Interesting experience with #Ubuntu chanops.

[Joseph Price]

To be honest, I don't believe the amount of users matters. Annoying a
small group of users is the same as annoying a big group of users in my
opinion... you are still annoying annoying someone.

You should realise that ctcp's "highlighted" users. Many people, when
highlighted will drop what they are doing to see what the fuss is about.
They do get slightly annoyed when they realise someone was just too lazy
to look at their watch/phone/clock/panel/terminal to find the time.
You're running xchat... a gui app, so I highly doubt you've deleted your
panels together with the clock.

We're really not interested in this extravagant explanation... you
pinged a lot of people. It happens, we all make mistakes. We just wanted
you to hold your hands up and say sorry, take our advice on board and we
will/would have let you back in.

Whether you should or shouldn't send ctcps to an entire channel is not
for argument.

> So, I joined #Ubuntu-ops, apologized for my mistake, said it wouldn't
> happen again and asked to be unbanned.
Yes you joined #ubuntu-ops, but you didn't apologise or say it wouldn't
happen again as far as my logs show. You did ask to be unbanned
though ;)

Joseph Price

P.s. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IrcTeam/AppealProcess is the documented
appeal process.

On Sat, 2008-03-08 at 16:23 +0100, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
> Hello everyone.
> 
> Today, I've had a very interesting, though not exactly positive,
> experience with some of #Ubuntu's channel operators. I was going to
> ask a question in #Ubuntu when I discovered that I'd been banned. You
> see, yesterday, I was in a hurry and needed to get the precise time. I
> didn't have ntp installed, and there was no way for me to quickly
> install it. Since I was already on IRC, and had my client right in
> front of me, sending a CTCP TIME message to #ubuntu-no seemed like a
> quick and easy way of solving the "problem", so I did. This is a
> channel with ~20 idle users, which is sufficient to tell which ones
> are using ntp and few enough to avoid being flooded by CTCP replies.
> Since everyone there is in my timezone, it answered my question very
> quickly. Well, xchat uses a different tab completion strategy than
> mIRC, which I also use alot, and so the CTCP was sent to #Ubuntu
> instead, which is a very large channel filled with users that aren't
> even in my timezone. Clearly a mistake on my part, since the only
> effect was to flood myself with useless messages. 
> 
> So, I joined #Ubuntu-ops, apologized for my mistake, said it wouldn't
> happen again and asked to be unbanned. I also said I think it would be
> nice if people got a warning before they were banned and kicked out of
> the channel for such a, from my point of view, innocent mistake. The
> response was not nice at all. I was told I am stupid, a jerk, have no
> common sense, etc. I am a bit surprised by this behaviour. I respect
> the rules for the channels I'm part of, of course, and I always read
> topics and guidelines before using a channel to make sure I don't
> violate any. When I'm on IRC, I'm helpful and polite and I really
> don't think I deserve that kind of verbal abuse just because I happen
> to disagree with the unwritten rules. Don't get me wrong. If I knew
> that sending CTCPs were considered unacceptable on #ubuntu-* channels,
> I wouldn't have done so. 
> 
> And why is a single CTCP command considered such an awful offence
> anyway? If someone sends me a CTCP message, that doesn't annoy me at
> all, at least not more than a normal message containing the same
> question. Actually, I'd prefer it if they just asked my client instead
> of requiring me to respond manually. Paul O'Malley argued that asking
> someone what time it is where they are, is an invasion of their
> privacy. I don't understand that point at all. As Jonathan Patrick
> Davies and Travis Watkins both pointed out, a user who doesn't wish to
> receive CTCPs from fellow users, can just set usermode +C. 
> 
> So, I still disagree when it comes to CTCP messages. Unlike Dennis
> Kaarsemaker, I think CTCPs are very useful, whether you're inviting
> someone to download a file, asking them if the client has a certain
> feature (like whether or not it's capable of handling apturls) or what
> timezone they're in. But do I feel that users who disagree are stupid?
> No, I don't. Would I tell them if I did? No, I wouldn't. As long as
> users are asked to refrain from using expressions such as rtfm, stfw,
> rafb, etc, I don't think the operators should either. 
> 
> Kindest regards,
> 
> Jo-Erlend Schinstad
> 
> 
>