I’d like to know about the IRC #unrealengine on Freenode, is this an official outlet for subscribers, or is it a community driven effort (because I see your employees in there)?
I am very disturbed to have witnessed today what I could only categorize as plain abuse of op power, when another member, Dontflop, was banned by Allar, for alleged “trolling?”
Hi amigo, the IRC channel is entirely community driven and not an official outlet, although some of our developers like to hang out there and help with all your questions. If in doubt, you may want to check with the channel operators, but I think they have already taken action with regard to this incident. I think that, given the rapidly growing popularity of the channel it makes sense to go ahead with the proposed split into #unrealengine for development discussions and #unrealengine-chat for all other UE4 related chatter. Hopefully that will reduce the noise and allow participants to get answers more quickly and stay productive.
The issue is not the noise. To run a healthy IRC channel, one must allow for conversations that are not on topic all the time. People relax and befriend other people through chatter while ops are supposed to maintain peace and prevent brawls or inappropriate conversations - basically keep everyone’s experience pleasant.
Splitting the IRC channel into two will basically render the above impossible, and would turn what the the C(hat) in IRC means, into the opposite, the lack there of.
People will not communicate freely and openly and would only dare to say something if it’s on topic, from fear of repercussions. That’s in the “on topic” channel, while the -chat channel will actually see more conversation about UE because people will bond more openly since UE is that glue (the thing in common) and they would not be limited to just chatting about UE, either.
Just my 2c.
EDIT: Oh and on the subject of ops, here’s more from my 20 years on IRC…it has been a well established practice to op people who are experienced in IRC, knowledgable in the channel topic, willing to help, and have patience to listen to people. That means they are not trigger happy to ban on first sight, or even on the second. And ops should be opped (regardless of whatever guidelines Freenode has) so that users know who they can turn to for help, if needed.
This is a problem with IRC and many forums in general. Mods on power trips. Give some people an ounce of power. I really don’t understand the obsession with trolling, anyone who disagrees with a mod opinion is trolling nowadays, pretty much standard fare on Unity forums.
After talking with nkr privately the issue has been resolved, it is agreed that as long as off-topic conversations don’t affect people asking real support questions and on-topic discussions that all is fine.
I am un-banned and nkr is a fair person. no harm done, if anyone cares lol:)
I’m not saying its always true I’m just saying there’s a lot of corruption in certain forums like Unity or Steam where you will get whacked so hard if you disagree with a mod, trolling or no trolling. “absolute power corrupts absolutely” reminds me of that.
We are still talking about an IRC channel (s) that is made from users and not from Epic so lets not spam EPIC mods about it. Try the new idea before shooting it down. Works or not there are still the AH, Forums and a lot of developers here that are willing to help out if IRC doesn’t work.
People one way or another will be found in that spot and will think someone is abusing his powers, It’s natural and everything revolves around perspective so i wont be the first to cast a stone.
Anyway this thread is getting de-railed and is assuming things Plus causing more damage.
@Mods can we have this locked as the main purpose of this thread was met?