Hi, Further to the mails from Laura and Dave earlier, I was tasked with sending this mail at the last meeting..
The LoCo IRC channel #ubuntu-uk on freenode has recently (over many months) been seeing an increase in users, and a marked increase in massively off-topic rambling discussions. The Ops (and regular users alike) have noticed that the off-topic rambling can dominate the channel and make it difficult to give support to new users. It also can leave a negative impression for new users arriving in the channel. I'm not pointing any fingers at anyone, because many people (myself included) have been responsible for triggering and perpetuating lengthy off-topic conversations. At the recent meeting we decided against having an official #ubuntu-uk-offtopic channel just for the non-Ubuntu chatter. Some off-topic chat in #ubuntu-uk is normal, social discussion which helps build relationships within the team, pushing all off-topic chat to another channel would leave the main channel a bit stale/sterile. Having a separate off-topic channel could also split the team up in a detrimental way. So the general consensus was that rather than push all off-topic discussion from the channel, we should just try and stick to the guidelines that are already in place. Here's the general guidelines for use of the Ubuntu IRC channels:- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IRC/Guidelines You can find a list of Ubuntu IRC channels here:- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat#Channels The guidelines request that people keep a pleasant atmosphere within the channel, cooperate with and respect each other. If a discussion becomes off topic and disrupts somebody asking for support or assistance with Ubuntu, please move the discussion to another channel, or pause it until the channel is quiet. Many thanks, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
