Call for discussion to clarify the IRC guidelines

[Robert Wall]

Hi all,

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 01:30:52AM -0400, IdleOne wrote:
> On 11-07-18 11:49 AM, Juha Siltala wrote:
> >- What exactly does “family friendly” mean? We obviously don’t want to
> >allow cursing, personal attacks and such, but we might want to
> >tolerate some amount of “horseplay” on social channels, such as
> >#ubuntu-offtopic. But as a multicultural project, we might have some
> >difficulty in defining this. How do we currently approach this issue?
> >How should we improve?

To be blunt, I don't think "family friendly" is a descriptive phrase at 
all. If memory serves, the /topic for #ubuntu-offtopic has at various 
times mandated "common-sense", respect, professionalism, adherence to 
the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, politeness, and various other good things. 
While #ubuntu-offtopic doesn't always follow all of those, they're more 
useful words than "family friendly". When opping in there, I vastly 
prefer to discourage talk of sex, excessive cussing, bowel movements, 
etc. based on those words instead.

Ultimately, though, I don't think you can get around "family friendly" 
or its alternatives being open to claims of double standards. They're 
subjective rules intended to preserve a community atmosphere that's 
obvious to regulars and not obvious to new people. When faced with 
nuance that they don't understand, people tend to get frustrated. Users 
should lurk more, and ops should issue warnings before actioning people 
and be open to explaining community norms.

> >- What is supported in #ubuntu and other support channels? Only
> >sofware supported by Canonical? Only software that’s included in
> >either main or universe? Only free software? Should we support users
> >trying to run popular Windows games with Wine?

I think the majority of ops would agree that packages in main, universe, 
restricted, and multiverse, are supported in #ubuntu. There are reasons 
to not support {restricted, multiverse} or not support {universe, 
multiverse}, but ultimately all four together constitute Ubuntu, so it's 
reasonable to support them in #ubuntu.

In my opinion, partner should be supported in #ubuntu, with the caveat 
that the software in it isn't used by the vast majority of people 
helping in #ubuntu (including me), so it may be hard to get support.

If it's outside of that, go talk to whoever you got it from. This 
includes software purchased through Ubuntu Software Center and PPAs.

> #winehq does an awesome job at support. IF Wine is broken then yes
> #ubuntu might be the appropriate place to get support but I would
> think that #winehq can do a better job in this case.

The way I deal with this is "You can ask for help in #ubuntu, but the 
people in #winehq are more likely to be able to help you.". I don't 
think it should be forbidden that people ask complicated WINE questions 
(for example) in #ubuntu, but they should be made aware of reasonable 
alternative channels.

-- Robert Wall (rww)