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## with redirects set up from both PoundDebianGuidelines and HashDebianGuidelines
## though there's always the option of creating en_US/en_nonUS locali[sz]ed versions...

||<tablestyle="width: 100%;" style="border: 0px hidden">~-[[DebianWiki/EditorGuide#translation|Translation(s)]]: English - [[it/DebianIRCChannelGuidelines|Italiano]] -~||<style="text-align: right;border: 0px hidden"> (!) [[/Discussion|Discussion]]||
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[[irc://irc.debian.org/debian|#debian]] is an [[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/I/IRC.html|IRC]] channel kindly hosted by [[https://www.oftc.net/|OFTC]] and [[https://libera.chat/|Libera Chat]] which you can join for realtime discussion with other Debian users. To join you need an IRC client; [[PackageManagement|install]] DebianPkg:irssi, DebianPkg:hexchat,  [[DebianPkg:talksoup.app]], DebianPkg:konversation or DebianPkg:kopete.  There is also [[WikiPedia:Comparison_of_Internet_Relay_Chat_clients|a large number of other alternatives]].

See the [[IRC]] 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 amd64.  See the [[FAQs]] page for further FAQs.

The channel's basic rules are outlined below.

== Study the issues first ==

1. Please read the documentation and manual pages. Show that you have tried to do this. It is unhelpful if others need to dig out this information for you. The documentation sources that you can consult include: manual pages, the option {{{--help}}} for the commands, GNU info pages {{{info <command>}}}, package documentation in directory {{{/usr/share/doc/<package>}}}.

== How to send questions ==

2a. Just present the problem 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 can put your whole question on ''one line''.  It's difficult to follow broken sentences across several minutes on a busy IRC channel.

2b. Be polite and patient. Read [[https://www.oftc.net/Network_Policy/|OFTC network policy]] and the Libera Chat [[https://libera.chat/policies|policies]] and [[https://libera.chat/guidelines|channel guide]]. You might want to read the [[http://members.ziggo.nl/sussudio/debian.html|channel stats]] too, while you're waiting for someone to answer.

2c. Send your question to the whole channel, not to a 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://www.catb.org/jargon/html/F/flood.html|flood]] the channel. [[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/B/bot.html|Bots]] will kick anyone automatically after 4 lines.
 *Avoid [[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/spam.html|spamming]] the channel e.g. with advocacy of your project.
 *Avoid asking questions about other distributions or operating systems that are not ''Debian'' (Knoppix and Ubuntu are '''not''' Debian; they are derived distributions and have their own channels).
 *[[https://sackheads.org/~bnaylor/spew/away_msgs.html|Please disable any public "away" or "back" messages]] or greetings that aren't followed up with a genuine question; 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 behavior, the channel would quickly become unusable.

== How to proceed if there is no answer ==

3a. If you don't get an answer, just sit tight and repeat after 10 minutes. IRC channels are busy, and people may not respond immediately. If you are unlucky, there may not be anyone around who is familiar with the problem 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 [[https://www.debian.org/support|the other Debian support channels]], including the debian-user mailing list.  You can [[https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/|sign up to debian-user]], 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}}} field to include both you and the mailing list and/or crawl the mailing list archives on [[https://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 the temptation to use subjects containing HELP or URGENT: those posts tend to get ignored without being read (the poster is not a "special case" compared to other posters).

In general, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20080116014148/http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=netiquette#privatereply|do not ask for private replies]]. Instead, set your {{{Cc}}} field to point to you and you can get notification when someone answers. If the matter is urgent to your company, there are [[https://www.debian.org/consultants/|consultants for hire]].  When replying, please make a real effort to '''trim redundant material''' and '''avoid top posting''' for the sake of clarity; instead, use the [[WikiPedia:Posting_style#Interleaved_style|inline reply]] style. People read books from top-down, read newspapers top-down, so follow this style in replies (someone talks, you reply after it). If people have to work backwards to read the question from the end before they work to solve it, the message will probably be ignored.

== What not to do in any circumstances ==

4. Telling someone to run 'rm -rf *', any variations of this or similarly harmful commands will get anyone banned. Even if this is said as a joke. It's not funny to make someone new to Debian delete their data or harm their systems in other ways.

<<Anchor(banned)>>
== I've been banned! ==

5a. Are you running as root? Please log in as a normal user to access #debian. On Tor? Register with Nickserv and then set a cloak "/msg nickserv set cloak on"

5b. Have you really been banned? If you've been kicked by debhelper for flooding, you can just join again. Please use https://paste.debian.net in future for transferring large amounts of data. If you have mode +q set, this normally expires after 10 or so minutes.

5c. If you want a ban removing, then you can ask in #debian-ops for a review. This is more likely to be given as time passes, and if you acknowledge any role in the events leading up to the ban. As an indication, very few people are permanently banned from the channel.