Posts Tagged ‘senseless’

IRC of the Damned

2007/12/23 in define this
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Are you one of the damned? Doomed to idle in the most wicked depths of IRC? I hope not. Even if you are, there may still be hope for you. The server you are using may crash and the owner might decide to let it be. This could actually be good motivation to live a righteous, proper life – to prevent being sent into this hell. But whatever you’ve done to end there, I’m sure you didn’t deserve it. Few do (rhymes, doesn’t it?). Just imagine the horrible, truly mind-shattering places, such channels can impersonate. It vaguely reminds of an experiment, where a few people sit together and try to communicate in front of a live audience, the audience now has to write down all the massive errors made. Errors, of which every single one is enough to prevent any form of reasonable communication in the first place.

[10:33:01] (surf3r) oh, damn, my HDD just died… I don’t know what to do…
[10:33:10] (surf3r) Might need some help
[10:33:20] (king) I think I’m hungry
[10:33:35] (megabOSS) hmmm… television…
[10:33:50] (d4n) Yes! just found my DVD!
[10:33:59] (driZZZt) Hyyy, wazzup guyZZZ???
[10:34:15] (l0l3r) haha! this picture is so funny!!!
[10:34:35] (l0l3r) why is no one laughing???
[10:34:55] (megabOSS) hmmm… just look at my hmmm…
[10:35:20] (king) don’t believe this, the kitchen door makes loud noises!
[10:35:40] (surf3r) hello???
[10:36:55] (megabOSS) hm…

Yet everyone continues to repeat these errors as well as introducing new ones, while behaving like none of this is noticed, yes – just as if it would be completely normal. Day after day, this ceremony takes place. In case of the exercise, the flaws are discussed with a professor, along lots of ideas to circumvent this in the future. But not so in IRC. In this environment with timestamps and logs people will ask what happened one row above their own text line.

[11:02:55] (tester) guys, I just started testing this new release of prog x!
[11:03:00] (tester) it’s so cool!
[11:03:05] (tester) I would’ve never thought that it would be that much better
[11:03:10] (tester) all the new options are on the left side! right above the green button
[11:03:16] (tester) but they are only visible after activating them with the blue button, then everything’s fine
[11:03:24] (tester) also the previous problems are fixed, that annoyed everyone here so much!
[11:03:35] (tester) just so it’s easier for you guys – I’ve already written a complete manual, get it here [link] it’s so detailed, all questions are answered! but it also has a short listing, just in case you don’t want to read that much or are in a hurry! :) enjoy!
[11:03:38] (chief) hm
[11:03:45] (chief) just installed the new release of prog x
[11:03:55] (chief) something doesn’t feel right
[11:03:59] (chief) are the annoying bugs finally fixed???
[11:04:15] (chief) where are the new options?
[11:04:25] (chief) why is no one helping me???
[11:04:30] (chief) you guys suck!
[11:04:40] (chief) typical, just ask some simple questions and no one will answer them!
[11:04:47] (chief) is there at least some kind of manual?
[11:04:59] (chief) since I can’t get help here…
[11:05:08] (chief) this isn’t funny anymore! I’m already waiting for 2 fucking minutes!
[11:05:19] (chief) I demand results!!!
[11:05:33] (chief) I have admin rights here, I can totally pawn you!!!
[11:05:46] (chief) who wants to be banned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After they were informed about that at least thrice, they’ll start asking WHEN this happened. Of course not without hinting how long they have waited for a response, in this scenario it’s fine to actually know how the f*cking clock works, as well as reading the timestamps. The coolest guys in IRC will always talk about problems and complain when no one else tries to solve them. Ideally this is done by just saying that there’s a problem. Going more into details is strictly forbidden, since this might end the absurdity. Another inevitable trick is, to explain the problem when no one else is in the channel, thus expecting later on, that everyone is informed. Thanks to this method, great flame wars can start, giving even the chance to switch to another topic entirely. The initial problem can always be brought up again later, to repeat all this in endless painful cycles. A good starting point seems to be, to ask the same basic IRC commands like twice a day. Every day. Don’t memorize anything, NOT EVER. The less someone actually knows, the more he’s IRC staff chief. The more harmless folks will stumble in the channel and immediately leave it again, because it took more than 1 second to answer them.

[12:00:00] (JayBee) Hi, this is me, everyone should start solving my problems NOW!
[12:00:01] (JayBee) alright, you had your chance, I won’t be responsible for what happens next!
[12:00:02] * Quits: JayBee (JB@no.time.ctu) (Client exited)
[12:00:04] ((h|03) wtf?!?

Since the example for poor sobs, idling alone for hours in a chan with 50+ clients, is very similar to the above (except for the premature quitting of course), I’ll leave it to your imagination.

Keep your distance to any possible continuations. And stay clear of any channels with similarities to this.^^