[Asterisk-Users] IRC Etiquette

[Leif Madsen]

Just for the heck of it, I am going to throw my 2 cents in here. 
Choose your particular currency for its value.

I've been in and around the Asterisk community for some time now
(approximately a year) and have seen the number of users increase
almost exponentially.  I know many of the most active contributors,
and I think I'm at least known of, by most.  I've seen people talking
down to other people, and I mostly ignore it.  You have to realize
that even though we are a "community", any online community has its
fair share of guru's.  These guru's have spent the time to learn a
particular system without nearly as many resource materials as there
are available now.  These people have spent possibly hundreds of hours
learning the system through trial and error, and yes, I'm sure a fair
amount of time spent on IRC asking questions, and having them
answered.

What I think the problem is, is that people expect not only to have
their hands held by these people, but often they expect to be carried.
 There are many new users that install Asterisk (or attempt) and fail
because they haven't read *any* of the introductory documentation.  I
realize that the documentation is not always 100% clear, but I find
most of it to be quite good for what *is* there.  The wiki is probably
the most often referred to resource, along with a couple of key
websites, which need to be referred to often.  What I think irks the
people who have "put their time in" is questions that can be *EASILY*
answered with about 5 seconds worth of searching and googling.  I can
understand the frustration many new users find, as I've both seen it
and experienced it, but these are things that *ANY* large community
has.  Have you ever spent time on a large newsgroup?  You'll find much
much worse than you find here.  The trolling is quite low for a
mailing list as large as Asterisk's.

I think if time is spent doing a little bit of research and attempting
to *understand*, and not just *get working*, this system we call
Asterisk, and when asking a question, knowing it is an informed,
educated question, you'll go much further to gain respect from the
"guru's".

I am no guru.  I'm just a telecom newbie (currently completing my
third year of telecommuncations technology) who just loves the
possibilties Asterisk brings to my table.
I can feel the new users pain with attempting to understand Asterisk.
I still don't know many, many parts of it, but before I go asking a
question in the IRC channel, or the mailing list, I *atleast* spend
5-10 minutes searching the mailing lists and the wiki.  I think you'll
find with a little bit of searching, that most of the most common
elements of Asterisk are documented enough to a degree to get you most
of the way there.  If something doesn't make sense, really try and
think of why it might not work, and ask an informed and educated
question.

You'll always have the people who say "go search Google" or "search
the wiki".  Of course that is what you should do, but I think if you
spend the time trying to learn it on your own just a little bit before
going and asking for your hand to be held, you'll find the community
much friendlier and willing to help you when you need the help.

If you've actually spent the time to read my post, wow :)
Leif Madsen
http://www.asteriskdocs.org