gabe

My response to h00k in PM and in this pastebin: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/852113/ was spontaneous and right before bedtime. After due consideration I have decided that indeed I do care enough, and I had to ask myself, "enough about what exactly?" So let me explain that first because it gets to the root of the problem.

For too long now robinetd has camped out in #ubuntu-offtopic 24/7 and has, with the passage of time a) become more and more bold about the way he influences conversations among other users and b) become such a fixture that this incremental influence seems in almost every case to have become tolerated by the ops to the point that some of his comments go way beyond what is outlined in the !guidelines, the !COC and the /Topic. I have at times shuddered to think what might have befallen me if those same phrases had eminated from my own keyboard, and I don't see everything - I only pop in to read the scrollback from time to time. It is just an assumption of mine that it happens far more frequently than what I actually get to see, but I doubt I'm wrong.

A case in point; I have seen it discussed in #ubuntu-ops, and at some length (relatively speaking), that no one is sure about the ruling that support questions, even borderline support questions, will not be entertained in #ubuntu-offtopic. Nobody is sure whether such a ruling even exists. Through all that discussion I was disappointed to see that not one of the ops even realized that the instigator of this dictum was robinetd himself. He may not have been the first one to decide to say it, but he certainly uses it at every possible opportunity, and often rudely so. Couple that with his constant presence and his tendency to have his say in every conversation and you have a 'de facto' ruling, which, by the way, has become so ingrained that even the ops are now on board. Instead of what any reasonable person would expect; "That's actually a support question - if you really need help join #channel and they will probably give you better help than you're likely to get here - but anyhow here's my two cents", the standard answer now is "That's a support question - it's offtopic here, or o4o here" or, more and more frequently just mock and tease the user until they part. Sad!

There are other users who occupy a lot of space on #ubuntu-offtopic; AtomicSpark can be overbearing and on occasion even rude and insensitive, but he doesn't shut down conversations or troll them to death, and he doesn't make up rules. ryaxnb has improved tremendously and at times can still be unstoppable, but he doesn't shut down conversations, doesn't troll at all, and never makes up rules. There are others but I think these two sufficiently make my point. However there's a more important point which the above serves to illustrate, which is that it is the job of the ops to protect ubuntu space and not to protect any particular user (and I would think especially so when that user has never, to my knowledge (and I'm willing to stand corrected on this one), helped out in #ubuntu, on the forums or any other place I can find. But that's a moot point anyway as there is no karma system, imirite? The fact, as illustrated pretty well by what happened last night, that ubuntu users cannot discuss new and exciting developments currently happening in both ubuntuland and linuxland without being trolled to the point of distraction, cannot get an op to stop the trolling and ultimately have to abandon the conversation because that op is more adamant about ending the use of the !ops trigger than the tone and sentiment of the channel, is a good indication of how ubuntu space has been appropriated by a single user, and how influential that user has become. Result? #ubuntu-offtopic, instead of being a source of news, information and sharing, continues to spiral downwards into the mud (there's a four-letter word which would be far more appropriate in this instance but I'll pretend that three letters suffice) to the detriment of all as that space and what it should stand for has been taken from us by a general (more than one person is involved) breach of faith.

That should be sufficient to explain my "enough about what?" premise in the first paragraph. So now I have to ask myself, "Am I going to let this happen to me; am I going to join the throng of ubuntu users turned away from #ubuntu-offtopic by the inane trolling of one, single individual? Am I going to allow myself to be shut down, or sit idly by and watch as others are shut down, simply because 'he hasn't broken any guidelines'?" Well no - emphatically NO!!! I will no longer be a part of this breach of faith. This really has nothing to do with freenode, nothing to do with the IRCC - this is ubuntu space we're talking about that is being extorted from ubuntu users like me (that should be clear to anyone who understands the principle of FOSS) and, you may not want to hear this, but the ops are so familiar and buddy-buddy with him that their behavior could quite easily be construed as being complicit. I am quite prepared to take this right to the top, to put it on the agenda of every ubuntu meeting Google can find and to write letters in the same vein as this to be sent to everyone whose email and/or postal address I can find, and to keep doing it until we ubuntu users get our discussion space back, till we get our friendly and respectful environment back, and until we have ops willing to protect ubuntu space for the purpose for which it was intended. So here I am, and I care enough to make a difference... and I guess to see if you care enough too.