Sections Language
Asking for help
Pasting or flooding
Broken Enter key
Repeating
Highlighting users
Private messages
Away/Back announcements
Playing music
Helping others
Bots and clones
Off-topic chatting
Unsupported
Language #Linux is primarily an English-only channel. We ask that everyone speak in plain English. "u" and "ur" are not words. Many of our users have translators for translating plain English into their own language. Please be considerate of those people and remember this is not AOL. Do not use excessive punctuation to draw attention to yourself. Do not type in all CAPS. Do not speak in actions (using /me or /ame to say sentences that are not actions). Do not type "/me Hello" or "/ame Hello". "Hello" is not an action. Just type "Hello" and press Enter.
Asking for help If you need help and wish to ask a question, PLEASE, just ask! Don't ask to ask, don't ask if there is anyone who can help, don't ask if anyone is alive; just ask your question. There are many users in #Linux that will help you with a Linux-related problem. Anyone who desires to help you with a problem you may be having will be volunteering their time and services. Ask your question in the channel and wait for a kind person to offer to assist you. We don't get paid for our time on #Linux, so we might not answer right away. Ask your question in a concise, detailed way so we can help you better. You can read this for a guide on asking good questions. While you await someone to respond, search Google for your problem. If you don't know what to search for, ask in the channel for some keywords or terms to help you search.
Pasting or flooding If you have information such as errors or commands that you wish to share with the channel, please use a pastebin. There are many of them available all over the Internet. Do not flood our channel with a paste. People who choose to flood will be silenced so they can have time to read this rule again.
Sending channel-wide notices or CTCPs will not be tolerated. Doing so will be grounds for an immediate ban.
Broken Enter key Please learn how to type out your entire thought before pressing Enter. We read from left to right, not top to bottom. Some people would like to take up an entire screen to say one sentence. However, we cannot allow one person to take up the entire screen with one single message. Example:
<`MoDy`> script
<`MoDy`> for open this things
<`MoDy`> if u checked this ip
<`MoDy`> u will see
<`MoDy`> but now the problem with me
<`MoDy`> how can i share this htmls
Typing in this manner is just as bad as flooding our channel with worthless information. Do not do it.
Repeating If you want to state your problem in the channel and ask for help, please do so. However, you may not continuously repeat your question. We are able to read your questions if you say it only one time. Repeating yourself will become an annoyance and you will not get help. State your problem and ask your question one time. After a reasonable amount of time has passed, and there has been significant scroll in the channel (your question can no longer be seen on the screen), you may ask your question again. If someone wants to help, they will answer you or ask for more information on your topic. If no one answers, it's because we do have lives and cannot read the channel in real-time.
Do not send the same line of text repeatedly. This is an annoyance and shall not be allowed.
Highlighting users If you are looking for help with a given topic, ask your question in the channel. Do not randomly pick a nickname to address with your problem. Chances are you will annoy that person and not get any help at all from them anyway. Do not address people with your questions when they join the channel or when they begin talking. As individuals, we don't care; as a channel, we want everyone to have the opportunity to answer your questions. Arbitrarily addressing a user or op that did not indicate to you they wish to help will get you known as an annoyance. Also, there is no reason to put a person's nickname on a line all by itself. If you are addressing a person directly, put the message on the same line as the nickname. Example:
<Cancel> Dj_Tiesto This is not acceptable. See, also, the Broken enter key section above. You don't get to fill the screen with single words.
Private messaging You may not send private messages to users or ops from #Linux unless you have their permission, explicit or implied. If you wish to send private messages to someone, just ask them in the channel if you may send them a private message. If they want to talk to you in private, they will respond to you with explicit permission.
Away/Back announcements Feel free to come or go as much as you like. However, we don't care when you go away or come back. Keep it to yourself unless you are actually pausing an active conversation. Public away status nicknames should also not be used. We don't want to see that you are sleeping, at school, at work -- automatically or otherwise. Your IRC client should not announce to #Linux when you go away, become idle, or come back from away/idle. If you are using a BNC that changes your nickname when you disconnect or go away, and then again when you reconnect, you will be banned. If your client or scripts are continuously changing from a guest nickname to your normal nickname while you are away (causing a loop), you will be banned. We require a reasonable amount of netiquette to be followed while you are here. The channel should be free from clutter and annoyances whenever possible. You can learn more about disabling away/back announcements here. We will not tolerate these announcements.
Playing music If you would like to listen to music while you are on #Linux, please do. However, we don't care what track you are listening to and we don't want to see it in the channel. If you have scripts to automatically announce to all channels what track you are listening to, you must disable it while you are here.
Helping others You may offer your help if someone asks for help on #Linux. You are not required to help others, but your time is appreciated if you do help. You may help others in private if you/he/she desires, but we prefer the conversation remains in the public channel so that others can learn from it, as well. (Please refer to the Private messages section above.) If someone needs help searching for material on the Internet, please suggest they use Google or any other high-quality site that you endorse (as long as it has pertinent content).
Bad/malicious advice or commands are grounds for an immediate ban.
Bots and clones Bots are not allowed in #Linux. We do not need any automated responses for netsplits, !commands (!seen, !ping, !list, !help), or trivia. Also, since we don't allow bots to answer those commands, DO NOT issue them in the channel -- you will be banned.
Clones are not allowed in #Linux. Each person only needs one connection to DALnet. You don't need one connection for every computer you use. Likewise, you only need to have one nickname in #Linux. DALnet does not allow clones on the network and we do not allow them in the channel. One person, one nickname.
Off-topic chatting The topic of the channel will be Linux and open-source software discussion. Specifically, the topic may vary from "favorite distribution" to "writing a bash script" to "loading drivers." Off-topic chat and discussion is allowed in #Linux. However, if someone would like to discuss something on-topic and the off-topic banter is impeding that, the off-topic discussion shall halt. Questionable topics will be moderated; vulgar, abusive, sexual, religious, political topics must be kept to a minimum and may be halted at any given time, especially if the discussion becomes innappropriate.
Unsupported Hacking, cracking, serials, warez, DoS, DDoS, BNC, shells, pirated software or other infringing activities will not be supported and will not be allowed to be discussed on #Linux. We will not help you circumvent your company's proxy or bypass blocked ports, so don't ask. We don't support FreeBSD, Windows, or Solaris, so join the appropriate channels for those. IRCd and eggdrops are also not Linux-related topics, so please don't ask for help with them.