Bye, Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Zonker: vagueness, no content, no facts, no logs, no talking with the people in charge equals trolling. Period. On 6/11/08, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Druid wrote:

...

And the problems from irc stay in irc

No, they don't. If people are having problems in IRC, they should feel free to speak up on -project. Maybe the problem is legitimate, maybe it's not -- but we should never try to tell people that they're unwelcome to express concerns on this list.

And they're also likely to tell their friends, family and anyone else "hey, the people over on #suse are rude, so I bet the whole community is like that."

Problems on IRC spread, and if people are being rude, it reflects badly on the entire project. Whether that's *fair* or not, that's the way it is.

A basic rule of thumb is that people will remember and relate negative experiences more than positive ones. So, some new user comes into channel, everyone's nice, they're helpful -- they go away happy, but (sadly) are less likely to tell anyone.

If they have a negative experience, they will go out of their way to tell their friends, family, and anyone that expresses an interest about it.

We have a wonderful distro, and an excellent community -- I hope that a few negative voices will not detract from that.

Best,

Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier openSUSE Community Manager jzb@zonker.net http://zonker.opensuse.org/ http://www.dissociatedpress.net/

--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

No, they don't. If people are having problems in IRC, they should feel free to speak up on -project. Maybe the problem is legitimate, maybe it's not -- but we should never try to tell people that they're unwelcome to express concerns on this list.

And they're also likely to tell their friends, family and anyone else "hey, the people over on #suse are rude, so I bet the whole community is like that."

Problems on IRC spread, and if people are being rude, it reflects badly on the entire project. Whether that's *fair* or not, that's the way it is.

Yes, people of course can write and complain everywhere. The real problem is not someone speaking bad of openSUSE. Is that people should start giving words the right weight. On IRC you are usually shorter, more direct and less formal than elsewhere because of a mountain of reasons (you're spending there your free time, you are in a hurry, ...). Moreover, how do you fix rules to regulate these problems? There's no effective way to do it, because we don't really want a channel with police. Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier escribió:

Maybe the problem is legitimate, maybe it's not

It isnt, is just a regular troll. -- "Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.” - Edsger W. Dijkstra Cristian Rodríguez R. Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/

2008/6/14 Francis Earl :

I guess it's really easy to write off any real issues like this, I should have expected it I suppose.

If you have any concrete suggestions as to how the situation can be improved we would be happy to consider them. I already mentioned the channel rules[0], and the more general guiding principles[1]. * Do you think the rules are lacking? Do you have any suggestions for refinement? * Do you think the rules are just insufficiently enforced? People can help by pinging the ops when necessary. I already mentioned that new ops are added as suitably responsible and active people are identified. * Do you have an issue with the behaviour of one or more of the current ops? ("/msg susehelp ops" will give you a list). If that is the case than please contact one of the other operators privately with specific examples. Or is your complaint about something else entirely? __ [0] http://suse-irc.org/rules.html [1] http://en.opensuse.org/Guiding_Principles -- Benjamin Weber --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 11 June 2008 1:52:31 Benji Weber wrote:

2008/6/11 Francis Earl :

...

I have been in the IRC channel on freenode now for a few days, and I am utterly appalled.

I reviewed the logs of the last incident when you were kicked, and it seems justified to me.

Ok, and you'll note I said "no harm no foul"... if you'll read the rest of this thread, you'll see that's not all I am complaining about, in fact I've gone out of my way to try not to discuss it.

Your behaviour was contributing to exactly the kind of channel atmosphere that you complain exists in #suse.

Ok.

I suspect this is message is just motivated by anger at being kicked. If you have a problem with a particular op, you can always take it up with one of the others.

No, check those same logs for samba and symphony statements made by the same op. I could drag out my complete logs and edit them to highlight such behavior that is entirely unrelated, but I have already invited anyone to simply witness it for themselves.

The ops cannot watch every single line ever said on the channel, though the number of ops is increased as trustworthy people are identified, to improve coverage. The overall atmosphere can be improved by anyone who joins the channel.

My specific complaints relate directly to ops behavior though, that can certainly be controlled. Ops should know they have more responsibility than most to ensure a certain level of respect is maintained between users of the channel.

...

I have used Linux for almost 10 years, people all over IRC talk bad about #debian, but they are not even half as bad as #opensuse. I would suggest contacting FreeNode and having #opensuse and #suse separated and started again, it's really appalling.

#opensuse was separate initially but forwarded once the distribution name changed to openSUSE. What the channel is called is irrelevant, the channel atmosphere is defined by those who are active at any time. This is something everyone can contribute to improving.

I disagree, as I stated elsewhere, I believe prolonged atmosphere is the responsibility of the ops in charge of the channel. You agree it could be better, but don't make this tie apparently.

I did address some of these common complaints a while ago. Please read http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/bweber/entry/opensuse_irc_call/

Will do, thank you.

The IRC rules which will be upheld by the ops are available at http://suse-irc.org/rules.html , there are also the openSUSE guiding principles http://en.opensuse.org/Guiding_Principles . If an op's behaviour is against the spirit of either of these then that can be addressed. However, I do not see that is the case here.

You are singling in on one incident because you seem to believe I take things overly serious on the internet. This thread is about overall observations, not about specific ops that should be reconsidered. If you'd like me to discuss that more specifically, I can start a new thread. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org