I am normally not one to complain about free services that are provided, but I just spent the time to read through the post made by SarinMage (http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=233108) about changes that should be made to IRC. What follows is a copy and paste from IRC today (August 18 at 11:20AM):
*** Guest has joined #TechnicalDiscussions
<Guest> hello
<Guest> can any1 help me
<Guest> i have a virus
<Guest> backdoor.slackbot.b
*** dpksdv has quit IRC (Connection reset by peer)
<Guest> hello
*** kasper has joined #TechnicalDiscussions
<Wizeman> yay for TechnicalDiscussions....way to help the Guest
<Wizeman> Guest...
<Wizeman> what's up now?
*** Guest has quit IRC (Quit: Today is a good day to chat.)
Good thing we had two channels, so we can focus on helping the guests, and having technical discussions.
Having two auto join channels only serves to make conversation more difficult to follow, and it most certainly does NOTHING to foster technical conversation. Bottom line is that the vast majority of users on AO IRC work with computers for a very good chunk of their day, and we don't want to talk about it all the time (as is evidenced by the fact that the only technical discussions that occur happen when someone has a work related question).
If you want to help the Guests, then make it so they autojoin to a channel that is specifically for technical help, where people will know to pay attention when there is activity because it must be a question, and make the registered users autojoin to a general chitchat channel. If you want to foster technical discussions, then set up times when the room the general chit chat room is moderated and there is a specific topic of discussion, with adequate advertising on AntiOnline itself!
Regards,
Wizeman
