Hi,
Sorry to bother you but recently I've been experiencing major problems with many of the helpers in ComputerHope IRC and thought that it would be best to make you aware of them.
I've spotted a lot of bad/incorrect advice being given out and then been criticised for correcting them. For example, a user was having difficulty enabling Aero in WIndows 7 Home Premium, patio then states that Home Premium doesn't include Aero. I corrected him and then receive an unrequested PM saying "What is wrong with you?" followed by a link to a website stating that Home Basic doesn't include aero, he then refused to accept that he was wrong.
Another issue I had happened when I mentioned that I needed more RAM for my server. I was met with people stating that I didn't know anything about servers and that *nobody* needs more than 12gb RAM (This machine is KVM virtualised so needs a lot of RAM). And later when I mentioned that I'd love to move to a UK datacenter but none had high enough power allocations, I was told that I didn't know what I was talking about and that "datacenters don't draw power from the grid" which was completely irrelevant as I was saying that my server draws more than the 0.5amps that UK datacenters allow.
One of the most major issues I've found is many of the members are making up/twisting the rules to fit their own ideas. For example, I complained that my ISP seemed to have started throttling torrents and I am told that we don't discuss *any* torrents when the rules clearly state "illegal torrents" - This torrent was for CentOS.
I've also been told to stop helping members with overclocked systems, while I agree that overclocking can be dangerous if done without knowledge, I don't see a problem with helping a member if both the helper and the person being helped clearly has good knowledge.
I've also witnessed guests being told to leave for asking for help with a "programming question" - While I agree that these can sometimes clog up the chat, this member was simply asking how to center a DIV using CSS which could have been solved with a 1 line reply.
While I really do enjoy helping out wherever I can and have done for many years, the attitude of some regulars towards guests and others as well as the quality of advice being given out seems to have dropped dramatically recently to the stage that I'm worried about helping someone with the fear of being held to nonexistant rules or made to feel dumb by other members.
I think it would really help to make regulars clear of the rules and keep an eye on their attitudes towards others.