IRC Guidelines

The IRC channel guidelines pertain to the #WordPress IRC channel on Libera.

These guidelines should be seen in connection with the general WordPress.org support guidelines, and the Libera network-wide guidelines.

We realize that no set of rules is sufficient to handle all possible scenarios. If we did not cover a specific circumstance, please respect our decisions. However, you are encouraged to bring any and all concerns up with an operator of the channel; we will look at each individual case and, if necessary, clarify the issue and/or change our channel guidelines accordingly.

Stay on-topic

#wordpress is solely a help channel for WordPress. Please stay on topic and limit subjects to those directly pertaining to WordPress. Social chat or other off-topic discussions should be taken to #wordpress-social or other appropriate channel.

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Ask your question outright and be patient

Ask your question and be patient. You do not need permission to ask a question. Just ask your question. There are certain times of the day when people will not be available to help. Repeating your question will not increase the speed with which they return to the keyboard. Also consider that it is possible no one present knows the answer to your question. Please wait at least 15-30 minutes before you repeat a question.

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Be civil and positive

Be civil and respect other people’s opinions, whether you agree or not. Please do not be rude, judgmental or belittling. Respond to incivility with greater civility and respect. Please do not accuse others or request kicks or bans in public, engage in personal attacks, intentionally offend or provoke others. Do not discuss or taunt users who have been removed, kicked, banned, quieted or devoiced. Be positive.

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Be considerate

Be Considerate. Please do not intentionally annoy or harass users, whether by spamming, trolling, flamebaiting, astroturfing, soapboxing or typing in all caps. Do not run “now playing” scripts. By performing excessive /nick, /join or /parts, you flood all users in the channel with many meaningless lines so please try to avoid it. If an individual user appears to be having connection problems they may be temporarily banned to prevent flooding. IRC presents users with away status notifications; it is unnecessary to publicly announce changes in away status (including sending text to the channel, changing your current nick to nick|away, etc.).

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Assume good faith

IRC lacks the normal facial expressions and body language used in everyday conversation. Without these it can be easy to misunderstand the intentions of someone and lead to uncomfortable situations. Try to assume good faith and avoid reacting negatively. If you have difficulty suppressing your reactions, please use /ignore until you are calm again, or even indefinitely.

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Keep the channel family-friendly

Keep the Channel Family-Safe/-Friendly. Please consider that we try to keep #wordpress a ‘family-safe’ channel. Keep this in mind in your on-channel discussions and when selecting your quit/part messages. Please do not link to anything which could cause offense or be not safe-for-work or use foul, vulgar or profane language (or acronyms or substitutes which imply foul, vulgar or profane language). Please also avoid graphically-violent, racially-charged and sexually-explicit comments. If you are uncertain whether a word is considered foul language, please be safe and do not use it. If you are uncertain, then it is highly likely that it would offend another. There is a distinct difference between how you can act in your own, private channel where everybody knows everyone else and a large, public channel with changing regulars and guests who have lots of different backgrounds.

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No advertising, job seeking or job advertising

This is a technical support channel, and not designed to help you make money, look for employment or employees. Do not advertise your website or ask us how to make money from your website. Do not promote your company or try to recruit users to become your employees. In general if your question or topic involves money, job seeking or offering, or advertising it is not permitted here.

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Asking for advice on questionable topics

We will not help you with questions in regards to questionable topics. We reserve the right to determine what is questionable or not. An example of such topics would be SEO practices such as aggregating content and domain cloaking.

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Use pastebin

Please use pastebin for pastes longer than 1 line. There are pastebins available on the web, including http://wpbin.io or https://gist.github.com/.

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Be clear and concise and use English whenever possible

Be clear, concise and try to use English. We prefer the vast majority of conversation to be in English. Most of us speak English so it is generally helpful to keep a common language. That said, if someone asks a question in another language and you can speak that language, do not hesitate to assist the person on the channel or in query. Please speak as plainly as possible. Please do not excessively use hard-to-understand acronyms, “txtspk” or “l33tsp33k”. Remember that, although most conversations occur in English, many are not speaking their native language.

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Do not bring bots into the channel or abuse any channel bots

Please do not abuse the channel’s bots or bring bots into the channel. The support channel contains WPBot to help with the more common questions and we do not see the need for any further bots. If you would like to bring your bot into the channel, you may make your request to one of the channel operators – be sure to include your rationale.

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Observe the spirit of the guidelines

Please observe the spirit of the guidelines. While these guidelines attempt to provide a clear guide for the successful and pleasurable use of the channel, they are an outline only. Please don’t use any of the ideas listed here to obfuscate or obstruct the intent or to harass other users. The channel is dependent on your willingness for it to succeed. Please avoid the practice of testing every boundary, every guideline, every word to see where you might get away with something. Please do not loudly protest the policies of WordPress and the actions of its staff team in a way that invites drama and negativity and disrupts the regular flow of information in the channel. If you want to talk policy, do it via email.

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Respect decisions

Respect decisions. Channel ops work hard to be fair and balanced, but may not always resolve issues exactly the way you would. We are always willing to talk with you about any issues you have, but we ask that if you disagree with our actions, to please bring your criticism to us in query. This helps keep the channel on-topic and calm.