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Revision 12 as of 2008-11-20 16:12:13
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Editor: JariAalto
Comment: (6) top post - tone down. Axplain book reading principle
Revision 13 as of 2008-11-20 16:23:52
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Editor: JariAalto
Comment: Move sections under topics 2a-2c, 3a-3c
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2. Just ask what your problem is and try to be as specific as possible. Say what version of Debian you're running, what you're trying to do, what command you typed (if you typed anything), and what the error message said (if there was one). Consult [http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html how to ask smart questions]. It also helps, if you put your whole question on ''one line''. It's difficult to follow broken sentences across several minutes in a busy IRC channel. 2a. Just ask what your problem is and try to be as specific as possible. Say what version of Debian you're running, what you're trying to do, what command you typed (if you typed anything), and what the error message said (if there was one). Consult [http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html how to ask smart questions]. It also helps, if you put your whole question on ''one line''. It's difficult to follow broken sentences across several minutes in a busy IRC channel.
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3. Be polite and patient. Read http://www.freenode.org/policy.shtml and http://www.freenode.org/channel_guidelines.shtml. You might want to read the [http://debstats.dontexist.org/ channel stats] too, while you're waiting for someone to answer. 2b. Be polite and patient. Read http://www.freenode.org/policy.shtml and http://www.freenode.org/channel_guidelines.shtml. You might want to read the [http://debstats.dontexist.org/ channel stats] too, while you're waiting for someone to answer.
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4. If you don't get answer, just sit tight and repeat after 10 minutes. IRC channels are busy, and people may not respond immediately. In unlucky situation there may not be anyone around to be familiar with the problem at at hand, so repeating in succession won't expedite things. 2c. Send question to whole channel, not particular person. ''Especially'' avoid sending private messages to people. Private messages to the bots in the other hand can send you answers immediately both in the form of static factoids and hooks into the Debian package lists. A bot may already have a canned answer for your question, which helps reduce the load for the human helpers.
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5. If the problem still isn't solved, come back in 8 or 16 hours. The channels are very international and people attending from around the globe vary from UTC-7 to UTC+7. 2d. Don't [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:flood flood] the channel because [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:bot bots] will kick anyone automatically after 4 lines. Avoid [http://ursine.dyndns.org/wiki/index.php/Jargon:spam spamming] the channel e.with AdvocacySpam if your project (People will find it anyway). Avoid [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:troll trolling] the members and asking questions about other distributions or operating systems that are not '''Debian'' (Knoppix and and Ubuntu are not Debian distributions; they are derived and have their own channels). [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Away Please disable any public "away" or "back" messages]; if everyone announced every time they get up to go to the bathroom, no conversation would fit in to these distractions. Don't CTCP people without asking permission or perform other actions that may bother members. The channel tends to average well over 600 people, and if everybody descended to such [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:luser luserish] behavior, the channel would quickly become unusable.
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6. If no one can answer your question, try the debian-user mailing list. You can sign up at http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe, and post your questions to debian-user@lists.debian.org . It is open to non-subscribers, but the default is to NOT CC the original poster with replies 3a. If you don't get answer, just sit tight and repeat after 10 minutes. IRC channels are busy, and people may not respond immediately. In unlucky situation there may not be anyone around to be familiar with the problem at at hand, so repeating in succession won't expedite things.

3b. If the problem still isn't solved, come back in 8 or 1
6 hours. The channels are very international and people attending from around the globe vary from UTC-7 to UTC+7.

3c
. If no one can answer your question, try the debian-user mailing list. You can sign up at http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe, and post your questions to debian-user@lists.debian.org . It is open to non-subscribers, but the default is to NOT CC the original poster with replies
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7. Don't [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:flood flood] the channel (our [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:bot bots] will kick you automatically after 4 lines). Don't [http://ursine.dyndns.org/wiki/index.php/Jargon:spam spam] the channel. This includes AdvocacySpam about your project. If it's cool, we'll find out about it. Don't [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:troll troll] the members. Don't ask questions about other distributions or operating systems ('''this includes Knoppix and Ubuntu; Knoppix and Ubuntu are not Debian, and we cannot support them'''). [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Away Please disable any public "away" or "back" messages]; if everyone announced every time they get up to go to the bathroom, we'd never get any conversation in. Don't CTCP people without asking permission or perform other actions that may bother members. The channel tends to average well over 600 people, and if everybody descended to such [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:luser luserish] behavior, the channel would quickly become unusable.

8. Don't demand help. Don't ask specific people for help -- ask the whole channel. ''Especially'', don't send private messages to people asking
for help. You may, however, send private messages to the bots -- in fact, this is strongly encouraged. The bots have an impressive set of information available, both in the form of static factoids and hooks into the Debian package lists. A bot may already have a canned answer for your question, which helps reduce the load for the human helpers. If you want private help, [http://www.debian.org/consultants/ hire it]! Be aware, that
the bots might only respond to you, if you joined a channel, they are in, too.

9. Telling someone to run 'rm -rf *', or any variation, will get you a ban. Even if you said it as a joke. It's not funny to make someone delete their data.
4. Telling someone to run 'rm -rf *', or any variation, will get anyone banned. Even if it is said as a joke. It's not funny to make someone new to Debian to delete their data.

number of other alternatives].

The channel has some basic rules:

1. Make sure you have read the documentation and manual pages before you admit that really don't understand. It's unhelpful to make others to dig this information for you if you haven't at least tried yourself fist. The documentation that you can consult include: man pages, the option --help for the commands, GNU info pages info <command>, package documentation in directory /usr/share/doc/<package>.

2a. Just ask what your problem is and try to be as specific as possible. Say what version of Debian you're running, what you're trying to do, what command you typed (if you typed anything), and what the error message said (if there was one). Consult [http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html how to ask smart questions]. It also helps, if you put your whole question on one line. It's difficult to follow broken sentences across several minutes in a busy IRC channel.

2b. Be polite and patient. Read http://www.freenode.org/policy.shtml and http://www.freenode.org/channel_guidelines.shtml. You might want to read the [http://debstats.dontexist.org/ channel stats] too, while you're waiting for someone to answer.

2c. Send question to whole channel, not particular person. Especially avoid sending private messages to people. Private messages to the bots in the other hand can send you answers immediately both in the form of static factoids and hooks into the Debian package lists. A bot may already have a canned answer for your question, which helps reduce the load for the human helpers.

2d. Don't [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:flood flood] the channel because [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:bot bots] will kick anyone automatically after 4 lines. Avoid [http://ursine.dyndns.org/wiki/index.php/Jargon:spam spamming] the channel e.with ?AdvocacySpam if your project (People will find it anyway). Avoid [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:troll trolling] the members and asking questions about other distributions or operating systems that are not Debian (Knoppix and and Ubuntu are not Debian distributions; they are derived and have their own channels). [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Away Please disable any public "away" or "back" messages]; if everyone announced every time they get up to go to the bathroom, no conversation would fit in to these distractions. Don't CTCP people without asking permission or perform other actions that may bother members. The channel tends to average well over 600 people, and if everybody descended to such [http://ursine.dyndns.org/Jargon:luser luserish] behavior, the channel would quickly become unusable.

3a. If you don't get answer, just sit tight and repeat after 10 minutes. IRC channels are busy, and people may not respond immediately. In unlucky situation there may not be anyone around to be familiar with the problem at at hand, so repeating in succession won't expedite things.

3b. If the problem still isn't solved, come back in 8 or 16 hours. The channels are very international and people attending from around the globe vary from UTC-7 to UTC+7.

3c. If no one can answer your question, try the debian-user mailing list. You can sign up at http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe, and post your questions to debian-user@lists.debian.org . It is open to non-subscribers, but the default is to NOT CC the original poster with replies (i.e., they only go to the list) so, if you don't subscribe, you'll have to set your Mail-Followup-To header to include both you and the mailing list and/or crawl the mailing list archives on http://lists.debian.org/ . Since the list is so high-traffic, it's important to [http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ask a smart question]. Include all the information you think is relevant, and make sure you tell us what documentation you've looked at, what you've tried and what symptoms led up to the problem. Resist to use subjects begging for HELP or claiming to be URGENT: those posts tend to get deleted and ignored without being read, because the channel is not serving anyone particular.

In general, [http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=netiquette#privatereply do not ask for private replies]. Instead, set CC header to point to you and you can get notification when someone answers. If the matter is urgent to your company, there are [http://www.debian.org/consultants/ consultants for hire]. When replying, please make a real effort to avoid top posting for the sake of clarity; People read books from top-down, read newspapers top-down, so follow style in replies (someone talks, you reply after it). If people have to work to read the question from the end before they work to solve it, the message gets probably ignored.

4. Telling someone to run 'rm -rf *', or any variation, will get anyone banned. Even if it is said as a joke. It's not funny to make someone new to Debian to delete their data.

See the ?OtherChannels page for a list of other Debian-related IRC channels. This is particularly important for people who don't speak English well, or who are using architectures other than i386. See the ["OtherFAQs"] page for further FAQs.