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IRC etiquette
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# IRC etiquette
See also the list of , and the  for more suggestions of who you might ask.
## IRC communication guidelines and etiquette
### Guidelines
These are just some guidelines so you get a perspective of IRC culture, communication:
* Try to ask smart questions, let us try to think for ourselves first and not let some poor, good-intentioned soul to do all the thinking for us. [Pro-tip: Eric S. Raymond's guide referred in the **Resources** section]
* Try (as humanly as possible) to be: clear, concrete, specific and *complete* with your statements/questions. People cannot read your mind.
* Be patient: do not expect people will devote time for extreme hand-holding. If a URL is pointed, please try things yourself, do your home-work, use Google *effectively*.
* Try to maintain a balance of *taking* vs *giving* from the community. Do not demand excessive attention.
* IRC is a DIY environment, not a paid-support forum. If someone responds to you, that is a bonus.
* Be reminded: respect people's time, always answering IRC questions isn't developers first priority. Someone could be knee deep in gdb/pdb investigating that time-critical bug.
* When in a community environment, just post the question to the channel, you do not have to ping a specific person just because he/she answered your question before. Nor do you have to ask questions like "Anyone alive on this channel?" "Are you using ABC?" Stay channel topic related!
* It is an international channel: you may get better responses in certain time-zones, be patient - don't count on instant reactions.
All of the above look dead obvious, but doesn't instantly come to mind when asking questions in a public IRC. And, sure - we also understand we are all human, already overwhelmed and sometimes, we *Just Need* that answer and not want to follow any heavy instructions. If you're lucky, you might even have the bonus of getting it answered instantly.
### Pinging for attention (please avoid a 'naked ping')
If you're not aware of what a 'naked ping' is, please take 3 minutes to read this .
#### Do:
To save everyone's time, please try to ping with a specific request/question/comment.
Preferred:
```
<Bob> Alice: Ping,  re:  a certain topic (or a specific question)
Even better: if possible, a fully **self-contained** question requesting a clear action, so the person you pinged may come back 3 hours later and respond at her/his own pace:
<Bob> Alice: Ping, re: bug#1456234. Don't you think the reporter
             should retest with that specific version of openstack-nova
             mentioned in comment#4? It fixes the bug.
    [3 HOURS LATER. . .]
<Alice> Bob: Hi, you were right with that bug. I had an incorrect assumption.
             I just closed the bug, adding a relevant rationale.
(Agreed -- not all questions can be *that* self-contained, but you get the drift.)
#### Don't:
In short: please avoid -- a-ping-followed-by-permission-to-ask-a-question-followed-by-long-silence. Or any similar variants.
i.e. do not do a naked ping with no request for any information or any question:
<Bob> Alice: Ping
    [LONG SILENCE. . .]
nor this:
<Alice> Bob: Pong?
<Bob> Alice: Can I talk to you now? I have a technical question to discuss
<Alice> Bob: Sure.    (Inside Alice's head -- 'Sigh, will you already ask the question please?!')
    [Again, in some cases, this interrupt is  followed by a long SILENCE. . . ]
<Bob> Alice: A vague question with not so clear details.
You see what a time drain the above has become which has not led to any meaningful exchange? At this point, I'm sure you can clearly imagine what a test of mental sanity it'll be for Alice to have 10 to 12 pings like that each day. Let's not do that.
### Resources
* A fantastic resource from Eric S. Raymond 
* Other communities (Fedora project) IRC communication 
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Every piece of software as complex as OpenStack has some pitfalls in its usage. We will use this page to collect tips and tricks related to installation and configuration issues, and issues which people run into during the lifetime of their OpenStack deployment.