Aleks' Domain

I freakin’ HATE the eliticism on Freenode! HATE IT!

I dont know what OS/Other stuff you are running, but I just noticed that there is an issue with vimoutliner in the newer ubuntu’s

Apparently they have disabled autoloading file type plugins due to some wierd loading order conflict. It might be what stopped your python plugin working.

I had to change this:
if has(“autocmd”)
filetype indent on
endif
into this:
if has(“autocmd”)
filetype plugin indent on
endif

in my vimrc and sudenly vimoutliner was working again…. Just thought I would mention it in case you were still having trouble.

So I wrote a several paragraph comment, hit submit, Wordpress tells me I’m using an invalid email.

I hit the back button, and it turns out Wordpress was able to save the Name and Email (the invalid one) fields, but decided to erase my entire comment.

Well, forget the comment…

Otherwise, I’m pretty glad I read this post. I’m going to make it my goal to use the phrase “hey guys I keep shoving cucumbers up my butt but I’m still hungry.”

This is why I walked away from IRC after a 5-year binge. Every time I got weak and tried to get back, I’d end up in a room with new douches and decide it wasn’t worth befriending them all over again.

Clearly you got nothing useful out of then because you failed to follow the correct procedure for asking for advice from useless lowlives on IRC:

“vim sucks because it can’t even color python syntax properly!”

I don’t know… I would have whacked you for not stating you actually tried the instructions. You looked just like one of the thousands of idiots that harass people on irc every day. You need to state that you followed the instructions when you join a room blindly for help.

I deal with this all the time. I’m routinely on freenode helping people out in one of several chatrooms. (Usually linux or ruby on rails related) I am certainly not this rude to a person that just joined, though I indulge in light-hearted trolling once in a while. (e.g. Ubuntu needs it’s registry cleaned once a month or get’s cranky)

When a new person joins to ask a common questions, I usually ask if the person has read the manual, checked the logs, etc. I believe rather heavily in RTFM but I try to be nice about it since I’ve been on the receiving end most of the time. However when a person is trolling or repeatedly shows no attempt to help themselves I make no attempt to be polite.

To be fair, you said:

“how do I install a .vim plugin (python.vim)? I’ve placed it in ~/.vim/plugin and in /usr/share/vim/vim72/plugin/, but nothing seems to be working.”

…not:

“how do I install a .vim plugin (python.vim)? I’ve followed the instructions and searched for 1/2 hour, but nothing seems to be working.”

You didn’t mention the things you mentioned here in your setup of the story. You did provide a false lead that you knew to be false, without labelling it as just ’something you tried’. “Surely, they would sympathize!” you said, but the people you’re asking that question of, us readers, had more information than you provided to the IRCers.

It’s not unreasonable that they’d assume you were a newb from what you asked them, it’s not unreasonable for them to assume that you haven’t bothered looking for instructions or searched the net from the first assumption, and it’s not unreasonable for them to be frustrated when they *finally* get to the starting point after having to tease it out of you. They were elitist, sure (welcome to ‘civilisation’), but their frustration is clearly warranted.

Mistakes were made on both sides. I did an almost line-by-line breakdown here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/bt2pm/elitism_in_irc/c0ofdba

As I mentioned at the end of that post, adding these lines to your .vimrc should force it to work:

au! Syntax python source ~/.vim/syntax/python.vim
syntax on

You will, of course, need to actually put python.vim in ~/.vim/syntax/ for that to work. With decent system configuration, just putting python.vim there should do the trick, but every system is configured differently. Cygwin, for instance, searches the right place, but doesn’t turn syntax highlighting on by default.

If the Almighties of IRC simply wrote client plugins to make a list of links *automatically* available and messaged it to the village idiot who came in asking for such things, they would save *even more time and effort for themselves*.

This thought has obviously crossed their minds since IRC bots abound. Tweaking IRC bots would be something they figured out on Day 2.

Therefore, it follows that IRC is specifically a “Release-Tremendous-Frustration Mechanism” ( RTFM ) ) and n00bs are the sacrificial lambs.

Sanity and support is reserved for mailing lists / newsgroups / forums.

“You looked just like one of the thousands of idiots that harass people on irc every day.”

You have a very strange notion of harassment, up there. He asked a question, and little more. Dear gods.

The funniest part every single time this situation occurs, the person(s) belittling you have no clue what to do if the ‘readme’ method doesn’t work which is why you end up in silence after their ranting is done. If you don’t have the know how to help someone get a problem fixed then you have no place belittling them at all.

did you take a look at emacs?

If you’re going to post an IRC chat, at least post it in a readable font. It doesn’t have to be fixed width, but my god man I could barely read it

“there were no instructions in the .vim file nor could I find any after a good while of searching”
“[metaleks]: tpope, yes, that’s the one, and yes I tried the instructions there”

?? So did you find instructions or not? Don’t waste peoples time by forcing them to deduce you did the opposite of what you said you did. Obviously that’s irritating. This has nothing to do with IRC.

The elitism on Freenode IRC is really something quite special. I often use it as an absolute last resort when looking for help on certain technical topics and am always met with some truly extraordinary hostility.

It seems absolutely bizarre to me to spend your days sat in an IRC channel that is supposed to support a tool or language and slate any user that asks a question that doesn’t know as much about the topic as you.

This chap may have made a few mistakes but this is something that I’m sure a lot of people will be familiar with.

Well, you’re in luck, I have the solution to your problem. Uninstall VIM, and install emacs. Problem solved.

/elitism

All jokes aside, I can’t say I blame them to some degree. You were probably the 30th person to jump in the channel in the last 10 minute begging for someone to help them fix their problem. Ultimately, I see no reason for this post. What is this, livejournal?

“[metaleks]: tpope, because that’s obvious that you would right?”

Who’s ego is too big again?

This is why I’m better than all of them (The most elite of them all on freenode.) I’ll help you without that kind of elitist nonsense. Of course, I’m useless for VIM – I’m a director of research for a horticultural company, though I can repair any piece of electronic equipment at board level!

I’m sorry you had to deal with such nonsense – if you ever want to just chat and hang out, hit up DWCRigger on Freenode – that’s me!

hey some noob blogged about us http://metaleks.net/internet/elitism-in-irc

What an ass.

And since WordPress hates anything that resembles an XML tag, the above comment is a quotation of what “tpope” said in #vim earlier.

Let’s review the play-by-play.

Ask a question that makes it seem as if you haven’t RTFM, given that it contains the answer in the first paragraph. Then act affronted when people suggest that you RTFM. Check.

Say that there are no instructions even though there are. Then say that you tried the instructions that you previously said didn’t exist. Check.

Make snide, passive aggressive comments about how it’s “obvious” that you would do the thing you previously said that you didn’t do while at the same time accusing your would-be teacher of hostility. Check.

Yes, IRC is indeed full of assholes. Guess what! You are one of them.

A similar thing happens on #ubuntu. Once someone asked a question and, as that channel is very active, their question soon disappeared amongst the noise. So, they waited a bit, and asked it again. Clearly someone had seen the first one and typed !ignored | personname which had the ubuntu bot say “if you are feeling ignored, just wait until someone answers your question, don’t just repeat it”.

I thought that was funny because the only people who will ever see your question in a channel like that are the ones who are actively looking at every single question. There is a good chance your question will be missed amongst the joins/leaves and other questions.

Thanks for the comment Mr. Henrichs. You’re right that I didn’t articulate myself, but I don’t think I was the one being an asshole. You’re reading too much into this. Nothing was passive aggressive about my comments and if they came out that way, I apologize.

However, I still do think it’s common sense to try the instructions in a README or whatever whenever you try a new package or anything else for that matter. That’s why it’s obvious, and I still hold to that.

And my “would-be” teacher was hostile. I don’t think I need to quote anything, but if you resort to cursing and degrading someone, you’re hostile. As for myself, lack of articulation does not make one an asshole, but thanks for the comment.

Elitism is not the right word, assholism is.

It’s not obvious. Do you seriously still fail to see how you lead everyone to believe the opposite of what you were actually struggling with? You want to rant about getting razzed for your mistake, go ahead, but acting like you were clear at all is just silly.

Do you actually think you had lack of articulation or are you standing by the “it’s obvious I would have read the README”? It can’t really be both.

What were you expecting to find by looking in the script, if you did, in fact, already try the instructions? “OK! Now that you have discovered the secret REAL instructions I have hidden inside my plugin/syntax! Do the following: …”

I hate IRC elitism too, and have experienced my fair share of it. In this case, you were being an idiot, intentionally or not. Not because of lack of knowledge, but because of complete ineptitude in asking for help. Would I have made fun like tpope? Probably not, but I don’t think he’s being elitist at all. Just poking fun at the wild (albeit, brief) goose chase you were sending the channel on.

jwpeddle, yes I still stand by that reading the README would be an obvious thing, so much so that it should be a given when asking a question.

You made contradictory statements about your issue that lead your helpers on a wild goose chase, infuriated them, and wasted their time.

To be precise, you said:

there were no instructions in the .vim file nor could I find any after a good while of searching

and then:

tpope, yes, that’s the one, and yes I tried the instructions there

and then:

tpope, because that’s obvious that you would [read the instructions] right?

No, it is not obvious that you would have read something that, according to you, doesn’t exist. Perhaps you are not an asshole, but only if Hanlon’s Razor obtains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor]

Also, IRT hostility: are you familiar with the phrase “hostile witness”? If so, you should be able to understand why *you* were perceived to be the hostile party in this case.

Asking, yes, I should hope. If you did in fact read the docs (which, honestly, I doubt), then good on you.

Answering, however, extremely often reveals that many, if not most, people go to IRC as soon as they hit a snag. Documentation be damned.

Hey Rein,

Being an asshole suits you, right?

http://reinh.com/blog/2009/09/21/ch-ch-ch-changes.html?dsq=45531229#comment-45531229

Bye…

(who needs enemies with former co-workers like these)

…in case Rein has deleted the post, here it is:

Hey Rein,

why don’t you tell the TRUTH…

You didn’t resign. You got fired because you’re ‘just below average’ (that’ll be echoing in your head for the rest of your life, will it?), but you begged and begged and they agreed on you telling the rest of the company (and the world for that matter) that you ‘resigned because you wanted to grow’…

Have fun sucking up at Luke and enjoy your job at Reductive while it lasts, they’ll soon discover how ‘below average’ you are…

With kind regards,

‘Average’

PS. HAHAHA WHO’S LAUGHING NOW REIN? YOU F-ING BACKSTABBER

I’d like to apologize on behalf of the anonymous asshole above me. Such petty trolling should never get in the way of a good flame thread.

In fact, I’m just going to flat out say it. You’re a liar.

“* spiiph bets there were installation instructions there somewhere.”
You didn’t respond to this at all. It’s very, very clear he’s referring to the docs you later said you read. Yet you didn’t reply that you had done do. Instead, you replied shortly after with:
“[metaleks]: there were no instructions in the .vim file
nor could I find any after a good while of searching”
You couldn’t find any? Except the ones on the page you downloaded it from, of course. You even mention you looked in the file, again without mentioning the instructions on the page.

If you’re not a liar, you’ve got absolutely terrible reasoning and communication skills. If you didn’t read them, no shame, just admit it slipped your mind, apologize, and try it. It happens sometimes. Other times docs are wrong/outdated/broken. You still mention you tried them if you indeed have.

Sorry I’m commenting so much, but I seriously came here to praise someone fighting IRC elitism, but instead found an extremely sketchy telling of events that leaves me completely on the “elitism” side of the fence.

jwpeddle, I assure you that I always read the docs. Always. Like I said, the problem wasn’t with VIM (or me) it was the way Ubuntu handled autoloading of plugins.

As for Rein, the goose chase I led them on lasted no more than five minutes. If you take a look, after my question I was immediately ridiculed by tpope, which is fine because this is an obvious problem and I do realize I sound like a complete newb asking it. I don’t blame him for it. However, the responses I received after that are not justified. There is no way to justify degrading and cursing someone. It doesn’t matter how you look at it.

This entire conversation would read/have played out very differently if this line:
“[metaleks]: no need to be hostile”
read this instead:
“[metaleks]: heh”

There’s certainly elitism in IRC, but this is far from being an example of one.

There were nothing in their response that’s snide until maybe “[tpope]: metaleks: then why’d you come in babbling about sticking it in .vim/plugin?”

Probably not the best way to word it but at most its just voicing his frustration at YOUR mis-representation of the situation at hand.

Then out came your “it’s obvious” remark.

What is this? You’re trying to win an argument? The guy’s trying to help you here, he’s not getting paid, and he could spend his time doing something else, is it too much to repay him by swallowing your (ill-placed) pride and just apologize like: “I’m sorry, I didn’t describe the situation properly; yes that’s what I did, I tried the instruction there first which didn’t work and then moved onto /plugin”.

Problem solved, and he probably will feel kinda bad for the outburst and try to smooth things over too “Yeah, sorry for the outburst, it’s just that I can’t help you if you did something and you say something else.”

And if you say “No it’s my fault, thanks for your help.”

Now why couldn’t it end up like that?

All it takes for minor conflict like this is for one of the people to be the better man, and you should be the one here because the other party is trying to help YOU in the first place.

I agree Xiao. I guess the problem was me assuming that people always read the READMEs. I don’t think I was trying to win any sort of argument. I was asking for help and trying to be polite about it.

Ah well.

@Alek

For the record, I don’t think you are actually an asshole or an idiot.

As someone who has been on both sides of the fence, IRC is a frustrating place whether you’re asking questions or answering them. Sometimes you just need a good “Woosah”.

Oh, and finally: remember that IRC is full of people with poor social skills. Take the hazing with a grain of salt and try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Good advice to follow and not just for IRC.

The only thing you did wrong was to go to IRC. Never go to IRC under any circumstances. There are only two kinds of people in IRC.

1) People like you and me who want to go in, ask a question, and leave.
2) People who stay there all day, and “answer” questions.

Person 1 can’t help you, because that’s you. They don’t know enough to answer your question.

Person 2 can’t help you either. They are someone who is so socially troubled that they have no real people to talk to, so they are logged into IRC all the time.

There’s no reason to ever go to IRC. Stick with the Stack Overflow trilogy for your tech questions.

There was no problem with how Vim behaves in Ubuntu either. Vim in Ubuntu behaves very much like Vim by default does. The few ways that it differs can be observed in /usr/share/vim/vimcurrent/debian.vim

By default, Vim does not have syntax highlighting enabled. You specifically have to enable it by adding “syntax on” to your ~/.vimrc.

Now, that’s only half of the problem as Vim still needs to know *how* to detect whether a file should be considered Python. You enable that functionality by adding “filetype on” to your ~/.vimrc. Bam, you now have filetype detection and syntax highlighting enabled.

If you also want filetype-specific plugins and filetype-specific indent scripts enabled, then change the “filetype on” to “filetype plugin indent on”.

For those who think metaleks had poor communication skills, I’d say the asshats on the IRC channel were much worse. I wonder how well they actually communicate in the real-world. For a supposed support channel, it is a piece of shit IMHO. How is metaleks supposed to know what information the support people in this irc channel need to get to the root of his problem? He doesn’t. He is presenting his problem in the best context possible in order to get his problem solved. Metaleks is reasonably frustrated and nothing he said was out of line. The little subtle digs and excessive sarcasm on these asshat’s part is a simple reminder of how much some idiots in IT are and what give it a bad name.

Apreche: Actually, I usually idle in channels on IRC (when my computer is on). Mostly Rizon and Freenode, so I’m no means the kind of person that goes in and out whenever I have a question.

But I am inclined to agree with going to Stack Overflow. The community seems to larger so I think questions get more exposure. I usually don’t ask for help, but the next time I have a question that I just can’t seem to crack, I’ll ask the good folks on Stack Overflow.

Q. What have we learned out of all this?

A. This is why Linux sux0rs

James, I had syntax highlighting for Python. I just found it to be lacking, and wanted to get better highlighting using that script.

The whole solution is here: http://bit.ly/cRQWcB

John Gabriel’s internet dickwad theory doesn’t apply here – tpope is Tim Pope (http://tpo.pe), a rails developer at Hashrocket. If he was being a dickwad, he wasn’t doing it anonymously.

So there’s a Hashrocket employee bashing someone on IRC and a former Hasrocket emoployee defending the bashing.

Seems to mee everybody at Hashrocket is just SOOO GOOD!

…rails sucks anywayz so… HA!

@Apreche: A perfect example of biting the hand that feeds you if I ever saw one.

@Aleksander: I know where you’re coming from, but those people that’s trying to help you deal with “noobs” on a hourly basis; they can’t tell you apart just from the username.

The only way they can tell that you know what you’re talking about is for you to show them logically everything that you did clearly and concisely, and we all know how well that went.

Also I agree that patient, understanding people on IRC are not as common as we’d like, but the same is true in life, and you’ve got to learn to deal with those people, most often all it takes is to take a step back.

anyone who fucking says ‘good sir’ deserves whatever he gets

you goddamn goon

You are just one of those frustrated beeings who come into a chat and
1. expect to get harassed for your newbness
2. forget to mention the crucial part of looking for help: stating you have done the obvious
3. state your not-working solutions which are far away from the obvious and standard-solution
so the first thoughts of everyone else is:
1. this guy hase no clue what he’s doing
2. he didn’t read the manual and comes up with fucked up solutions, why the hell?! someone must have told him to do this or he is just another newb who never read a manual but take the first and crappiest solution, given by everyone else.
and then they go trolling, beeing elitists and having fun with you (basically trying to explain what you are doing wrong! <- beware, behaviour like this is crucial to help others, [audience: oh noo ])
Then you go mad and all you will say for now on begins with "no …" and "but …", which is totally wrong if you need help, since you won't believe anything the elitists tell. This is where I sometimes just punch them out of the chat.
The worst problem of helpsearching guys like these is: they are resistant to learn anything, because they only accept stuff they like. If they don't like the actual best solution, they just fuck around and write silly blog posts about elitism in a chat.
No, I'm sorry, you are not that bad and my ranting wasn't for you.
What you should never expect on a free support channel like a chat:
1. get help
2. get very good help
3. people who like you, want to make a teaparty with you
4. they know much, but not everything
Things you are likely to find in a free support channel like a chat:
1. get help
2. get really good help to help yourself and be much smarter for future problems
3. lost time
4. people who don't fix your symptoms but your problem. understanding this method is very important to have good solutions.

I'm at the other end, and I could update a blog about my (tremendous, horrific and oh so painful [audience: laugh]) elitism on IRC several times a week.

Freenode is majorly schizophrenic. Most of the on-topic channels I frequent are very friendly, but that’s because they have specific rules requesting that discussions remain on topic. #Drupal is probably the most friendly channel anywhere on Freenode, but #linux, #apache and ##php, not as much. I find #ubuntu to be extremely friendly.

I wonder what the result would’ve been if you ask on stackoverflow.com instead?

Probably a good answer in about 5 minutes.

Probably closed as not programming related.

We will never know

@all posters re: “wasting their time”

Plenty of time to sit on #vim, WTF else are we keeping them from? Why are they there? Go write the next killer app and stop worrying about n00bs “wasting your time”.

You need to understand that irc channels are more akin to communities than free help rooms. Think of it more like a corner bar. You’re just walked into Cheers, but this time nobody knows your name. If you just walked in as a stranger, went up to the bar and asked for bus fare without ever ordering a drink, you might not get the kindest response. It’s no different on the internet. People are a little rougher around the edges online but the social principles are all the same. Nobody likes a freeloader.

This is why I left IRC (though my muh still runs idle). I got over dealing with fat (or too skinny) girlfriend-less arrogant nerds a long time ago. Less time on IRC and more time in the real world please.

Yes! I got an earful in #lisp just last week. They were helpful, but not without belittling me to death.

its amazing anyone would support this sort of behavior. the only person who would do such a thing are exactly what they claim tpope is not.

ive had dealings with tpope from another channel. sure he knew more than i did about what i was asking for help about (assuming since he was never of any real assistance).

at the end of the day i refused to insulted by a fat version of the kid from powder. http://twitter.com/account/profile_image/tpope its no wonder this kid is so frustrated. everytime he walks into a cafeteria all the spoons stick to him.

On behalf of the regulars on #vim I apologize. I hope this experience hasn’t turned you off of IRC, which is an otherwise excellent resource. As an op in #vim, if I’d been paying attention at that time, I would have given those guys a good swift kick. Feel free to drop me (kisielk) a message if you face such douchbaggery there in the future.

The issue here isn’t that you weren’t totally clear over the course of the first 6 lines of conversation.
The issue here isn’t that #vim suffers from over-RTFM syndrome.
The issue here isn’t that anyone in #vim is an asshole.
The issue here isn’t that you were verbally harassed. You weren’t even kicked, or banned, and even that wouldn’t be a problem!

The problem here, is that you went and made a blog post about it. It doesn’t matter that your blog is not popular. It doesn’t matter that this is just one blog post on the internet. It doesn’t matter that this was posted on some popular site. It doesn’t matter at all, not even on a personal level to anyone who has posted anything. Fact is I’m just bored and want to waste time. No other reason for me to bother.

There was never any good that could come from this post, and even if it was just for trolling potential, all that could come was plain boredom, not any of the desirable “bad” that would be wanted.

Basically, @all:
Please, shut the hell up, so this useless and boring drama does not get linked in social IRC channels I idle. Or reddit, for that matter. Find something more entertaining to percolate throughout the internet.

SmoothPorcupinePirate, I completely agree. I originally wrote all of this a few months ago out of frustration. There was no hidden goal to troll the internet, or any one person, the post was just about me venting. This post was an outlet for that. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I’m more surprised than anyone else that this caught fire on the internet. I would have preferred if it didn’t.

I’m not sure if this is the best reason to try it out, but I know from both personal experience and numerous reports from other on the web that the Haskell folk on IRC are universally helpful, kind and gentle with newbie questions (and even not-so-newbie ones).

I happen to like the language, and think that it’s well-designed, etc. But I sometimes get the impression that it’s popularity derives in large part from the fact that its adherents are so good with newcomers.

In Haskell’s early days I would never have predicted that it would become the phenomenon it currently is, but apparently I didn’t take into account the effect of a small and friendly community, as multiplied by the power of IRC (and blogs, etc.).

Anyway, if you have any interest in purely functional programming languages, I’d invite you to try it out, if for no other reason than to restore your faith in humanity^H^H^H IRC .

Fritz, I often idle in #haskell and know that the people there are very friendly. Like yourself, I’m a fan of the language and do think that the community played a very large part in making Haskell so successful.

tpope is a fagget

IRC is a wasteland, I have never come away from an irc experience with anything but dissapointment.

The only fun you can have in IRC is by trolling.

The most amazing part of all is how the IRC assholes have all come out of the woodwork today to defend themselves and berate you “for not asking the question properly.”

Perhaps your question could have been slightly clearer, but that’s no excuse for replying with brazen asshattery..

stand up post by kisielk. good job man.

metalek: Don’t sweat the haters… of course you’re not going to know the secret handshake, 666 syllable ritual incantation and the magic knock that are required to satisfy the channel douches, when you first enter a channel. Some people just enjoy being rude (probably they got bullied a lot in middle school… or college) and need somebody to take it out on. Just ignore ‘em, there’s really not much you can do. Some people will just be assholes (to strangers at least) because it’s who they are.

For what it’s worth though, not all IRC channels are like that. I’ve generally gotten friendly responses in #fedora, for example.

Yeah, it’s not good PR for open source projects when people insult new users. On the other hand I can understand it somewhat. It’s kind of a tech help self-defense mechanism. Make it a hassle to deal with you so people will try to solve their own problems before bothering you. “Oh man, last time Charlie was such a jerk to me, let me try to find the solution myself. Oh look, the first hit on Google is what I need.” I think there’s an element of that. Still, this is not how we treat people Charlie.

i think you need to learn more into asking the right question, one line with a summary of the problem and system information.. i never got replies like you got and im old on irc, i usually ask & google at the same time, and sometimes get good results from freenode.. just fix the issue on your side before throwing the rock on the other side
cheers

should i mention that when writing the question, i spend a few good minutes on it, i dont just throw it, and on a few occasions i dont get to send it because making my own question more clear gives me the solution to the issue.. so thats the key in my view