Seeking moderators for unofficial Qubes IRC channels on Freenode and OFTC

[Andrew David Wong]

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Dear Qubes Community,

We're looking for well-known, trustworthy volunteers from the
community who would like to be moderators in the unofficial Qubes IRC
channels on Freenode and OFTC (#qubes on both). We'd like to have at
least two unrelated moderators who can oversee both channels. If
you're interested, please let us know.

Best,
Andrew

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
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[P R]

Hello David, 

>> We're looking for well-known, trustworthy volunteers from the
>> community who would like to be

>> moderators in the unofficial Qubes IRC
>> channels on Freenode and OFTC (#qubes on both).

Am 21.07.2017 2:28 vorm. schrieb "Andrew David Wong" <a...@qubes-os.org>:

We're looking for well-known, trustworthy volunteers from the
community who would like to be moderators in the unofficial Qubes IRC
channels on Freenode and OFTC (#qubes on both).

As mentioned before I am happy to help, but some more details about what exactly must/should be done would be helpful including an information to which users the IRC channel is mainly aimed at.

What is the strategy of having IRC available as the good thing with the mailing list is, that most topics have been raised already once and as such extends the excellent Qubes documentation.

Regards

- PhR

[Noor Christensen]

The IRC channels are unofficial, and should probably continue to be so
since we already have the mailing lists as our official means of
communication.

That being said, I would be glad to help out as a moderator.

People will continue joining the #qubes channel (or another one) and ask
for help, no matter if we are there or not. I think it's a great way to
introduce new users to the project and point users with questions or
answers to the offical docs and lists for further discussion.

Mailing lists are not for everyone, but we can at least make sure that
our IRC visitors know where to look by being reachable in the channel.

-- noor

|_|O|_|
|_|_|O| Noor Christensen
|O|O|O| no...@fripost.org ~ 0x401DA1E0

[P R]

Hello

Am 21.07.2017 9:39 vorm. schrieb "Noor Christensen" <kchr+qub...@fripost.org>:

The IRC channels are unofficial, and should probably continue to be so

since we already have the mailing lists as our official means of
communication.

Agreed, Mailinglist and  Qubes Docu are perfect to look for answers.

The only (maybe) missing part would be a quick start guide for beginners, adressing the most relevant tasks (referencing to the documentation).

People will continue joining the #qubes channel (or another one) and ask for help, no matter if we are there or not. I think it's a great way to
introduce new users to the project and point users with questions or
answers to the offical docs and lists for further discussion.

If there is an IRC channel, I think it should be clearly mentioned on the website as asking via IRC might be a lower barrier for newbies.

- PhR

[Oleg Artemiev]

i regulary open this channel since it was small in traffic volume. If
I'm not late already I'd like to help.

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--
Bye.Olli.
gpg --search-keys grey_olli , use key w/ fingerprint below:
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Blog keys (the blog is mostly in Russian): http://grey-olli.livejournal.com/tag/

[cooloutac]

sounds like a waste of time, freenode is an abandoned cesspool. If you care about your security you wouldn't even be using it. The google mailing list is great though, because it already deters the deplorables...

[cooloutac]

Qubes should not associate themselves with freenode or irc. That's just my opinion. Nobody with self respect or integrity has taken freenode serious for over 10 years. It should stay unofficial.

I think google forums are a lot easier to use then installing some irc client or connecting to a webchat, where the only people there are criminals or spammers who want to exploit you or the network. No moderator can help, freenode can't even protect themselves. The wolves bully that hen house. Any IRC channel should stay unofficial imo. Freenode and its communities are the sole reason Linux is unpopular. Its a ghost town full of idle bots for a reason.

Its one of the most dangerous places to connect to, besides online games, some porn sites, and darknet sites like silk road. I mean come on, it was hilarious how it was portrayed on Mr. Robot, but they were not that far off.

Even though they brought back tor support, which is a catch22 for them, (although you would need a special tor setup, standard setups dont' work) Recommending people go to freenode is like leading sheeps to slaughter.

[Franz]

Well it seems that all groups are using Slack now. It is easy to use and works well. Have a look.

Best

Fran
 

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[Jean-Philippe Ouellet]

If you're going to use not-IRC, then there is already a matrix [1]
group for Qubes. Matrix is a decentralized "secure" (whatever that
really means) alternative to Slack, and it's already picked up some
momentum. The matrix group is also bridged with the #qubes_os channels
on freenode and OFTC.

Personally, I think IRC's status as the de-facto chat protocol for
similar communities warrants having a presence there (since people
*do* regularly come there with questions), so I'll continue to idle
there and am happy to volunteer as a chanop if the Qubes team wants.

Regards,
Jean-Philippe

[1]: https://matrix.org/

[Vincent Adultman]

Qubes should not associate themselves with freenode or irc. That"s just my opinion. Nobody with self respect or integrity has taken freenode serious for over 10 years. It should stay unofficial.

Not to knock what you're saying, but I think it's important for us to draw a distinction as a community between the infrastructure being potentially dangerous (which is the approach taken by ITL to the google list, the hosting services etc) with clear suggested mitigating actions for the end user to take (use GPG email, verify your ISO download etc) and the possibility that there are malicious individuals present on a medium wanting to do naive users harm (which seems on its face to be an argument towards moderating the IRC channels). Neither seem to be solved problems for IRC.

We're in the difficult position of most other Linux distributions maintaining a freenode / IRC presence and advertising this [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] i.e. it's semi expected there will be some semi respectable community members idling. A very interesting point here is it's taken as a given that people understand that you should take advice on IRC at your own risk, and not explicitly stated anywhere by any of those distros. I don't think we should assume this is common knowledge for our user base, which I would argue is made up of very technically minded users, as well as users with other motivations (security, privacy) without much in the way of technical knowledge. Either camp may bowl up to the #qubes channel. If we think this is a bad idea™ I think we ought to clearly state so and why on the website. I can't immediately see on the website if anything is said of IRC, I thought the unofficial channel had been moved to OFTC for better tor support but I don't immediately see a mention of that.

I think google forums are a lot easier to use then installing some irc client or connecting to a webchat, where the only people there are criminals or spammers who want to exploit you or the network.

Yes definitely easier, but a lot of people want to hang around and immerse themselves in community chat to learn, or to be part of that community. We shouldn't underestimate the number of people out there who outright hate the mailing list format, or even web forums. I do think live chat helps a community attract people who can be helpful to it.

Freenode and its communities are the sole reason Linux is unpopular.

Be interested to know more about what you mean by this?

Its one of the most dangerous places to connect to, besides online games, some porn sites, and darknet sites like silk road. I mean come on, it was hilarious how it was portrayed on Mr. Robot, but they were not that far off.

Even though they brought back tor support, which is a catch22 for them, (although you would need a special tor setup, standard setups dont" work) Recommending people go to freenode is like leading sheeps to slaughter.

Again we seem to be running up against the common knowledge problem. On my own (out dated) experience the risks associated with IRC were 1) the client being vulnerable to attack (shoutouts to mirc [6], xchat [7]) and 2) exposure of your internet facing IP address. Generally (showing my age) bouncers were used for the latter and I guess (not used IRC in 5 years) connection these days would be through whonix (who even on their wiki have a footer that says "bored? join us in IRC chat"). Where IRC seems to be a bad idea, is in the fact that you can't easily get a bouncer anonymously and IRC networks supporting TOR connections is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation for them.

My ultimate feelings (and the reason I've never joined a #qubes IRC channel to date) and why I sort of agree with you are summed up in https://phabricator.whonix.org/T361 which links to the associated Tor and Qubes tickets.

Slack I've never used, but am put off by the fact it's proprietary. As a major factor in having an IRC channel is "users expect it because it's what other distros do" this raises the question do other distros have slack channels?

I probably agree more with Jean-Philippe (when in Rome...) you mention Matrix, looks interesting, is there a good primer anywhere on how it solves the IRC problems discussed in the whonix and tor tickets? (yes, being lazy, sorry...)

Disclaimer of interest = spent unhealthy proportion of teenage years running gaming IRC channels, suffering with bad case of nostalgia.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IRC/ChannelList

[2] https://community.ubuntu.com/contribute/support/irc/

[3] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat

[4] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/IRC_channel

[5] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_use_IRC

[6] https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-189/product_id-325/Khaled-Mardam-bey-Mirc.html

[7] https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-552/Xchat.html

[Noor Christensen]

Well, it has three times more users than the OFTC channel and lots of
discussion daily.

Your argument about security makes no sense, care to elaborate on that?

Also, I think an IRC channel serves a different purpose than the mailing
list. The list is perfect for a threaded and archivable history of
lengthy topics, whereas the channel is better suited for ad hoc
questions and beginner questions that often are repeated.

Additionally, as said earlier in the thread, the plan is not to replace
the list. We're discussing how to take better care of those users that
already use IRC and prefer to get help there. Most of the time we refer
these users to the mailing list anyway; for example if they got
questions or opinions that already has a thread on the list.

[cooloutac]

I go into freenode channels to ask advice and then do the opposite. Just did that recently in ##hardware to learn what not to buy, by seeing what most of them recommended, and built a nice rig last week. haha. I did that when I built my qubes machine too.

When i'm bored I go on irc to give extremely simple solutions, promote security best practices and programs, which is my way of trolling most of them for detracting such things.

But yes the protocols and network infrastructure is insecure, but so are the people lmao... I would stay away from it for the same reasons people stay away from bad neighborhoods. You just don't want to be on their radar.

Its why I was so adamant Qubes team keeping the google groups forums. It alone deters deplorables and requires little moderation, and less risk to users. Because predators prefer to attack whats weakest and most exposed, and Cockroaches stay under rocks and in shadows.

[Nicklaus McClendon]

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On 07/20/2017 07:27 PM, Andrew David Wong wrote:
> Dear Qubes Community,
>
> We're looking for well-known, trustworthy volunteers from the
> community who would like to be moderators in the unofficial Qubes
> IRC channels on Freenode and OFTC (#qubes on both). We'd like to
> have at least two unrelated moderators who can oversee both
> channels. If you're interested, please let us know.
>
> Best, Andrew
>
>

I'm always lurking in the Freenode #qubes, I'd be happy to be a moderato
r.

- --
kulinacs <nick...@kulinacs.com>
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[Andrew David Wong]

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On 2017-07-20 19:27, Andrew David Wong wrote:
> Dear Qubes Community,
>
> We're looking for well-known, trustworthy volunteers from the
> community who would like to be moderators in the unofficial Qubes
> IRC channels on Freenode and OFTC (#qubes on both). We'd like to
> have at least two unrelated moderators who can oversee both
> channels. If you're interested, please let us know.
>

Thank you to everyone who expressed interest in these positions. Our
IRC moderators will be Jean-Philippe Ouellet, Holger Levsen, and HW42
(as a backup mod due to limited availability). We're now in the
process of receiving control of the channels and assigning moderator
privileges. You should begin to see improvement in the quality of
these channels very soon.

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
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