A little note for you Experts out there. Don’t take
yourself too seriously; We are all here to learn and
grow. Coddle the dumb ones and challenge the smart ones.
If you consider the ratio of expertise to ignorant questions you'll see that this is really bad advice. Experts, even when they dabble in Q&A, are not by definition tutors. It's unfair to expect that whole category of people to waste their own time and the time of people with smart questions by 'coddling' those who fail to grasp this fact. When dealing with people who are clearly overreaching their current capabilities, or who ask 'how' questions without any interest in the 'why', giving them the cold shoulder and an invitation to gather more background knowledge from published resources is often the best service that can be done.
Another factor in support fatigue among open source software experts is the (often inept) commercial application of the software, which is commonly associated with a lack of respect for the software itself and for those who have deep knowledge of it. Then* you get questions paired with criticism like 'I know exactly how to do this in Y, why can't stupid X behave the way I want?' or insistent pleading like 'I need to get this working ASAP! Please halp!'. When the intent behind the question is not to learn but to make money faster, volunteers support 'staff' are not obliged to step up.
Anyway, advising experts in general to change the way they volunteer time and information is pointless. They know what works for them and there are no levers on IRC to make them change their habits.
PS, config help on #apache? What network is that? :)
"Protip: Learn to laugh it off. Another thing when you decide to be a bitchass; add a smiley. Trust me it makes all the difference. "
I grew skeptical of the advice at this point. Putting a 'smiley' after an unpleasant statement is the equivalent of saying it with a snide smirk on your face.
it just goes to show that your not trying to be malicious in your somewhat harsh statement. Sometimes there is no way to put something delicately to a complete stranger. adding the smiley is more of a way to get the reader to look at it as constructive as supposed to judgement on the person asking the question.
Unfortunately, some people use it to be snide, so its unclear and should be avoided. Some think that adding a 'smiley' is a license to be tactless, blunt or insulting, but it's better to learn how to express ones thoughts properly. 'just sayin' serves the same faulty purpose. If you feel the need to add one of those to avoid being misinterpreted, rewrite your statement. 'not trying to be harsh' or 'please take this as constructive criticism' are more expressive.
This is a great, IRC-specific extension to esr's "How To Ask Questions the Smart Way" ( http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ). Reading (and understanding) both of these documents as an IRC newbie will most likely make your experience much more pleasant.
I personally loath meta answers like "why are you doing X and asking Y" instead of wasting the equivalent typing of explaining why X and Y is a bad idea.
With that said, I usually find the most serious experts just quietly ignoring silly questions or trying to pry out the root of the problem through a constructive dialog. Why superior douchebags get satisfaction of showing of their superiority by bashing beginners has always been beyond me.
That said you really need a tough skin on IRC on some channels, and always take the topic to the letter. That usually indicates what type of people hang there and what type of messages are accepted.
> I personally loath meta answers like "why are you doing X and asking Y" instead of wasting the equivalent typing of explaining why X and Y is a bad idea.
That's funny; I'm more often annoyed by the second response because often X and Y are only generally bad, not universally bad. Even though the supportee should probably have an up-front justification, it's reasonable to check for one and avoid handing out an unfair critique.
The point is being up front and to the point, in spirit with "don't ask to ask, just ask". Most of these meta-answers are founded in the belief that the asker doesn't know what they are asking. And by supplying another set of questions instead of just bluntly stating what you think, you are feebly trying to guard yourself from being wrong - which is something people hate to admit on IRC.
The better being that you explain that "X and Y is a bad idea" and getting a quick "No" in response (assuming the asker knows what he/shes asking), instead of having the asker having to going in to more (often unnecessary) detail.
Agreed. I've tried many clients over the years and loved bitchX from the old days and now use irssi exclusively. It's great and really easy to learn. Very scriptable as well.
I first encountered IRC at the age of 9 or so, when I installed Linux for the first time and randomly opened X-Chat, which took me to Freenode. By the time I was 13, I had engaged in screaming competitions with GNU fundamentalists in #gnu, asked hundreds of stupid questions in ##linux, and provided support to countless others in #pearpc and #distrowatch, and obviously grown a much thicker skin.
I find that finding which room to go is rather trivial problem. I find dealing with people in irc; would be the main problem when first trying it out and getting to learn the ropes with technical people online. Those things may be fairly obvious but they happen everyday; in every room.
> Follow the channel for little time before asking anything.
Related: an IRC stream is always conversation of sorts and, for humans, there is only enough bandwidth for a few voices at a time to be heard. If three people have just asked questions or there are multiple ongoing discussions, it might be wise to wait until things quiet down a bit.
>If you want to piss off the most knowledgeable person in the room; simply ask if you can ask a question.
Don't forget the corollary: Never ask if you can ask a question on channels where they don't like answering questions. You should know that its not a channel for asking questions. If you are brazen enough to ask a question expect the following answer:
<a> How do I XY my Z?
<@b> !google XY a Z
<bot> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=XY+a+Z
Well, the point is you need to try to figure it out for yourself before you ask someone else directly for their attention. If someone simply points you to google, you should be able to tell them why that isn't an acceptable response to your question.
This is exactly what happens on the official Arch Linux IRC channel. The entire process stinks of condescension and probably drives quite a few people away from the channel (including myself).
What I found was that very few people on the distro channels have original knowledge - they just run some bot commands or link to some page they Googled for. If I ask a question that hasn't been answered before, nobody replies. That's why I usually end up going to the upstream channel instead, where they actually know what they're doing and are willing to help, even if that means you have to wait 12+ hours for a reply.
Another factor in support fatigue among open source software experts is the (often inept) commercial application of the software, which is commonly associated with a lack of respect for the software itself and for those who have deep knowledge of it. Then* you get questions paired with criticism like 'I know exactly how to do this in Y, why can't stupid X behave the way I want?' or insistent pleading like 'I need to get this working ASAP! Please halp!'. When the intent behind the question is not to learn but to make money faster, volunteers support 'staff' are not obliged to step up.
Anyway, advising experts in general to change the way they volunteer time and information is pointless. They know what works for them and there are no levers on IRC to make them change their habits.
PS, config help on #apache? What network is that? :)
* I know, not only then.