To Those who Help
by WizeGuy
I've been sitting here the past half hour, trying to remember the good old days at DALnet. I was, in the beginning, little aware of what it took to maintain DALnet, both in time, and blood. But with time I also came to know people that have helped me out, not only with things related to IRC, but also on things that you'd never expect to see differently. Helpers became my friends, helping became my reason to stick with DALnet, and pass on the knowledge that it has provided me with all of these years.
With this, I'd like to pay my respects to the hundreds of volunteers that spend their time answering questions many won't even look at. The DALnet staff; DALnet's stones of foundation.
I've now been a user on DALnet for 4 years..and I still remember the feeling of not knowing anything. I was a new user with no knowledge, and each time I asked a question, I was kicked out of a channel because the question I asked was 'stupid'. That changed when I first spoke with a few people whom helped me out a lot, and still do. One of them is now the founder of the Scandinavian help channel #Hjelp, and the two remaining are still regular users, LatHans, Killahdog and loc^dog. I owe you guys much.
I've seen way too many cases of people right out FORGETTING how they started out; new within the field, with only the questions as your guide. From the day those people started to teach me how DALnet's services worked, and many other things, I promised myself that I'd never become one of those 'newbiekickers'. And I've stuck, and I will stick, with that promise. And I am sure that many of DALnet's helpers have also.
Helpers don't get paid to help out, most of the time we never get credit for what we do. So why do we even bother? The answer is simple..we like to make a difference. While others spend their time ruining DALnet (scriptkiddies, DDoS'ers), we use time trying to patch DALnet up, and get it back on its feet as soon as possible. This includes regular users and IRCOps. If you think about it, this is a never-ending battle. There will always be those twits that attempt, time after time, to take down DALnet in all ways possible. Creators of worms, trojans, virus, DDoS'ers, the list is long. But also keep in mind this..some of us have been 'brought up' with DALnet..and it's gonna take a lot more before you break the spine of the community.
Reading this, you might come to think 'get a life'. You have to realize that we so-called 'nerds' or 'geeks' never expect you to take such interest in the technical details as we do. You might often find us rude and openly hostile. This is not always the case. We like to help out people who actually take their time to figure out how a certain remote works. What we do not like is to help out people that haven't done their homework before asking a question. For many people, a computer is a computer, from one end to the other. Just a tool. And hey, it's fine by us, we respect that. But as we respect your point of view, respect ours. You want help with that attitude? Fine, we suggest you to pay somebody for a commercial support contract instead of asking helpers to personally donate help to you.
All in all, this is a never ending fight. We lose some battles, but we certainly win some also. And in the end, you know we'll just get on back up, and start from where we left.
Finally to what I meant to say:
I pay my deepest respects to my fellow helpers, and all the people that make DALnet a better (the best) place to be.
© WizeGuy 2003
