[ubuntu-studio-devel] [ubuntu-studio-users] Proposal to sunset #ubuntustudio-offtopic

[Erich Eickmeyer]

BabsKy, you bring up great points and are re-enforcing my case.

Honestly, I have yet to see one person arguing against combining. We 
rarely, if ever, get support questions in the devel channel, so I'm not 
worried there. Usually when that happens it's a matter of, "I need to 
reach the devs about such-and-such," in which case it's completely fine, 
and more than likely gets triaged into a bug report where it's more 
easily tracked (could still be handled from #ubuntustudio since we hang 
out there as well).

As for why I'd want to redirect people with support/help questions to 
#ubuntustudio, the biggest reason is because of eyeballs. As with any 
open source project, the more the better, and in this case, the more 
people available to troubleshoot a problem the better. There are twice 
as many people in #ubuntustudio as #ubuntustudio-offtopic, so you can 
clearly see the advantage there.

As of now, I have removed the page links on ubuntustudio.org for the 
community page which only served to be a link to #ubuntustudio-offtopic 
to remove the ambiguity. I believe that, in the future, removing Ubuntu 
Studio Café from the Ubuntu Studio Information menu would be next for 
all supported releases and 23.10, followed by the forwarding of the 
channel to #ubuntustudio.

I have yet to see any compelling reason to not move forward. Removing 
the link is the easiest to undo if there's any compelling reason to do 
otherwise, so if anybody has any reason not to move forward, please let 
me know. :)

-Erich

On 10/7/23 08:54, BabsKy wrote:
> We have signage for our IT sessions that people don’t see. We used to hold our sessions on a mezzanine that had a sign on a stand smack in the middle at the bottom of the stairs, people would squeeze past the sign to come up to the mezzanine and then be surprised when we told them we were in a session. We currently use a separate room and always put signage on the door, at eye level, but people still don’t see it.
> As for being aggressive, there are several possible reasons, in my experience;
> 1. English isn’t everyone’s first language and some don’t have a good understanding of it.
> 2. Mental health issues or physical brain damage/physical limitations, certain medication, can cause aggressive behaviour.
> 3. Lack of understanding, rooted in either 1 or 2 above, can cause frustration which can appear to be or lead to aggression.
> 4. Some people need handholding. Vague direction isn’t enough, you have to give unambiguous, “foolproof” direction. In this case that would be a link. I have one of these customers, he’s a nice man but has NO common sense whatsoever. He needs clear, step by step instructions. Although he often gets frustrated with himself he doesn’t get aggressive, but there are some that do. Maybe they’ve been spoilt and expect everything to be handed to them on a plate?
>
> In an ideal world you wouldn’t have to change anything to satisfy the minority, if they would be satisfied? but we don’t live in an ideal world so combining may be the way to go?
>
>
>
>> On 7 Oct 2023, at 05:02, Erich Eickmeyer <eeickmeyer at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>
>> Yep, it was signposted very clearly, but apparently people didn't understand the difference between "community" and "support" and didn't see the bold letters in the community page saying "do not use this chat for technical support." Furthermore, this one person claimed the term "technical support" is subjective, which I'm still confused about.
>>
>> Either way, I think removing the guesswork is the best way forward. One chat room, less ambiguity, keeping the development collaboration separate still.
>>
>> -Erich
>>
>> On 10/6/23 15:38, BabsKy wrote:
>>> I didn’t even know there was a #ubuntustudio-offtopic!
>>> Unfortunately there will always be people like that and I’m sure you’re not letting them get to you, it’s sad that this is the world we live in. I’m one of a team of volunteer IT trainers and we also have to deal with abuse occasionally, usually verbal but it has escalated once or twice.
>>> I can understand users not being familiar with the correct avenues for help and can understand how frustrating it can be in that situation, so making it as easy as possible and the correct routes as clearly signposted as possible is all you can do.
>>>
>>>> On 5 Oct 2023, at 20:15, Erich Eickmeyer <eeickmeyer at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> There was an incident the other day in which someone requested support in the #ubuntustudio-offtopic IRC channel. I answered their question but requested they move to #ubuntustudio since this gets more view (and is properly logged), but instead of doing the right thing and doing what was requested, this person decided to berate me, then threaten me which then got them kicked out and banned for violating the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, after which they continued to threaten me via private message, which then got them reported to staff and, likely, K-lined.
>>>>
>>>> This, however, did get me thinking: this isn't the first time people have been confused about the purpose of #ubuntustudio-offtopic, though this is the first time someone has been so verbally violent about it. Additionally, #ubuntustudio-offtopic doesn't see much use other than Krytarik correcting my grammar. :)
>>>>
>>>> With that, I propose sunsetting #ubuntustudio-offtopic and combining it with #ubuntustudio to make #ubuntustudio a support *and* discussion channel, but anything other than the topic of Ubuntu Studio would be requested to move to #ubuntu-offtopic for general chit-chat, as #ubuntu-offtopic is a much more active room. The general idea is to lower the confusion and to allow people to feel more welcome to discuss Ubuntu Studio in our main chat.
>>>>
>>>> Let me know your thoughts.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>> Erich
>>>> --
>>>> Erich Eickmeyer
>>>> Project Lead - Ubuntu Studio
>>>> Technical Lead - Edubuntu
>>>>
>>>>
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