Shoutbox

I didn't wanted to talk about it again, since the other thread got closed and since things were said as far as I was concearned.
But this is brought up again and the topic has shifted again from a suggestion to make an official chat channel to the discussion about how #banana is/was.
(and I also know some mods wouldn't be pleased with that)

But, thus after reading the many posts and arguments again I want to say the following:

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Some people need to learn what a community is and how a community works. Ever heared of Social Science or Group Behaviour Science? Maybe it would be good if we all studied that first...

IRC channels are also such a community or part of. And the Plus! IRC network is part of the Plus! community.

"Freedom of speech" is used some times as an argument. Sorry, but this makes me seriously laugh (a "green" laugh though). Not only contradicts it some other replies made by the same persons, there is also no such thing as freedom of speech in an average IRC channel. Why? Because each channel is ruled by its ops. They decide what is "freedom of speech".

An IRC channel has only freedom of speech if it has no ops at all and if there are no consequences at all when someone says something, anything. Thus "Freedom of speech" also means that people can come and talk like "I R the sex, give me your asl".

And the "I R the sex, give me your asl"-people and the likes (like abusive or other attidude-newbs) are not the issue here! The issue is about the too fast trigger finger actions of some people and often the insults or insuniations that fly around between regulars and normal newbies, thus not those attitude newbies who only come to a channel to stirs things up, or bot attacks or whatever! (and Time, this is what I meant earlier when I said you're very good at shifting topics and putting the focus on something else )

Some people who have replied in this thread may not know the ins and outs of IRC and the various commands and stuff, but they indeed seem to know how a community and especially its respected and/or "leader" members should behave and are seen by newbies and other people.

I have been on IRC since I was 17 years old (thus almost 12 years), and I have been member of a lot of different "communities" and have seen all sorts of them. From "anarchy" channels to "family" channels.

Things associated directly (aka official) or sometimes even indirectly with Messenger Plus! needs certain behaviour rules and patterns of its "leaders" because these are who make or break the image of Messenger Plus! towards the outside world. If you can't understand that, than I indeed question the "competence" of those people in context to "leading" a certain aspect of such a specific community.

Competence does not mean knowing all the commands and stuff, because that would be called "knowledge". Competence means being able to act in the proper way given the context you're in and taking in account the place you're in and what it represents to the outside world and how your actions are percieved by this outside world.

Also, some arguments have been given like "you want to make #banana full of rules, thus taking out all the fun" or something like that. Again making rules does certainly not mean taking out the fun of something. In fact it means making the place more fun for everybody, aswell for the regulars as for newbs! If people here talk about "setting some guidelines" or "making some rules" it does not mean make rediculus rules like "nobody can ever use the f word" or "you may never enter a line longer than 80 characters".

All to often I see such arguments as "rules kill the fun" (thus not only here btw).
Such argument is only used by people who don't have an idea how a large community is run or who despise rules themselfs or who are power hungry themselfs.

A good set of rules do not kill any fun at all, they make a place more fun for everybody instead of only "fun" for an elite group.
And a with a "good set of rules" I don't mean 500 lines of boring do-not texts. It could be very short; heck, in fact, if everybody was mature anough and knew how to act in a large family community you don't need any rules at all to begin with.

All I ask is some mature behaviour and mostly some consequent behaviour. This means, to give two random examples:
1) don't swear and/or kick newb people for comming in and asking "can I have you ASL", because you are bored or annoyed about something else or are in a bad mood. Instead tell them this is no dating channel, warn them (but kindly without swearing!) and what not, only if thy persist do what you need to do.
2) don't flood yourself with ascii art and kickbanning the next newb who comes in and do the same because he has seen you doing it.
These are not the best examples and may not represent the "problems" and/or "issues" fully, but they give a small idea. Thus, in other words, I'm not talking about the bot-attacks or whatever

And again, we're not talking about IRC as a whole, but about a specific IRC channel on a specific IRC network.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Time
For the million people who come back to IRC everyday. They've embraced IRC how it is and they like how it is. You are limiting your viewpoint to just this one channel, on one server... IRC is vast. Big picture.

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We are not talking about the vast IRC... We are exactly talking about a specific channel on a specific network. Don't shift and detour the topic...

quote:

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Originally posted by Time
Of course it is freedom of speech, the freedom to talk about incest, and paste goatse at any time - that's what should exist.

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Time, I'm sorry but this exactly sums up and exactly shows what I have against the current #banana and how it is led...

The current #banana is very closely associated with Messenger Plus!, this means also young people, inexperienced people, etc...

I have nothing against anarchy, goatse, porn or whatever. But everything has its place! If you can't understand that then indeed I question your "competence" as a leader of such part of the Plus! community.

As said before, you would be (are) an excellent op with massive knowledge about stuff on the "normal" IRC channel. But since #banana is seen as the chat channel of Plus!, also by newbs, and thus because it represents that part of the Plus! community IMHO you fail there. Because I see #banana as a part of the Plus! community, not as yet another random (almost "anarchy") IRC channel like there are billions.

And this exactly shows the problem also:

quote:

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Originally posted by beamy-kitty
Enjoyment for who? Do you speak for everyone perhaps or just a select few.

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With the current #banana I mean the chat channel listed on the offical IRC applet.

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Removing #banana from the official IRC applet is IMO a very good move in the right direction...

Making another (new) official chat channel with a different athmosphere than what #banana has become? Maybe, dunno...

I also know we had troubles before with chatting in #msgplus, and splitting this to a chat channel was a very good thing todo and I don't wanna loose that.
Unfortunatly that chat channel's athmosphere has been shifted seriously from what it was at the beginning.

IMHO, let it be for a while like it currently is: officially #msgsplus, and unofficially #banana. And as stated by someone before: If someone new wants to chat in #msgplus and there is help going on at the moment, refer them to any channel or network you like, but also say that actions taken in those channels do not nessecairly represent the Plus! community.

If troubles arise again with chatting in #msgplus, let's discuss this idea of RebelSean again...

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On a related subject:

Talking about such problems on a forum is one way of discussing this. A forum is a good place to do it in. Heck, a forum and a thread like this is called a "discussion platform".

Discussing something like this on IRC (and in #banana), would lead to nothing more than the use of oneliners, flames, not to mention kicks, etc. And things said on IRC can't always be read by those whom it concearns.

The IRC channels talked about and this forum are two major parts of the Plus! community. Yes, the "leaders" are not the same, but does that mean this can't be discussed on this forum?

The subject here is not "I was banned from #banana by x and yaddayaddayadda". For such things, IRC and talking to the person who banned, is indeed the proper thing todo. But this current discussion goes far beyond that.

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-me out-