Re: [9fans] the futility of #plan9 on irc

[Vester Thacker <vester.thacker@gmail.com>]

On 5/25/05, Russ Cox <russcox@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have not posted my opinion of the IRC crowd.  I merely posted some
> evidence that they were, one one particular occasion, completely
> full of shit.  People can make their own decisions about whether
> to generalize.

Rationalize. One out of how many? We are not talking all or nothing. 
 
> I think reading the FAQ, poking around the Wiki, and then
> asking on 9fans is a much more reliable way to go.

Sure, but a lot of folks that we meet on IRC rush into Plan 9 and hit 
hurdles during the install/configuration process. Then they want 
answers, so they go to IRC for a quick remedy. 

We are the first response team for their answers. I do not believe 
that the folks volunteering to help on IRC are out to misguide people 
intentionally. Granted a few tend to be a little overzealous at times,
but not always.

I am not certain that telling the consumer that he/she should go
to a mailing list for the quick answer is always the best solution.
It seems that IRC will alleviate the problem sooner. Granted if 
the question is more technical, it should go to 9fans.

I'll meet you half way and say that if one of our volunteers 
berates one of the newbies, I'll ban the offender from the #plan9
channel. I'll even go the extra mile to have them banned from
freenode. We could go with a no tolerance approach, or a 3
strikes and your out approach. 

> Poking around the IRC logs from the first week of May,
> I have learned that the /sys/src/9 kernels have no
> SCSI support (only /sys/src/fs does) and that there is
> no way for acme to pipe the current buffer through a
> program.  Sometimes, when such misinformation is stated
> as fact, someone is around to correct it.  But just as often
> it seems that no one is around to correct it.  And if you're
> a newbie and you get the latter, I don't believe that you've
> done better than asking on 9fans and waiting a little while.

It's a fact of life that people make mistakes. If we hit an 
85 percent accuracy rate then we are doing great. Most 
weather forecasters don't do that well.

-vester