From owner-freebsd-doc Thu Sep 16 20:57:33 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 02EB1153B9 for ; Thu, 16 Sep 1999 20:57:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.3/8.9.0) id NAA63229; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 13:27:19 +0930 (CST) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 13:27:19 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: David Stein Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Suggestion - List IRC resources Message-ID: <19990917132719.N55065@freebie.lemis.com> References: <000801bef639$4be944a0$6a3efea9@david> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.4i In-Reply-To: <000801bef639$4be944a0$6a3efea9@david>; from David Stein on Fri, Sep 03, 1999 at 02:22:34PM -0400 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog X-PGP-Fingerprint: 6B 7B C3 8C 61 CD 54 AF 13 24 52 F8 6D A4 95 EF Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org [Format recovered--see http://www.lemis.com/email/email-format.html] On Friday, 3 September 1999 at 14:22:34 -0400, David Stein wrote: > I'd like to suggest that I haven't seen IRC listed as a resource for > FreeBSD. Currently there is at least two IRC channels on EFNET and I > haven't looked at other servers. Comparatively, there are tons of > linux support channels, and the NetBSD IRC channel has more people > than the two FreeBSD IRC channels. > > Its great to be able to go to an email list for help. But sometimes > its just as good to go to an IRC channel to chat and get a quick tip. > But this only works if there are plenty of people there so you can > get a couple of opinions and hopefully an expert or two who likes to > hang out in chat. > > So I'd like to suggest that you include IRC as a possible resource > (on the freebsd.org web site, and in "The Complete FreeBSD"). There > are two channels I know of on EFNET: #freebsdhelp and #freebsdadmin. > This would be a nice addition to the support network for FreeBSD, if > there were more people there. OK, I've hung out on some of the IRC lists for a while. I still don't like the idea of using them for support. With mailing lists, you're at the mercy of the people who have time to read the message in the couple of days after it arrives. The -questions list has rather under 1000 individuals on it, and often the replies are wrong. By contrast, however, the chat lists usually only have a few people active at any one time, and even they aren't all listening. I just checked #freebsdhelp: 12 people, none of whom I recognize as a FreeBSD guru, and one of whom I recognize as an idiot. If somebody does ask a question there, I'd doubt they'd get a useful response. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message