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Take a large (800+) user help channel, and consider the population makeup. Out of those 800, very few have any useful knowledge or experience to offer – about 750 of those 800 are merely idlers with nothing to say, porno spambots, or other internet flotsam. The remaining 50 can be subdivided into about 20% with a clue, and 80% without. Of the 20% with a clue, about 20% have an infinite capacity to remain polite and friendly in the face of overwhelming stupidity, the rest do not

Now, suppose that the people with a clue but without diplomacy leave – to save their own sanity, or because some unseen hand of god pushes them out, or whatever. Either way, you’re now down to roughly two people with a clue, and 790 people without a clue. Now assume that those two people have jobs, or some kind of weak human need to sleep or eat. They can’t be there all the time. And in their absence, all that remain are idiots of varying degrees. Many of these idiots are *polite*, but they’re very much the blind leading the blind.

A fine example of a large population of clueless idiots trying politely to help other clueless idiots is www.linuxquestions.org – of the thousands of questions submitted, less than 1% get a useful answer – the rest either go unanswered, or "i can’t help, but it works for me, so good luck" replies.

Does the politeness get anything done or solved? Would users prefer a pat on the back, and a "sorry, no dice" – or "here’s the answer, go do it, NEXT PLEASE!". Too many channels on IRC attempt to combine clue with polite – without the realization that it’s VERY hard to remain polite when faced with the same mind-numbing stupidity hour after hour. Remember, Help Desk Operative is a shitty enough job when you’re being paid for it – so facing the abuse of doing it in your spare time for free is far from enjoyable.

This leads on to the next major problem – how is a novice user who joins a help channel supposed to distinguish between answers from the clueful, and answers from the clueless, especially when there are five times more clueless than clueful people answering. If the clueless answers were ‘polite’, then are they more inclined to ignore the correct, terse reply? Or just the opposite?

Take, as an example, installing the NVidia 3D drivers on Debian Linux. The clueless answer is to use nvidia-installer, the scripts found on nvidia.com. The clueful will point out why this is a bad idea, and why they should adopt an alternate, Debian-specific route. This can now go in multiple ways: a) The clueless start to rant about how they’re right b) The seeker of knowledge follows the clueless answer, and returns at an indeterminate event in the future once their system is buggered c) The seeker of knowledge gets confused, and mixes both replies together, for a nice system-fuck-up cocktail d) The seeker of knowledge follows the clueful answer, to the letter, and no longer has a problem. You can guess how uncommon (d) is.

(a) is another problem all in itself – the loud, vocal, moronic user masquerading as clueful. These can come up with all SORTS of complete bullshit, from going off on an incorrect tangent when a user expresses a problem, to mentally questionable statements like "1280 x 1024 screens do not exist". An equal problem is that a LARGE percentage of those joining an IRC help channel do not actually want to be helped with their problem – they will refuse to give complete information, to perform diagnostic steps, or to go to a more suitable channel when they’re in the wrong place. Overall, you’re more likely to see the Invisible Pink Unicorn than a user who is looking for how to solve a specific problem, having already checked the appropriate web pages and manuals, and with helpful diagnostic information to share.

To add a little spice to the mix, mixed in amongst the idiots are a very special breed of troll, whose purpose in life is to cause havoc. It can be very hard to tell the difference between a troll and a willful idiot, though, and the very best trolls manage to linger about for extended periods simply offering very bad advice at inopportune moments. Then again, to most intents and purposes, there is very little difference between a troll and an idiot to those trying against all odds to help the unfortunate.

Large IRC help channels contain only idiots, sex bots, and angry gurus. Anyone else is statistical noise. And in the end, on the off-chance a real need for help arises, it’s not the angry gurus you want to be throwing out.