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During todays support and docs chat on IRC we introduced a few new faces on the access lists of the WordPress channels there to help moderate and control the behavior of the users, much like you would on the forums.
As IRC does not work with a bozo list like the forums do, we have a few alternatives available for use in such situations as outlined below. This means we can not mark users for moderation, nor preview what they are trying to say before it is said, it’s all live, and it’s all public.
We want to maintain as much transparency as we can, this is a public medium and we keep public logs of most actions (at the moment the logging devices can not log kick/ban messages), but at the same time protecting the one performing the action from any negative retaliations which may or may not occur after action is taken.
We have three (four) ways of dealing with users who are having a bad day beyond just speaking to them and informing them that their behavior is unacceptable/a bit too much and asking them to calm down or get some fresh air;
Muting (or “Quieting”) a user (/mode #channel +q Nickname) requires you already have the Operator status, or can be done through network services (/msg ChanServ quite #channel Nickname) but keeps the user in the channel, he is merely silenced and can not speak in public, this is also what hlin does automatically if someone spams.
A kick can be done either by being an Operator (/kick #channel Nickname ) or anonymously through the services of the network (/msg ChanServ kick #channel Nickname ). A kicked user is removed from the room temporarily, but may return at any point.
A ban, like a kick, can be done as an Operator (/mode #channel +b Nickname) or through network services (/msg ChanServ ban #channel Nickname ). Worth noting is that using services will also kick the user, if not you will have to manually kick the user after banning them. A ban will not by default expire unless you physically remove it.
Now that we are familiar with the ways one can deal with a user, a general guideline for when to use the various actions will most definitely be needed. This will be handy both for the users of the channel to know when a moderator should step in so they can be pinged, but also so the moderators know what action should be taken when to ensure a fair ruling.
Feedback will most definitely be required here to iron these out, but I’ve taken the liberty to provide the following suggestions to get the ball rolling;
There are many other situations of course, but these are the ones you’ll most likely meet, not only in spoken words, but also as nicknames or messages sent to the channel when leaving it (a part message).
There was also mention of a way to log (beyond IRC logs) offenders to keep tabs on what is going on as everyone might not be on at the same time etc. Thoughts on how this could be achieved in a fair manner are appreciated as we don’t want to make any public shame list at all, we only want to make IRC a welcoming place for anyone to drop by and learn a thing or two during their stay. Possibly a list restricted to moderators on g-docs or similar is an idea?
Another thing that might come up is how to deal with disputes if a user is banned and feels it was unjust. Is there a place we’d prefer them to take their appeal, and if so, where and how?
That means we need to decide on the level of transparency we wish to have, do we wish to have full transparency with users issuing the actions, or anonymize it through network services.
@sams suggested that for transparency when issuing a kick/ban we should state why in the channel after the ban since the logger does not pick up kicks/bans and only shows peoples reactions to them, would this be an acceptable approach and how would we deal with that if services are used to act?
Oh and before I forget, the fourth reasoning mentioned is only if a user should retaliate, this is much like a DDoS on a website, and extremely rare to occur, and even rarer to have any impact as most networks have security to prevent or mitigate such things. Should a disgruntled user retaliate with proxy bots or any other kind of bots that cause spam and disruptions, and it’s to such an extent that a moderator can not deal with it, drop by the kind people in the FreeNode support channel and mention that there’s a botnet and they’ll take care of it. Not that vital as it’s extremely unlikely to ever occur, but good to know just in case.
A closing thought, as it was mentioned that not everyone may be too familiar with the workings of IRC or remember commands and such, I did mention a few of the commands with quick defaults in the post, but is this something that you would prefer a more extensive outlining of made available in some form or other?
All right ladies and gentlemen, the floor is open 
Oh, wasn’t aware it didn’t do kick/ban, my bad on those then! Maybe an alternative for transparency then would be a way to go through hlin to remain anonymous?
I’m kind of okay with being known when/who I kick/ban, since we’re going to be warning some first.
A closing thought, as it was mentioned that not everyone may be too familiar with the workings of IRC or remember commands and such, I did mention a few of the commands with quick defaults in the post, but is this something that you would prefer a more extensive outlining of made available in some form or other?
There should be a section in the Support handbook outlining these commands. As long there’s the caveat of needing channel Op status, I don’t seen reason not to publish the commands and their respective reasonings in the handbook.
That. It’s been *cough* 17-18 years since I was last a mod on IRC and my memory is rusty. I started trying to use commands from another text based interface.
Let’s summarize a bit:
To answer those questions with my opinions…
I hope that all makes sense, but would love to hear what others think.
1. Seeing as I came up with the Google Sheet, I’m fine with it, BUT I’d like to (for now) restrict it to Admins, not mods. Unless my brain broke, mods can’t ban people anyway. And generally they alert the wp-forums list ‘Hey, this guy!’ so (and this goes with #2) we can keep track there. I DO NOT think we need to track spammers. I know Jan and I block a hundred a week, if not more. They don’t count here This is for people who go off the rails.
2. I’m okay with that. It’s important to have transparency. “. We asked you about before. Please stop this behavior.” and give it a couple minutes. Kick/ban. ” has been kick/banned for .”
3. That’s fine It’s also good to ping in #wordpress-sfd which is quieter (I am around often, but I let the content flow over me like Sherlock Holmes sometimes).
4. +1 agree
5. +1 agree.
One 1, sure thing. I didn’t realize that it was for admins now and assumed it was for mods too. I was looking at it from the IRC side only.
A few days ago some behavior on the IRC #wordpress channel was brought to Siobhan McKeown’s attention. Take a moment and visit her post on that topic. After that visit Lindsey Kuper’s post on her experience in the #rust channel.
Back? OK.
Please do not use language based on someone’s looks or gender. It’s wrong and can’t be tolerated.
I had some difficulty expressing this in IRC but thankfully Siobhan and Mika provided me with support and they explained it well. The reason for my difficulty was simple: this is important, this problem needs to be stamped out early and I wanted to get this right.
When someone joins the #wordpress channel or posts to the support forums it is important to remember that they are either seeking help or attempting to help others. This is a good thing and that participation makes WordPress successful.
It’s not easy for everyone to join or start a public conversation. A forum post or joining an IRC channel is exposing yourself and that’s a risk. For some that can become a painful experience.
When someone replies using language that diminishes, makes people feel uncomfortable or disparages others then that participation is lost.
If the tone of the conversation includes words that focus on people’s looks or gender then that’s it. The person who wanted to join doesn’t feel welcome. That phrase about first impressions is true and an opportunity is gone. People stop participating or they never take the chance and do not even start to contribute.
At that point it’s the WordPress community that loses out.
Unlike the forums IRC is a live medium. There’s no moderation or editing and it’s easy to say something off the cuff. Everyone has bad days and may say things that they regret. And we all have a sense of humor that can be crass sometimes.
But using language based on gender or looks is not tolerable and has to stop. It’s not enough to be aware of this behavior. What will make it stop is when everyone speaks up if they see that.
“That language is not welcome here. Please stop.”
That’s it. That’s all it takes.
That reply alone raises the expectations for the whole community. That’s not a confrontation, that’s an invitation for others to join a community that does welcome everyone.
Let’s all raise those expectations. Speak up. You’ll be encouraging other people to do the same.
Yeah some people are too impatient and starts abusive language in minutes …grrrrr
Sadly the abusive language is the easy stuff. The place where it gets hard is where someone makes what would, amongst friends, be a probably acceptable joke. The causal racism and misogyny or misanthropy we’re often blind to because of its prevalence. Heavens knows I play Cards Against Humanity with some of my WordPress friends, and we make horrible jokes when sitting around together. The difference being is that those are comments made in private and amongst friends.
It’s hard on IRC, we’re talking to people who ARE our friends. But IRC is a public place. It’s not the place to make a joke about how hot a developer is, or an innuendo about hooks and hookers. Even though you’re saying these to your friends, you’re being heard by everyone. You have an audience, all the time.
The reason it’s important to step up and say “This is not okay” is that every time you don’t, you’re reinforcing the idea that it is okay. I know that sucks. I don’t personally feel that silence always means assent or approval, but take it a different way. When I see people saying things like they’d like to be ‘balls deep’ in women, and no one asks them to stop, I sure as spit don’t feel like that’s a community I want to be involved in, because clearly they have some people who are disrespectful, but worse, if I do step up, the odds are I will have not a single person in my corner for asking them to stop.
I want to stress this. I don’t find that behavior acceptable. I will ask people to stop, by name, when I see it, and I will back up anyone who says “You know, that language makes me uncomfortable. Please stop.”
You’re not alone.
Well said Jan, Mika & Siobhan. Thank you for raising the bar, and making this everyone’s responsibility.
I hereby pledge to speak up if I am witness to bad behavior in IRC!
What Jan said, what Mika said, etc. This kind of thing is one of the reasons we’re working on writing up community expectations over on the /community team.
Some things to keep in mind:
The fact that this behavior happens is in part on us — we’ve worked to make the rest of the project a more welcoming place over the past five years, and I remember #wordpress-dev being a bit more on the boys’ club end when I first got involved. As we worked on shifting tone everywhere else, we kind of left #wordpress alone. It’s time to give #wordpress the attention it deserves: not just to catch it up in the ways referenced in Jan’s post, but to bring these contributors further into the fold and recognize their efforts the way we do in the forums, docs, and other areas of contribution.
Other cultures may find the typical derogatory terms acceptable, such as calling people “dear” (out of context), so are we saying those cultures need to conform what is acceptable in the UK or US?
No. But we are saying that they, and we as Americans, have to be aware that what we say may have umi tended meanings. No on gets a free pass here. For example, in the US saying ‘dear’ is more likely to be taken as an insult because it’s sarcastic and snide. Flip it around, we call them ‘fanny packs’ and a fanny is NOT your tush in the UK.
It boils down to trying to be appropriate for the group, and when someone kindly says “Hey, did you know what that means here?” you learn and adjust.
And there is a massiv difference between “love to see you there, dear!” and “what a dear, I’d love to shag him.” Be aware of audience and context.
I’m not sure many people would like to be referred to as “dear” or “sweetie” as that can be seen as condescending. I don’t think you’d ever referred to me online that way but after I giggled I’d probably send you an email. 
Just play it by ear. Intentions count for a lot and no one is asking anyone to parse every word they type through a content validator. Everyone has and continues to deal reasonably with others in the past. This is just to continue that as well as make people aware of this issue and ask that you help put a stop to it.
You know how the Forum Welcome is called er, “Welcome” and not “Forum Rules”? I don’t know who chose that wording (good job that) but this effort is along those lines. It’s important that you and all users feel welcome and not “regulated”.
There will be gaffes and that’s alright. I’m sure I’ll slip up (again) and refer to someone in a way that’s Not Cool™. Everyone gets a chance to correct their behavior.
*Drinks more coffee*
I hereby pledge to speak up if I am witness to bad behavior
I like that and I do too. That’s the best way to deal with this.
I hate being called “dear” – it puts me on edge. And I live in the UK.
Calling women “dear” (especially those who aren’t dear to you) is patronising. Here’s an excellent example: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/apr/27/cameron-sexism-calm-down-dear
Good to know, I honestely didn’t.
If I get it right, not in the context of “Lieber Caspar, …” but “Caspar, mein Lieber, …” in combination with a patronising look.
There’s no moderation or editing and it’s easy to say something off the cuff. Everyone has bad days and may say things that they regret.
I’d say this applies to fourms too Sometimes people just don’t know any better too and think it’s ok. Speaking up against it in a non-confrontational manner is the best step when inappropriate
The way to deal with this is to appoint moderators who have the power to kick and ban people from the IRC channel. Currently, no one is empowered to act on behalf of the community. All they can do is ping someone else and ask them to do it for them. There are a group of very active users on IRC. Just as we have forum moderators, we should have IRC moderators.
We’ve talked before about this, but this is a good opportunity to give some of the regulars ops status. They can attend our weekly chats and provide information about what’s gone on that week for the support rep to report back on /updates/.
This is an unfortunate situation, but also an excellent opportunity to get the IRC folks more integrated into the community.
FWIW there are some technical issues with that. IRC has less granulated controls than forums. Also it’s harder to ban people since they can use another IP or nick pretty easily.
(Also I know I’m nit-picking and Shiobhan already knows this, but that’s only half of the way to deal with it. Kicking people out removes the current problem. Speaking up reinforces that it’s not cool, and prevents it from getting much worse, IMO)
Normally I do an OMGWTFBBQ post. Here’s everything in my current draft, ready for editing by everyone!
The first section is ‘Stuff we, as mods, should be aware of.’ The second is the post itself
Major changes
Auto Upgrader
* How to disable
* In order for Automatic Updates to be enabled, there are a few simple requirements:
* If the install uses FTP for updates (and prompts for credentials), automatic updates are disabled
* If the install is running as a SVN or GIT checkout, automatic updates are disabled
* If the constants DISALLOW_FILE_MODS or AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED are defined, automatic updates are disabled
* If the constant WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE is defined as false, automatic updates are disabled
* Your WordPress install also needs to be able to contact WordPress.org over HTTPS connections, so your PHP install also needs OpenSSL installed and working
* Wp-Cron needs to be operational, if for some reason cron fails to work for your install, Automatic Updates will also be unavailable
* What gets updated?
* What changed. ONLY changed files!
* Only for minor releases (3.7 to 3.7.1 but NOT 3.7.1 to 3.8)
Less Major Changes
Under the Hood
For the post…. (More …)
Hello, I saw the link to this page over on #wordpress-sfd.
Under the subheading Don’t Panic: it is discussing not posting multiple times. I believe that “Post one” should be “Post once” or “Post one time”
Further down, there is a sentence about not liking the design of the WordPress Admin design. At the end of that sentence it says “…does not a bug make.” I would go with “does not make a bug.”
There are some troubleshooting steps just above the subheading Core Changes. One of them covers manual upgrading. In this sentence “…download a fresh copy of the latest.zip file of 3.5.” Should 3.5 be 3.7?
Under the subheading Not a Bug, it is talking about auto-updates. I think that “migitage security issues” should be “mitigate security issues”
Hope this helps!
–
Lorenzo
Twenty Fourteen is scheduled for 3.8 (yeah, I know, it’s in trunk for anyone running nightlies etc, but it won’t be seen when people upgrade to 3.7 on normal installs)
Fixed.
Switch to the Twenty Eleven theme should probably be updated to Thirteen or at least Twelve, since new installs don’t even get Eleven as of 3.6.
Made it 12 or 13, since 13 tends to scare people
“While you may disagree with this rational,”
I believe there’s an e missing from the end of “rationale”.
“While you may disagree with this rational,”
I believe there’s an e missing in the end of “rationale”.
Oy! Thanks!
My internship period is now over and I just wanted to take this chance to say a big thank you to everyone who supported me throughout. Special thanks go to my mentors @hanni and @ipstenu for their help and guidance, and to @jenmylo for organising WordPress’ involvement with GNOME’s OPW.
I was looking forward to meeting a few more of you in person at WordCamp Europe, however, unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, I will no longer be attending this weekend.
Getting more involved in the WordPress community has been wonderful, and I hope to continue contributing back to the community far beyond this internship. If you are, or if you know of a, woman interested in becoming more involved in open-source communities, please do consider the GNOME Outreach Program for Women: http://gnome.org/opw/. They are now accepting applicants for their next round, starting December 10th. Feel free to contact me if you want any more information on the application process.
Thank you again.
You are most welcome. I’m glad you are planning to stay involved. And 
to not being able to go to WordCamp Europe this weekend. Maybe you can make WordCamp London in November?
Thanks for all your encouragement throughout Kim! x
Hey all. Not long left of my internship now. Just a really, really quick update this week. I’ll mainly be spending my last two weeks helping @sabreuse with Troubleshooting documents. The outline for these can be found here: http://make.wordpress.org/community/troubleshooting-workshop-outline/. More to follow next week.
Hey everyone. This is the last week of the OPW internship period, however, as I took two weeks out for my backpacking trip, I’ll be hanging around a little longer than expected. In my two week make-up time (next week and the week after) I’ve been asked to create some tutorials/documentation on troubleshooting problems in order to help newcomers to the forums.
Last week, I submitted my first two patches to core. These were towards the 3.7 effort to add Inline-Docs to all the hooks in core (make.wordpress.org/core/2013/09/05/add-inline-docs-for-hooks/.) Special thanks go to @kpdesign for encouraging and helping me to submit my first patch, and also to @DrewAPicture and @tierra for their help via the #wordpress-sfd IRC channel. Everyone was really quick to offer their time and help, it really made me happy to be a part of the WP community, so thanks everyone.
I’m hoping to submit some more Inline-Doc patches this week, in addition to helping out as much as possible on the forums.
Congrats on your first commit, have fun on your backpacking trip. We’ve enjoyed having you on the team.
Thanks! Sorry, miscommunication. I’ve already been backpacking. My internship should have came to an end this week, however, I’ve been asked to make up the two weeks I took off. The last date of my internship will be now be October 7th.
You are most welcome. Will be good to see your name on the 3.7 contributors list when it’s released. Seriously, I hope you plan on sticking around after your internship is officially over. Support and docs can always use more people. 
I definitely hope to stick around.
” I’ve been asked to create some tutorials/documentation on troubleshooting problems in order to help newcomers to the forums.”
Now if you could figure out how to make people read them.
Haha. Fair point…
I would like to help you if you need help
There are various ways, I think short videos are the trend right now I wonder if there are some 3D story teller (Volunteer) would contribute to a video section
I dont know anything about design, but I can assist in server side hardning, planning, and other kind of slave work
For the sake of following this comment, i now subscribe sorry for spamming arround, just arrived here
Hey. Thanks so much for your offer of help. I have to create a short screencast as part of my internship, but I don’t think it’ll be anything grand enough to warrant your help. WordPress have a site where videos can be uploaded: wordpress.tv. I’m not sure if it’ll appeal to your skill-set specifically, but if you’re interested in video and want to help out, I believe they’re looking for moderators: http://wordpress.tv/get-involved/.
Hi, I am using and learning wordpress.
I am creating a movie site. Whenever I post with photo, photo dees not appear on my homepage screen. Only one post appears with photo ( the post is ” This is the End “. That’s why I can’t use movie theme or relating to it because the photo does not appear on the homepage with photo. Please help what I should I do. My site name is playmovie.biz
Hey. Do you mind posting your issues to the forums? They’re a better place for finding help: http://wordpress.org/support/.
Hey everyone. So, it’s the second to last week of my internship. Time flies.
As always, I’ll be about on the forums this week and I am going to try to do some more theme reviews.
I’m currently getting my head around SVN, PHPDoc standards, and the how to’s of submitting patches. I’m hoping to submit my first patch in the next few days for the Inline-Doc effort (http://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/09/05/add-inline-docs-for-hooks/). If anyone’s got any tips or feedback on any (inevitable) mistakes I make with my first patch, they’d be much appreciated.
Hey everyone. So I’ve been backpacking around Europe for the past two weeks! Thank you to my mentors, @ipstenu and @hanni, for allowing me to take this time out of my internship. I really had the best experience. The plan for this week is to catch up and get back on track with everything. I’ll be back on the forums as well as trying to see where I can contribute towards 3.7 and 3.8. As always, any tips, advice, or suggestions are welcome.
When @jdembowski gets back from his Griswald European Vacation, I’ll catch him up and hand over.
The ‘official’ stance is this: It’s best to go to where the theme/plugin is officially supported when trying to get support.
This means, if someone chooses to help you with a CSS question, that’s on them, unless the product is violating the GPL. Then it’s messy and ugly, and we really should not mess with it. But we, as members of the community in general, no matter our role, need to remember not to assume the worst of people, and be helpful, even when saying no.
If you want some boilerplate reply, the .wetry reply on IRC comes up with this:
We try our best to help everyone with any WordPress problem. However, due to the great variety of existing themes and plugins it is nearly impossible to know everything. Your best chance is to contact the developer for support.
There was a little confusion about the IRC Rockstar thing last week, so I wanted to go over it for (hopefully) clarification. The people who were nominated are not automatically becoming OPs on #wordpress. What they are, are identified people who are willing to help keep make/support updated with #wordpress issues and concerns. OPs has been split out to a separate concern cause everyone gets a little twitchy when we talk about giving people that much power. My personal critera would be someone who is active in IRC, but also other WordPress areas (like comes to some of the other meetups, contributes in trac with comments and/or code, etc).
There’s no real limit to the list of rockstars, though
@peterbooker and @fris – If you’re interested in this, the ‘job’ currently comes with author role on this blog, so you can post issues/concerns, and if possible attend our IRC chats. Reply to this post and let me know. A ‘no’ answer is totally okay too!
Please read @siobhan‘s post at make/docs concerning the Docs and Support Teams
The tl;dr is this:
Therefore we propose the following:
- Docs and Support remain separate teams each with their own P2 and rep
- we expect that there will be some crossover
- until it becomes impracticable, we’ll keep our chat at the same time, Thursday 16:00 UTC . This will allow any crossover to take place.
I expect there will remain a LOT of crossover.
What do you see as the main crossover areas? Since the two teams will remain separate, what do you suggest for an optimal way of handling the crossover to minimize duplication of effort?
Main crossover will be like when supporters find docs that are wrong, either in the course of researching an answer, or when someone says “Hey, the codex says…” In general, it’s safe to just update the codex, but do those things need to be up-streamed to the docs team?
Just a quick note on the above -
You can’t kick or ban through chanserv on freenode.
You *can* quiet through chanserv . It’s not anonymous, as the target will always be told who set the quiet, but it can be considered less “noisy”, as no one has to op up to do it.
You can set an akick through chanserv (auto kick + ban) but only if you have +fr on the access list, and none of the current set of chanops has that.
So, in other words, most of the time the ops will need to op up to take action. ( /msg chanserv help op )
Also note that in most cases baning or quieting a nickname is sub-optimal, as it can be easily evaded. Try to quiet the host. ( /whois nick to see their full hostmask ) then /mode #wordpress +q *!*@hostpart.dot.com
freenode staff can assist with finding the right sort of quiet to set if you’re stuck – just /join #freenode if you need help there. (Hopefully no one will need it as quiets will be few and far between, anyway, but it’s good to see that there’s some more people on the access list now.)