For a while, I have been trying to get into chatting on IRC. Let’s just say it’s not working too well so far. My main problem with it is that you can literally have a chat room with 100 people in it, and NO ONE will be chatting. What the hell is the point in this?
Anyway, so last night I went into the #freebsd room on the irc.freenode.net server. I asked a question “Is anyone in here familiar using snort?” I got a response “I prefer to use a tissue.” OK, funny enough. But I wanted to assure them that I actually had a question. So I said “No, seriously, I am trying to educate myself on security tools. Should I be starting with tcpdump?” Then, the conversation proceeded to play off of the “dump” part of my question. I never did receive a response, not even a “I think you’re asking that question in the wrong room.”
Why are people in the tech community so often hesitant to be helpful? I find this lack of cooperation to be extremely frustrating. I believe it is also quite harmful to the community.