tdfischer explains ##computer in her own words

ramble.txt

[22:40:48] <tdfischer> hi so I want to put my frumpy hat on and say that yes ##computer is interested in technical problems to a limited degree compared to the support group therapy problem that we are primarily focused about
[22:41:04] <tdfischer> but the group therapy is *the* big thing we're all about
[22:41:30] <tdfischer> I think its totally acceptible for someone to ask about a technical problem and get an answer every once in a while
[22:42:17] <tdfischer> but I don't think it can be a trend as long as we like the primary group therapy focus
[22:42:45] <tdfischer> correspondingly, I /do not/ think it is okay for randos to come in and ask tech problems and get answers without contributing to the group therapy concept
[22:43:47] <tdfischer> I think a perfectly legitimate thing would be for someone to come in and say, for example, "How can I teach this technical concept to a coworker"
[22:44:03] <tdfischer> which blurs the line but I think thats the kind of "technical" problem I'm interested in addressing here
[22:44:33] <tdfischer> but asking in here about what harddrive specs to put into a new gaming rig is too purely technical and is best solved elsewhere
[22:45:07] <tdfischer> its a spectrum of social/technical problems and ##computer leans heavily towards the social side of the spectrum specifically because there are very few other places on the 'net to get that sort of help
[22:45:48] <tdfischer> think about the concept of diversity but instead of representation of gender, race, etc, think of it as a representation of skillsets that are essential to a healthy "tech job"
[22:46:22] <tdfischer> nowhere else can you find a place and openly discuss how tech workers are valued in comparison to non engineers in the modern workplace
[22:46:34] <tdfischer> you can swing a dead cat and find 1847857 places to discuss CPU specs and language features
[22:47:13] <tdfischer> earlier today there was a conversation about self confidence when working in an eng job and the virtues of quitting
[22:47:15] <tdfischer> that was great
[22:47:45] <tdfischer> if I want to talk hardware I'll go to #noisebridge or #sudoroom or a billion other hardware-focused channels and do that thing
[22:48:11] <tdfischer> I hope that helps some people with their thoughts about whether or not tech support is appropriate in ##computer
[22:48:20] <tdfischer> </frumpy-hat>
[22:50:03] <tdfischer> I'm going to pastebin that and stick it in the topic and hopefully the people 12 timezones away from me can also find some meaning in my words or tell me how wrong I am, which I invite

+1

(Why yes, I do have feels!)

I do like the technical/social aspect of the ##computer vibe too (I think it's the best thing about the channel!), and agree that gaming rig discussions are probably best held elsewhere, among people interested in this kind of thing. I'm worried though that formalizing this adds another bit of "you have to be this > < woke about computers to play" to our already fairly exclusive day-to-day stance.

The channel is increasingly feeling like a place where we people who write code all day discuss our code-writing days, and that might be a fine aspect of it for some, but what originally drew me to computer anonymous as a group was that it wanted to include people who don't do that... sounds like people want to not be doing that anymore (and maybe haven't for a while). That makes me pretty sad sometimes.

These were a bunch of words, with not much of a consequence other than that I hope maybe we can find ways to get the perspectives of people who don't write code all day into this place. No real plan for how, though.

+1

A disparate collection of thoughts in response:

"correspondingly, I /do not/ think it is okay for randos to come in and ask tech problems and get answers without contributing to the group therapy concept" <- I 100% agree with this sentiment and think we should explicitly ban this behaviour. I think it might be a separate issue from the rest of the feels though.

RE feels: I broadly agree. I do think it is nice to have a good IRC channel for discussion of tech issues where you can rely on a relative absence of awful people. I'm not all that wed to ##computer being that channel.

It is worth noting that the discussion about confidence in question grew fairly organically out of a technical discussion (mostly around the theme of ogawd Python 2.4 and Plone).

I guess what I'm saying is that more discussion about social issues is good, but I think maybe the way we should think of this is how to promote those discussions rather than how to have less discussion about technical issues, because the two aren't necessarily easily separable.