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Re: Better IRC channel support

 

On Fri, 2016-01-29 at 10:48 -0700, Joey STANFORD wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've noticed for a while now we're doing poorly at answering help
> questions on our IRC channel. I suspect part of that is because the exam
> bot is popular with AC6SL. :-)

I'm not convinced that hamexam-bot in the #ubuntu-hams channel relates
here.  We were just as poor at answering help questions before it
existed!  :-)

> After attempting to answer a question for W8TAH I noticed far up in the
> log there were some messages from KM4KQW and a missed question from
> KG5KFD. As I started scrolling back into November I saw a lot more
> unanswered questions.

I think it more likely that the issue is that no-one has time or
inclination to answer the questions, than an issue of the questions
being obscured.  (I don't have a suggestion to address the time or
inclination situation; Personally, I know that I just don't have as much
time to devote to #ubuntu-hams as I once did).

> So I'd like to kick of a discussion about how to fix this.
> 
> My initial two reactions are:
> 
> 1) Perhaps we should consider moving the exam bot to a sub-channel,
> e.g. #ubuntu-hams-hamexam.  That would help us not lose sight of the
> help requests that come in.

-1 from me.  I'd rather see the hamexam-bot traffic in the channel than
nothing at all (which was a common scenario before).

> 2) Perhaps we should consider creating a bot on the channel that would
> act like a doorbell. We could put some instruction in the channel entry
> message that says "if you ask a question and get no reply in 20 minutes,
> type in !helpme" and the bot will highlight a bunch of people in the
> channel.

Which "bunch of people", exactly?  ;-)

And why not just list those people in the channel topic message instead,
and forgo the helpme bot altogether?  Still though, which people?

>   There's probably a MUCH better way to do this. Honestly I've
> not had much success with bots like this but I don't have any other
> supportive ideas.

How about adjusting the channel message to suggest e.g.:

   If you don't get a response to your IRC question, try
   sending your question to <ubuntu-hams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>.

73 de KA6MAL

 -Kamal




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