Wanted to point to an excellent post by Benji Weber, calling for participation in IRC:

The #suse channel on the freenode IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network is one of the places users can go to get support with openSUSE. The channel has suffered a little over recent months from the loss of some regular participants. Since the opening of the openSUSE project many of the channel regulars have become involved in other areas of the openSUSE project, leaving less time for user support on IRC.

While the regular participants may have decreased, the throughput of users seeking help shows no sign of abating. There is a danger that with fewer people helping in the channel, users will either not get help or be put off by the attitude of a few in the channel.

There are regular complaints from a few about the state of the #suse IRC channel, often as an excuse for not participating. This does somewhat irritate me as it is one of the easiest things to fix yourself. Simply join the channel and participate, even a single person does make a big difference to the whole channel. Complaining helps nobody, and only serves to discourage those who are helping.

A couple of comments — first, I’m really happy to see openSUSE community members being proactive and trying to improve avenues of communication and support. Many thanks to Benji for stepping up here.

Second — if you have some time available and you’re familiar with openSUSE, please do join the channel from time to time to assist new users — we have a number of support avenues for openSUSE (mail, IRC, forums, etc.) but IRC is really useful for some folks because it’s available in real time.

Finally, I want to stress the importance of being polite and helpful to other members of our community. Remember that there’s another person on the end of the IRC client (or mail client, or forum, whatever) and that it’s extremely important to put our best foot forward in communicating with new users and with other community members.

If you’re going to be in #suse or other openSUSE-related channels, please remember that a user’s first contact with a member of the community could be the last contact with our community, or it could be the first step to a long and healthy relationship where a person eventually becomes a contributor to the openSUSE project, or (more likely) somewhere in between.

But it’s very important to remember just how powerful first impressions can be, and also to remember that negative interactions are often far more memorable than positive interactions — and if someone comes to IRC or the mailing lists or forums and has a bad experience, they’re much more likely to relate that experience to others.

Let’s please not give anyone cause to spread the meme that the Linux community in general, or the openSUSE community in particular, is unhelpful or rude. The very concept of open source is one of being helpful and sharing with other people — that should extend beyond the code and distribution of code to the demeanor of those who represent our community to new users.

I would hate to think that we would lose even one potential Linux user because someone in IRC failed to be polite and helpful. And Benji is right, complaining* is usually useless — if you see a problem in the community, the best thing to do is to step up and say, “right, what can I do to help?” or just start doing what you can. Have fun with it — life’s too short to focus on the negative.

Again, if you have time and want to help new users, please join #suse and help as many folks as you can. As often as I’m the road, it’s been a bit difficult to be in IRC very often, but I plan to make a point to be in IRC as much as possible the next few days after I get back from OSBC. Please say “hi,” if you see me (jbrockmeier) signed in.

(*This is not to say that openSUSE members are not open to constructive criticism or having it pointed out that there’s a problem — there is a difference between trying to point out a problem and just complaining. I hope everyone in the community will always feel welcome to contact me or the board or other members of the openSUSE team.)

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