#winehq admin troubles

[feba thatl]

Sorry if this mailing list is less than appropriate, but from what
I've seen this is where the conversation was last time, and there
doesn't seem to be much better.

A while ago (Probably one-three months), I went to #winehq to ask
about something, and was treated rather rudely by vitamin. I got
annoyed by him, and made a somewhat rude comment myself (not as rude
as he was being, but still probably inappropriate), and he kicked me.
I rejoined the channel, and I don't really remember what happened
afterwards, but it can't have been too awful as I don't believe I was
banned. I do remember being left with a very sour taste with Wine, as
I googled vitamin, and found that this was nowhere near the first time
he had been needlessly rude to a user and had even given completely
unwarranted bans with seemingly no reprimand.

I gradually started going back to winehq for help and questions, with
no problems. Last night, I went in to ask if anyone wanted to help me
get a program working, and vitamin replied. I groaned to myself, but
we had a perfectly civil conversation. At one point he stopped
replying, but it's not like I haven't had to walk off myself for
various reasons, so I just left quietly.

Today, I joined #ubuntu to try to get something working, and found
someone else asking for help with Wine. I (amongst others) recommended
they go to #winehq. They joined, but commented in #ubuntu that, quote:

(09:27:58 PM) <Name removed>: man these #winehq people are not friendly at all

I joined #winehq and confirmed my fears that vitamin was being rude to
someone else. Vitamin asked what version they were running, they
answered with 9.46 (the version in the Ubuntu repos, last I checked),
and I recommended they go to winehq.org and follow the instructions on
how to add the Wine repos. Vitamin said something along the lines of
"that isn't the case here", I said that it's still helpful (to have an
up to date version of wine). I then asked if Vitamin had got the
program we talked about last night working, and seconds later was
kicked. No explanation, the kick line just had "(Vitamin)". Utterly
confused, I rejoined, for which I do have a chatlog:

(09:32:56 PM) The topic for #winehq is:[long topic removed]
(09:33:09 PM) ***vitamin fucking tired all knowning noobs!
(09:33:15 PM) <Name removed, same person from #ubuntu>: wine: cannot
find '/media/cdrom0/intro.exe'
(09:33:15 PM) vitamin: usrl, you better leave
(09:33:25 PM) usrl: Why?
(09:33:32 PM) mode (+b *!*n=feba@*.hsd1.ks.comcast.net ) by vitamin
(09:33:32 PM) You have been kicked by vitamin: (vitamin)

That's the entire chatlog of my second time joining (I didn't think to
save a copy of the first), with nothing removed but a bunch of topic
stuff nobody wants to read and the fellow from #ubuntu's nick.

Now, I not only have been banned for apparently being a noob (Again,
it's a best guess, Vitamin did not give any clue at all in his kick
messages, let alone a warning in the channel) in a channel that is
supposed to support end users, but a few minutes later, I see this,
again in #ubuntu:

(09:37:15 PM) <Name removed>: well I got banned from winehq for asking
a question


This person didn't seem rude at all when I was talking to them.
Thankfully, they were able to get their problems resolved in #ubuntu.

Given that vitamin seems to have had user abuse problems in the past,
what is going on here? I can understand not getting professional
service in an IRC channel, but why is someone who is so needlessly
abusive (again, kicking people for little more than asking a question;
when the channel is for support.) entrusted with admin abilities? From
what I read on another complaint, he seems to be in this position
because he is a developer, not because he is truly a good fit for
being a moderator or even a helper. While he might be great at coding,
his people skills definitely suffer. I can understand getting angry
over people asking their questions right, but when you're trying to
support end users, you have to be able to deal with at least some
stupidity-- and even disregarding that, if you're going to not only
kick someone, but ban them, give them some idea of what they did
wrong.

It almost seems to me as if he is banning people not because they did
something wrong, but because he had a bad day-- like I said, last
night he was fairly civil, even though I'm sure I made my share of
stupid questions and comments. I'm not sure if this is the only
moderator with these sorts of problems, but something needs to be
done. Wine is used by all sorts of people, heck, my mother uses it.
When all sorts of people are using a program, all sorts of people are
going to be having problems with it. I wouldn't expect my mother, or
anyone else's, to be able to phrase their question well and make a
support person happy, but I also wouldn't expect someone who is
supposed to be supporting users insulting them and banning them (not
only ignoring their need for help, but effectively making it
impossible for many other people to help them as well).

Something needs to change, Wine is something a lot of people switching
to non-Windows OS are going to use, and many people could be easily
turned off when they find the first place they turn to for help, the
place that winehq.org leads them to, not only has very rude people in
power, but has no checks or guards to keep said people from ruining a
user's experience.