Chapter 15. IRC

Our IRC channel #pekwm is located on irc.freenode.net. A lot of development discussion goes on there, however you can also get simple help there pretty easily.

The following is a "do not" list. If some idiotic behaviour like, public away messages, or nick changing as a way of telling what you are doing, are not mentioned it doesn't mean you can do them.

As it seems to be a problem for some, do not ask questions in IRC unless you are willing to listen to the answer. If listening is your problem, you need other help than what we at IRC can provide.

If you have a question, ask it. It doesn't help to go around shouting "can anyone help me". Help you with what? This will help the right people to take initial contact with you, saving your time and adding less clutter to the channel.

For same reasons, don't ask if we are alive or other meaningless questions leading to the real question. Don't ask if someone specific is around either. This is not the pager channel for you and your friends.

Do not ask from one person. The fact is, even how much you think he or she must be the only one who knows the answer, you are wrong. There's at least a handful of people lurking on the channel who could help you.

Read the documentation and FAQ before you ask anything. Doing this is common courtesy towards the people who answer your questions. Not reading at least the FAQ will be considered rude.

When asking a question, the answer more than often depends on the version of pekwm you use. Showing us the information the command pekwm --info gives will help us help you.

Do not expect people to answer your questions during the two minutes you stay in the channel. We can't sit there all the time waiting for your questions. If you can't wait longer, think about how stressful your life is, take a break, go on a vacation, take it easy for a while.

For similar reasons, don't repeat yourself. We saw it the first time. Repeating easily gets you ignored completely so it eats its own purpose. It's also considered rude, much like cutting in line.

If people tell you to read the documentation, they have a good reason to do so. If they include an URL that helps you find the info quicker, offer them your firstborn as a payback.

Don't offend anyone. They will offend you back two times.

Nicks with excessive capital letters will be hunted down and shot on sight. You might as well use a proper nick to start with to avoid this.

You can check the developers section to see the list of developers mapped to their IRC nicks.

As with all IRC channels, it's best to not do anything too drastic before keeping an eye for a while on how the channel works. We won't mind even if you just idle there, there are long standing traditions on that.

Welcome aboard!