Communication channels
The primary OLPC communication channels are mailing lists, IRC channels, and discussion forums.
Chat
Most OLPC chat takes place on IRC (that's Internet Relay Chat). You can either use a computer based client to log in to IRC (like XOirc on the XO) or a web interface like the one at our forum.
IRC
IRC for the total First Time user
Just click here for IRC meetings on the OLPC Meetings channel - this will open a web interface provided by Mibbit that will connect you right away. Just click connect when that window opens, and you're in! It even has in-line language translation.
easy IRC
Illustrated guide to Mibbit for somewhat more advanced users.
You can set channels as described below.
Channels
IRC is mainly designed for group communication in discussion 'channels', but allows for personal chat and data transfer as well.
The OLPC Community uses a series of channels in the irc.freenode.net and irc.oftc.net networks. If you have a user page on this wiki, use {{User irc}} to indicate your participation in IRC channels, and to find the category where users are registered.
irc.freenode.net channels
| General: | |
| #olpc-help | Community help. If you need help using your XO, and you haven't asked anywhere else: try here first. You can access it from a web page right now. |
| #olpc-ayuda | The Spanish language (Español) version of #olpc-help. |
| #olpc | Contact point for all things olpc, and the core hardware development team's own channel. Picture a room where the knowledgeable core people are hard at work. It is a good place for authoritative answers, but people may be out, or too busy to respond, or don't want interruptions at the moment. Consider going to #olpc-help first. |
| #olpc-content | content related matters and general discussion. |
| #sugar | Sugar development. |
| Developer: | |
| #fedora-olpc | The home of the Fedora interest group for OLPC |
| Primary Community Channels | |
| #olpc-groups | Global channel for all local communities (no language barriers) |
| #olpc-health | Global channel for all health-related communities (English) |
| #olpc-es | Spanish language channel |
| #olpc-brasil | Portuguese language channel |
| #olpc-europe | Regional discussions for Europe |
irc.oftc.net channels
| Developer: | |
| #olpc-devel | Primary home of Developers conversation in IRC |
| #schoolserver | Development of the XS School server |
| Community: | |
| #olpc-admin | Home of the Volunteer sys-admin squad: Infrastructure gang |
How to use irc channels
- For the #olpc-family of channels, you can visit the Live Web Chat. It defaults to #olpc-help, but you can join another channel by entering
/join #olpc-<channel> (#olpc-meeting, for example) on the message-entry line. - Another web-based chat for all channels is mibbit, with nickname: (whatever you like), server: irc.freenode.net, and channel: #sugar (or whatever other channel you're trying to get into). It also includes an inline translation service that is helpful when other languages are used.
- Here is a direct link example for #olpc-help in mibbit.
- Some helpful resources are here, and this tutorial, which also includes basic commands.
- Learn about IRC etiquette. Try here, here, or here, or this link specifically about asking questions on channels like #olpc-help.
- For IRC on your XO, install the latest XoIRC activity.
- Connect to one of the above channels, and say hello. (To do this, choose irc.freenode.net as your server, and then /join a channel... if you're new to IRC, the #olpc-help channel is probably the place you want to go first).
- Instruction for using the meeting log robot: User:Dogi/meeting
- Note OLPC growing pains.
Forums
There are a number of active OLPC forums, including
- http://forum.laptop.org/ - The official OLPC community support forum.
- Total posts: 9344 • Total topics: 1922 • Total members: 3757 • 26 March 2009 (EDT)
- http://olpcnews.com/forum/ - A popular forum site, but not frequented by core developers.
- Total posts: 28249 • Total topics: 3344 • Total members: 3742 • 26 March 2006 (EDT)
Mailing lists
- See: Mailing lists
The full list of mailing lists is at http://lists.laptop.org. Sometimes they multiply when one isn't watching.
Lists can be searched with google.
There are also many other mailing lists on topics related to the OLPC project.
Starting a new list
The best way to start a new mailing list is to begin a discussion on a related list that already exists, and once the discussion becomes active, to ask for a separate list for that topic or that sort of traffic.
When you have a critical mass of people regularly talking about the same topic, request a mailing list by emailing the following information to sysadmin at laptop dot org:
- The name you want for your mailing list, with alternative names if the first one is taken
- A description of the list, its purpose, and why it's needed (being able to say "we've been talking on this other list for a while, and the discussion has grown too big - see these archive links" is helpful)
- The name/email of the list admin, and of at least one other moderator (minimum one admin and one moderator)
- At least 10 names/emails of people who want to be the initial subscribers
It may take a while (usually several days) to hear a response back, so please be patient!
List subscribers
The subscribers for many lists with non-private rosters can be viewed by visiting this web address, http://lists.laptop.org/mailman/roster/<listname>. (Community-news and Devel, at least, have private rosters.) One must first have joined a list and signed in at the http://lists.laptop.org/options/<listname> address. (The "Visit Subscriber List" button on the listinfo page (http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/<listname>) does not currently work.)