On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 12:40 AM, Caroline Meeks <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:caroline@solutiongrove.com">caroline@solutiongrove.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="Ih2E3d">On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 4:10 AM, Bernie Innocenti <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bernie@laptop.org" target="_blank">bernie@laptop.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div>Elsa Culler wrote:<br> > Hi,<br> ><br> > Last night at sugarcamp, we(people from the Olin college OLPC chapter)<br> > were asked to come up with a list of roadblocks  we have run into in<br> > trying to volunteer effectively.  Mel Chua asked me to forward it to<br> > these lists, so here is the list in text format:<br> <br> </div>Thanks for this criticism, I'm sure it is very appreciated.<br> Some comments inlined below:<br> <div><br> <br> > we have to come up with jobs ourselves, and we're not too good at it<br> ><br> > we don't know what we can do that is useful<br> ><br> > when we are told what to do, we have to check with other people to make<br> > sure it's ok<br> <br> </div>I think communication would improve a lot if it was kept on the<br> public channels such as these lists, or the #sugar channel on<br> <a href="http://irc.freenode.net" target="_blank">irc.freenode.net</a>.<br> <div><br> <br> </div></blockquote></div><div>Note that most nondevelopers have not even heard of irc.<br><br>Somewhere easy to find on the wiki we need some text that explains one easy way to connect so people can get started.  Here is some suggested text, maybe we can discuss it here then put it into the wiki.<br> <br>Sugar Labs meetings are held on IRC (Internet Relay Chat).  It is one of the first chat systems for the internet and is still preferred by many open source developers.<br><br>There are many programs to use IRC.  One easy way is to download the ChatZilla addon for FireFox.<br> <br>Once the add on is installed open it from the Tools Menu of FF. <br>(Could someone test what it does the first time, before you've told it your nick name?)<br>It will open a new window with some text.  Click "freenode" in the available networks.<br> It will take a second to connect and text will scroll on your screen.<br>Type /j #Sugar<br><br>You will now see a list of people in the Sugar room. Say Hello and join the conversation!</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div> </div><br>thanks Caroline,<br><br>these instructions were sufficient for me to join IRC<br><br>McAfee Virus Scan blocks ports 666-6669 by default but chatzilla warned me about this issue<br><br>My default nickname was 'user' which I changed through Preferences tab<br> <br>When I initially entered the #Sugar room I could see lots of users there (green icons) but there was no conversation - I guess it was just a quite time<br><br>On the second try morgs said "hello" immediately, so there you go<br> <br>issues for newbies like me (things which joel / shenki explained to me separately):<br><br>* it appears that 60 people are in the room but many are not there<br>* for new users it's nice to find feet gradually by setting up a PM /msg shenki blah blah<br> <br>it's like any new learning really --><br>what you can do is easy<br>what you haven't done before is hard<br>(I dont know who discovered water but it wasn't a fish)<br>