Call for discussion to clarify the IRC guidelines

[Juha Siltala]

Hi,

It has been called to the IRC Council’s attention that a general
discussion on the IRC guidelines could be useful. This is not to
review the guidelines themselves, but to make sure we all know what
their implications are, and to harmonize the behavior of operators
when dealing with everyday and not-so-everyday situations on our
channels.

For instance, there have been references to “double standards” between
and within channels. This implies that different operators read the
guidelines differently, or simply have different styles of working.
This doesn’t have to be a huge problem, or a problem at all, but it
might be useful to discuss our work occasionally, and this message is
an attempt to start one such discussion. We do, of course, have our
coordination channel where we could have this discussion. But email,
as an asynchronous medium, might be a valuable addition as everyone
can participate at their own preferred time and pace.

Some of the points that don’t always seem to be fully clear, or
completely agreed upon are:

- 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?

- 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?

No doubt there are many more small and big things where our opinions
may differ, and I’d love to see them discussed openly here, as well as
in the coordination channel. Please give this some thought when you
have time and bring up your own suggestions here on the list. Also,
let’s use the coordination channel to the fullest, to keep the team as
well greased as it is, and perhaps make us even better!

Thanks,

-- 
Juha Siltala
http://ubuntu.com