Comments on: There’s now a #django-newbie chan on freenode

By: omtv

omtv — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:38:02 +0000

Now I have a place to ask questions! Thanks a lot~

By: Shabda

Shabda — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:26:03 +0000

Let me just pitch in and say, Magus is totally awesome. I have been to #django many times, and always got Short, quick and correct answers from him, and I would always prefer that to Long, polite but wrong answers.

That said #django-newbie should be a great addition to Django community.

By: m0j0

m0j0 — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:05:11 +0000

For the record, I just want to say two things:

First, I (the author of the post), never mentioned Magus, because he’s not the only person I’ve gotten an attitude from.

Second, I didn’t start django-newbie to be a replacement for #django. It’s not even a new idea to have a -newbie chan. In time, people who have the patience to help the newbies will migrate there, and then everyone else can go to #django. There are probably django chans on other servers. There are at least 3 #python chans on different servers. There are also several mailing lists for python, one of which (python-tutorial) is basically a n00b mailing list. There’s nothing I’ve done that’s unusual, so I don’t see this as some kind of earth-shattering move.

The issue some people seem to have is with my reasoning, but for every one of those people, there are 4 or 5 sitting in django-newbie that have told me they agreed and had similar experiences. Maybe the attrition rate attributable to bad experiences in #django will fall, and in the end, that’s good for Django.

Finally, as a parting thought, it’s simply unacceptable to treat people in the way that I’ve been treated, and seen others treated, in #django. There is no excuse, and it’s just not defensible to make excuses for such behavior. Having knowledge is not a license to treat those who don’t badly. People like that are cancers to their community. The very community they’re trying to help grow, they’re also chasing people away from. It’s senseless to excuse that behavior because someone is “smart”.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:55:10 +0000

If you spend enough time in the channel it doesn’t take long to sympathize with the people who are willing to answer questions all day for whatever reason. I can tell you, as an avid lurker, that they aren’t hanging around in the channel stroking e-peens just waiting for a helpless noob to ridicule.

There is little going on other than support. Sometimes it is having a bad day. Other times is thinks you should google search before asking for its time. Easily answered/figured questions clog channels and hinder others working out solutions they really can’t find anywhere else.

Just for perspective though. The “ass” is currently on IRC helping people while you are calling someone and “ass” on an internet forum. Cheers.

By: lifewithryan

lifewithryan — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:46:20 +0000

Magus is NOT an ass. Magus can be abrasive at times and yes I feel that it gives a poor representation of the Python/Django community.

The only real problem I have is that as newbies, we/they may read the documentation…thats always my first stop. The problem lies in the fact that newbies “don’t know what they don’t know” which renders search documentation practically useless.

Magus has helped me numerous times, and yes made me feel like an idiot as well, but I think he’d even back me up on this, that now when i go in there, I’m much more prepared. When i get called out, I just let it roll off my back.

I guess where some of the people fall short is that understanding that not all of the people asking for help in the channel are programmers. Many are from small-time shops with staff that has been “pushed into” being the I.T. guy, so they don’t have a real background in any serious language discipline NOR do they have knowledge of how to “behave” in IRC. Jumping on these people and making them feel stupid is certainly a good way to scare them off so they never come back and continue writing bad-code and thereby not showing the best of what Django can do.

Does this make Magus and ass? Not in my book…here’s my best guess. He’s smart, and hes’ very busy with other things. He wants to promote Django but he doesn’t have time to explain the basics or do your project for you. He wants to help, but there are a lot of people to help. Therefore, he can be short and abrasive, especially when answering questions that can be found by a simple google search or in the docs. (Again, not knowing what you don’t know sort of hinders that search, but at least seem like you’ve made an attempt).

No, Magus is not an ass. Does he put forth a good image for Django/Python…perhaps not always. Does he help out extremely…hell yes. Will I continue to stay in #django, for sure. Will i check out #django-newbies, probably so.

He doesn’t have to be in there everyday helping people, he’s not getting paid, but he’s there…don’t chase him out…maybe we can convince everyone to meet half-way or something.