Issues with IRC

[bhtooefr]

Lately, we've had issues with the signal to noise ratio worsening in IRC, and none of the users that have operator powers are active in the channel any more. (To name names, that's acfrazier, Izza, xbb, and daedalus.)

Trolling has become prevalent, and often the discussion goes downright scatological. While I'm loath to suggest that the channel become 100% serious business, and IRC channels can and should go off-topic at times, this is getting ridiculous, and it's driving people away from the channel.

Apparently the one of the club/forum master's responsibilities is to appoint an IRC master, but as far as I know, this has not been done. 002, can you confirm that?

I'm posting this in the main Deskthority talk section, because it's relevant to non-members of the club, and I think their input is also valuable. Thoughts?

[Medowy]

Sounds reasonable.

I think 3-5 ops is a good amount monitoring the channel. From different time zones of course.

I myself could volunteer for the job. I'm there most of my time.

[adhoc]

I nominate tinnie!

[Madhias]

What was the issue? Most of the time the #DT channel is just a quiet place. I ask sometimes the bot for the weather. And so do other users. At work i had the channel opened up about 8h a day, and there were almost no discussions, everyone being quiet. Completely different to the #GH channel.

[Muirium]

I nominate tinnie!

I hope that's a joke!

Mind, I've hardly ever checked into DT IRC (I did way too much IRC back in the 1990s…) so maybe he's actually a gentleman there. Maybe…

[adhoc]

Well Medowy said this thread was opened because of me. There's all kinds of dicks and butts and such shitty jokes going on there, but I once made a joke about rape and everyone went ape shit. So I've stopped visiting the channel after.

Seems kinda excessive to open such a thread because one joke that was not to everyone's taste was said but oh well, who am I to judge.

[tinnie]

I nominate tinnie!

I hope that's a joke!

Mind, I've hardly ever checked into DT IRC (I did way too much IRC back in the 1990s…) so maybe he's actually a gentleman there. Maybe…

[scottc]

I nominate tinnie!

I hope that's a joke!

Mind, I've hardly ever checked into DT IRC (I did way too much IRC back in the 1990s…) so maybe he's actually a gentleman there. Maybe…

Of course...

Spoiler:

[bhtooefr]

For what it's worth, the specific incident that caused me to open this thread involved someone who went under the nickname "swaggin_mcswaggi".

That user does not have the same IP as adhoc last used, and is not in a subnet he's (or, I believe, anyone else) used either (although several in the channel suspected it was him), but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. That said, the user's IP address geolocates to Logatec, Slovenia, so I can see where the assumption that it's him came from.

However, the reason I started this thread was because it wasn't an isolated incident - things like this have been going on for a while.

[scottc]

Regardless of whatever "incidents"/etc people are referring to here (and I don't want to get involved in any of those arguments), I think that the IRC channel should have ops that are active.

A few times, spam bots have joined the channel and spewed linkspam and it would've been great if there had been an op to kickban them.

[adhoc]

18:29 < adhoc_> bhtooefr:
18:29 < adhoc_> what i was asking wasnt an INCIDENT
18:29 < adhoc_> it was CURIOUSITY
18:30 < adhoc_> and good luck with your enforced freedom where you accept minorities by not
talking about them. when we reach the level where we feel free to talk about
gays and blacks and asians without fucking thing how racist or bad that is we
will reach true freedom
18:30 < adhoc_> thinking*
18:32 < adhoc_> oh and about the rape thing? sorry, but i live in a country which has one of
the lowest rates of crime in the world. over here, raping and murdering isnt
a national sport, we have less murders per year than you have in per minuted.
if you can't get your head out of the sand and think that maybe not all
countries are in a constant civil war due to the high crime rate that's your
problem, not mine
18:32 < adhoc_> and it's not just my country, oh no, most of europe is MUCH farther in this
regard than US
18:33 < adhoc_> so, if you believe talking about gays and asking about their things or
transgenders or whatever for that fact is an "incident" then I think it might
be you having a problem treating everybody equal
18:34 < adhoc_> i wonder why heterosexual sex jokes aren't an "incident" then? I'm
heterosexual, im fucking offended by tinnie talking about sex from now on!

Copy pasting my thoughts on this from IRC.

[matt3o]

without knowing what happened, it's hard to give you an opinion. More generally speaking I don't feel the chat should be keyboard only.

Ops? Sure why not.

[adhoc]

I was asking about the procedure of changing your sex, because I was interested in it. Not to perform it or anything, just out of curiosity. And that was "too much" and an "incident".

[Medowy]

I was asking about the procedure of changing your sex, because I was interested in it. Not to perform it or anything, just out of curiosity. And that was "too much" and an "incident".

Well, some people might find it offensive or something (not me though).

Curiosity is a good thing!

[Dubsgalore]

I haven't seen any trolling at all, I feel like #DT is a quiet place most of the time

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Hm, there I thought the only thing anyone talked about in #deskthority was bicycles. I found it so quiet (except when people were talking about bikes) that I just gave up — too much hassle trying to monitor a dead channel for signs of life. If I had a decent dual-screen setup (that I little other use for) it would be easier, then I could devote a whole display and its energy consumption towards watching a single IRC channel for activity. (I know tinnie wants me back in IRC — part of the reason I said "no" is the time zone difference — it's pretty awkward when someone turns up past the point where I need to be getting some sleep. DT isn't as bad as other places owing to the larger proportion of fellow Europeans.)

IRC has a strange premise that I never quite understood. Socialising is a strange premise I never quite understood.

[Muirium]

The realtime thing is a big drag. I spent too many all nighters in computer labs keeping up with folk around the world back when doing it at home would have meant renting a second phone line…

[002]

I can appreciate that IRC is even more wild west than the forums. An Op is probably a good idea, just to keep the *serious* offenders in line. I'm talking about spammers mostly. If someone's world view doesn't align with yours, then I don't think that's grounds for banning unless they are constantly harassing or abusing you about it. People are always going to say things that you don't agree with but that's life.

So on to the task, I am happy to hear suggestions or nominations. I am pretty sure this falls under my umbrella but I am no IRC master so the actual process of giving someone higher powers might need to be explained to me or done by someone else. If you guys want to nominate now (preferably people who are active) and if there are a lot of applicants, which I doubt will be the case, we could run a poll. Also I think it would be a good idea to have a couple of people so that we're sufficiently covering timezones.

[Compgeke]

Are we able to nominate ourselves?

[002]

Yep

[scottc]

I can appreciate that IRC is a even more wild west than the forums. An Op is probably a good idea, just to keep the *serious* offenders in line. I'm talking about spammers mostly. If someone's world view doesn't align with yours, then I don't think that's grounds for banning unless they are constantly harassing or abusing you about it. People are always going to say things that you don't agree with but that's life.

Agreed!

So on to the task, I am happy to hear suggestions or nominations. I am pretty sure this falls under my umbrella but I am no IRC master so the actual process of giving someone higher powers might need to be explained to me or done by someone else. If you guys want to nominate now (preferably people who are active) and if there are a lot of applicants, which I doubt will be the case, we could run a poll. Also I think it would be a good idea to have a couple of people so that we're sufficiently covering timezones.

We discussed this briefly earlier on IRC, and some of us thought that it would be best to have a few ops. Partially so that we've usually got at least one op online at each point in time (so in roughly opposite timezones), but I also think that it would be useful in case one op does something stupid.

The current volunteers/nominees, to my knowledge, are:
- bhtooefr (some sort of USA timezone, quite active)
- Medowy (UCT + 2, one of the most active members of the channel)

Not sure about anyone else. I'm also willing to help out too.

[Compgeke]

I'm willing to as well. I already have IRC experience from running my own server and having been network op on a few other networks before.

PST timezone.

[002]

Prior experience is good obviously
- Compgeke (USA)
- scottc (Ireland)
- bhtooefr (USA)
- Medowy (Finland)

I think this is a good spread of time-zones and 4 would be approaching the limit of what we need.

[damorgue]

I have used it less as of late since pretty much the only discussions in there are either people asking about the weather or random off topic chatter. I just think there is too little activity in there to bother doing anything about it.

[adhoc]

Oh yeah, bhtooefr with his very, very limited topics we can discuss about on IRC would be great. I can already see the channel dying out even more than it already is. Made a joke his taste of humour does not understand? To Ban town with ye!

There's already what, 5 of us actively on it? And then another 5 people chip in from time to time, but other than that it's ghost town.

[Medowy]

Oh yeah, bhtooefr with his very, very limited topics we can discuss about on IRC would be great. I can already see the channel dying out even more than it already is. Made a joke his taste of humour does not understand? To Ban town with ye!

There's already what, 5 of us actively on it? And then another 5 people chip in from time to time, but other than that it's ghost town.

Well this Monday has been pretty active...

[adhoc]

Seriously though. I don't want restrictions such as:

-tinnie and adhoc may not discuss sports cars anymore, because xy lost his parents in a car accident and is hurt by it
-nobody may use internet memes as it's inappropriate from now on
-no jokes about this, this, this, ... and this
-I'll make more bannable offences on the go as I see them

[bhtooefr]

I'll note that my volunteering (in IRC, not on here) was only if nobody else volunteered. As there are other volunteers...

In any case, it's acfrazier that will need to grant the rights.

Regarding the incident this morning (in US Eastern time), here's the line that made me realize that there was a problem big enough to post about:

09:05 < swaggin_mcswaggi> well i mean why would you need a gf if you got your own set of tits and pussy right?

This being in the context of sexual reassignment surgery. And, you yourself said that that comment was meant to reduce women to sexual characteristics. (Plus, the rape joke you made before then, that you admit to in this thread...) That's not exactly the kind of sentiment that is welcoming to half the world population, and why exclude people from IRC by turning it into a "good old boys" club built on sexism?

And, stop being ridiculous about the allowed topics. Shit, I get involved in the car discussions!

[adhoc]

I'll note that my volunteering (in IRC, not on here) was only if nobody else volunteered. As there are other volunteers...

In any case, it's acfrazier that will need to grant the rights.

Regarding the incident this morning (in US Eastern time), here's the line that made me realize that there was a problem big enough to post about:

09:05 < swaggin_mcswaggi> well i mean why would you need a gf if you got your own set of tits and pussy right?

This being in the context of sexual reassignment surgery. And, you yourself said that that comment was meant to reduce women to sexual characteristics. (Plus, the rape joke you made before then, that you admit to in this thread...) That's not exactly the kind of sentiment that is welcoming to half the world population, and why exclude people from IRC by turning it into a "good old boys" club built on sexism?

Oh no, a joke I do not find funny! Post a thread on the forums, ban the member, oh no, I'm a knight in shiny armour and I have to protect ALL THE LADIES (of which there are 0 on IRC)!

[bhtooefr]

Actually, there's at least one that I know of.

And, the classic white knighting strawman. Yeah, I'm not trying to get laid. I'm trying to be a decent human being (you know, the thing everyone's supposed to be?), and I'd like #deskthority to be a safe space for anyone interested in keyboards, not just cishet men.