• Search for:

• Archives

  Select Month November 2011  (1) September 2011  (1) July 2011  (2) June 2011  (2) May 2011  (2) March 2011  (1) November 2010  (2) August 2010  (1) July 2010  (1) June 2010  (2) April 2010  (2) March 2010  (1) February 2010  (1) January 2010  (2) December 2009  (2) November 2009  (2) June 2009  (1) May 2009  (3) February 2009  (1) January 2009  (1) December 2008  (2) November 2008  (1) October 2008  (1) September 2008  (1) August 2008  (1) July 2008  (2) June 2008  (1) May 2008  (2) April 2008  (2) March 2008  (3) February 2008  (1) January 2008  (2) December 2007  (4) November 2007  (2) October 2007  (3) August 2007  (3) July 2007  (2) June 2007  (4) May 2007  (2) April 2007  (2) February 2007  (5) January 2007  (3) December 2006  (9) October 2006  (5) September 2006  (4) August 2006  (1) July 2006  (5) June 2006  (2) May 2006  (12) April 2006  (21) March 2006  (8) February 2006  (3) January 2006  (5) December 2005  (1) August 2005  (1) July 2005  (2) June 2005  (1) May 2005  (2) April 2005  (3) March 2005  (2) February 2005  (3) January 2005  (1)

• Recent Comments

  • My Bookmarks » Ubuntu 12.04 Development update on First Community Appreciation Day
  • Ubuntu 12.04 Development update on First Community Appreciation Day
  • Links 1/10/2011: Firefox 7, ODF 1.2 | Techrights on Jukka Ehto is the Linux Contributor of the Year 2011 in Finland
  • Jukka Ehto is the Linux Contributor of the Year 2011 in Finland : the … | What is Linux on Jukka Ehto is the Linux Contributor of the Year 2011 in Finland
  • Ubuntu One se actualiza y llega al millón de usuarios - Siskatec on Call for operators in #ubuntu-server

• Subscribe

  
  Full Feed
  Comics-only Feed
  

• Small print

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
  
  Cartoon artwork created with Stripgenerator; dialogue copy/pasted from #ubuntu-offtopic on Freenode.
  

  ---

On technical IRC channels, mailing lists, Usenet groups (remember those?) and Web forums, you often learn a lot of interesting and useful stuff. If you hang in there for long enough, you’re going to learn some more universal truths as well. I have learned a couple of things that I think i may have tweeted about some time or another, but would like to document here too, for future application.

topyli’s law:
When a user asks for help on a problem (s)he is having with $PROGRAM, another user will immediately suggest they switch to $ANOTHER_PROGRAM and use that instead.

topyli’s second law:
When you add an “Advanced” button or tab in the configuration dialog for your $USER_INTERFACE, all your users immediately become advanced.

The second law is actually a special case of mahen23′s law, which I learned on #ubuntu-offtopic. Here it is:
If you create a button, people will press it.

Our shiny new Launchpad-ified IRC Teams are now ready to take membership applications. This means that if you want to contribute to Ubuntu by acting as an operator on those Ubuntu IRC channels that you are active on, you can simply say so on Launchpad!

Well, it isn’t really quite that simple, but we do now have a process through which anyone can express their interest in contributing through operator work. Previously our recruitment toolkit has been more primitive and consisted of blackmail, bribery and coercion – in other words, when there was pressure to grow the operator team, we simply begged people to join.

So if you’re active on our IRC channels and you think your channel has too few operators, and if you’ve been aching to help, you should consider applying for membership! You might get your chance if

• You are great at resolving conflicts
• You are very patient. Superhuman nerve control is a basic IRC operator feature
• You can take criticism
• You are happy when helping and advising others
• In addition to the Code of Conduct and our IRC Guidelines, you are happy to adhere to some additional guidelines :)

In general, please do not consider becoming an operator because it could be “fun”. It is not, it’s hard work. However, it is often quite rewarding, and you get to operate with a great team of people. You don’t need to be an IRC guru, but you do need to know enough to be able to learn more.

Please be aware that *many* applicants will not become operators for various reasons. This will not necessarily be because we think you would make a bad operator. Only a limited number of operators are ever needed, some timezones are better covered already than others, and so on.

If you feel that you could be a good addition to the IRC Team, please head on to Launchpad and apply to the team corresponding to the channels you want to help in, and create a Wiki page where you explain why you want to join and why you would be a good operator. Think of the wiki page as your resume. Gather testimonials from other people who know you and believe you qualify. Think of those as your references.

Before you do any of the above, be sure to study the official requirements and application process, to ensure everything is well with your application and it will be considered whenever new operators are needed.

Edited on 2011-07-29: fix grammar in order to make more sense.

The IRC Council meetings have public meeting minutes of course, but some of our practical work is never discussed in these public meetings and tends to go unnoticed. Some of this boring behind-the-scenes mundane work has implications to users and operators on our channels, and I decided to write about it here.

So, what has been going on outside the spotlight?

Wiki reorganization

One of the janitorial jobs we’ve done is the reorganization of our IRC related wiki pages. Wikis by nature evolve organically, pages being created by many people over time, and they end up being largely unorganized. So we moved all pages to an old fashioned, boring hierarchy under a common IRC/ name space, and the result is something like this:

IRC/Bots
IRC/Cloaks
IRC/Guidelines
…
IRC/IrcTeam/
IRC/IrcTeam/Scope
…
IRC/IrcCouncil
IRC/IRCCouncil/MeetingAgenda
…

You get the idea. All old pages redirect to the new pages, so we can hope we did not break any of your old links and bookmarks. If something is broken, you can report it, or even better, fix it! It is a wiki after all :)

We have updated several core documents, most notably the operator guidelines and the description of the IRC Council itself. We also created a calendar that will nag us periodically to review all wiki pages, one at a time, to make sure they don’t become too out of date.

Operator teams on Launchpad

Ubuntu’s IRC universe has become very, very large and keeps growing, and so has the need for operators. We can’t possibly know all the potentially awesome individuals who would make great operators, so there’s a need to define a better process to nominate operators than simply giving access to friends that we know will do a good job.

Terence did a terrific job at converting the access lists on our channels into Launchpad team memberships. This makes managing them much easier for everyone. It also makes it possible for people to offer help easier: they will be able to apply for team memberships as a way to announce their willingness to serve as an operator. We will soon have this new process in effect, and it is documented on the wiki already.

IRC Council access in channels

The Council should now have access to all core channels for easy maintenance. Additionally, we strongly recommend adding the UbuntuIrcCouncil and the freenode staff cloaks into your LoCo channel’s access list, so that they may intervene in case of serious disruptions on your channel while your operators are asleep or attending a release party. This is documented in the wiki page for channel creation. When creating channels, make extra sure to have a good read of the document, to ensure your channels fit nicely in the #ubuntu-* name space.

How you can help

Is IRC not working well for you? Do you have a great improvement on your mind that will make it work even better? The IRC Team is easy to contact on #ubuntu-irc, and via e-mail. Most importantly, have fun and help to keep our IRC channels friendly and useful! :)

Yesterday, I announced my official approval of the “inverted” Clearlooks theme to be included in the list of usable things. Everyone was happy, no doubt. I hope the theme creators are recovering from the resulting party nicely. Always concerned with the quality of Ubuntu’s IRC services, elky inquired about the certification status of #ubuntu-offtopic. I hope this installation of tales from the offtopic clears everything out, and everyone can continue enjoying their time on the channel!

Edit: I guess you’re probably thinking, “pffft there’s no such thing as a topyli starburst sticker of approval!” Guess again! Of course there is one, kindly (and 100% officially) created by mc44.

In yesterday’s EMEA regional membership approval board meeting, my application for Ubuntu membership was accepted, and tonight I’m in the process of activating my membership perks, such as syndication on Planet Ubuntu. Thanks to all who cheered for me in the meeting, and who added testimonials on my wiki page!

For those who don’t know me, I’m a Finnish academic guy and a big freedom fan. I have used, advocated, and supported Ubuntu as long as it has existed, and more in fact – I downloaded my first pre-Warty copy of Ubuntu from nonameyet.com. :)

I hope I can continue to be useful for the Ubuntu community for a long time still. I foresee a glorious future for Free Software and our favorite distribution, and I only wish I can recognize as many opportunities as possible for making Ubuntu a little bit more awesome as they come by. Because they always do.

Big cheers also to our other amazing new EMEA region Ubuntu members. Full speed ahead!

In a group effort of humanist logic, I’m pretty sure our team made everyone on #ubuntu-offtopic feel a bit less insecure and much more comfortable about ourselves. Bugs in our logic are not welcome, but we accept donations. Beer, cookies and hugs would be nice.

This intellectual achievement brought to you by magnetron, pantsman, netyire, aprilhare and topyli.

Traditionally, people in Finland (and elsewhere too, I would imagine) are pretty stupid about handling of fireworks on New Year’s Eve. It’s not ignorance – we all know how that blowing up stuff in your face can be hazardous to your health. We simply have enormous amounts of faith in nothing bad ever possibly happening to our own person. We set a new record of sadness this year by having two (documented) accidents even the day before :-(

We on #ubuntu-offtopic naturally care a lot about the welfare of our youth. After all, they are the future of #ubuntu-offtopic! Our discussion started off on a rather pessimistic tone, but perhaps there is something to learn here.

Then again, perhaps not. Who knows! Featuring topyli and zaapiel:

Have fun but keep your head, kids. Happy New Year!

Sometimes it’s good to give your friends some time to work on their ideas. mc44 totally appreciates wobblywu‘s hard work. This is how communities work at best.

← Previous Page — Next Page →