On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 04:52:23PM -0500, Justin O'Brien wrote: > On Thu, 2010-02-11 at 12:30 -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote: > > Just a followup here to this thread for input/comment. > > > > Freenode has switched over to their new ircd and the spam attacks have > > been reduced a good deal, but still occur from time to time. > > > > The current setup is: > > > > People who are not registered with freenode who try and /join #fedora > > will be redirected to the #fedora-unregistered channel. There they > > will be given a welcome message explaining that they need to register > > to join #fedora. The topic of the channel points to registration > > information. A automated bot sends a message to that channel every > > 10min with further instructions on how to register. Additionally, > > there are some of the regular #fedora helpers in channel there to help > > people get registered. > > > > The IRC Support SIG would like to keep this current setup in place. > > > > Registering with freenode is a pretty easy requirement, very like to > > signing up for a mailing list or creating a forum account to receive > > support from those channels. > > > > The main support channel has been a good deal more productive with this > > change I think, not getting distracted by drive by trolls, spammers > > and other off topic junk. > > > > Does the Board (or any other interested folks) have any problems with > > us leaving the setup this way? > > > > Happy to answer any questions about the setup or alternative methods to > > keep #fedora productive as a support resource for Fedora. > > I think that this puts a barrier between users that need help and those > who can help. I think we should just have a couple of trigger happy ops > and take no BS. > > Fedora as is all about the community and i dont think that we should > build a barrier between us and potential contributors. "Trigger happy" doesn't sound like a measured approach, although I definitely sympathize with your feelings toward people messing up our help channels. :-) We bear at least some responsibility for making sure people in the help channel aren't tricked or victimized by attackers. Since we can't guarantee 24-hour coverage by ops, it's a good idea to try and make people there a little safer as a default. Someone already suggested one way to mitigate the problem, which is to spit out a more useful message when the user is shunted suddently to the unregistered channel. A URL pointing to a wiki page with simple instructions for getting registered should be included. The admonition "register your nick" is not helpful or adequate. -- Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ Where open source multiplies: http://opensource.com _______________________________________________ advisory-board mailing list advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/advisory-board
