Catalyst Guidelines

The "cat­a­lyst" role is crit­i­cal to freen­ode and an es­sen­tial build­ing block of ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ties. No one is re­quired to be a cat­a­lyst, but the users who per­form this role en­sure the smooth and ef­fi­cient func­tion­ing of the net­work.

The IRC plat­form does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly pro­duce a sta­ble cul­ture of co­op­er­a­tive ef­fort. Even in cas­es where co­op­er­a­tion is in­tend­ed, mis­un­der­stand­ings and per­son­al­i­ty in­com­pat­i­bil­i­ties can re­sult in an ex­treme­ly chaot­ic and hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment. Cat­a­lysts help pre­vent and re­solve mis­un­der­stand­ing, calm the wa­ters when users have dif­fi­cul­ties deal­ing with each oth­er and pro­vide ex­am­ples of con­struc­tive be­hav­iour in en­vi­ron­ments where such be­hav­iour might not oth­er­wise be the norm.

Cat­a­lysts try to re­solve prob­lems, not through the use of au­thor­i­ty and spe­cial priv­i­lege, but by fos­ter­ing con­sen­sus, gen­tly nudg­ing par­tic­i­pants in the di­rec­tion of more ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour and by gen­er­al­ly re­duc­ing the lev­el of con­fronta­tion rather than con­fronting users with prob­lems.

Chan­nel and net­work ad­min­is­tra­tors may be cat­a­lysts and, in­deed, are en­cour­aged to take on that role. Chan­nels which recog­nise the im­por­tance of the cat­a­lyst role will fos­ter more ef­fec­tive co­or­di­na­tion of ef­fort. An im­por­tant char­ac­ter­is­tic of suc­cess­ful cat­a­lysts is the in­fre­quen­cy with which they wear au­thor­i­ty or in­voke spe­cial priv­i­lege. freen­ode vol­un­teers and spon­sors are ad­vised that an un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the cat­a­lyst’s role is es­sen­tial to un­der­stand­ing the na­ture and in­tend­ed pur­pose of the net­work.

An effective catalyst is:

1. Re­laxed. To keep things calm, you your­self must be calm. Learn the skills of stay­ing gen­uine­ly re­laxed. Know your lim­i­ta­tions; when you can't han­dle a prob­lem sit­u­a­tion calm­ly, get calmer heads in­volved.
2. Open-­mind­ed. It is easy to make as­sump­tions about oth­er peo­ple's mo­ti­va­tions. When you de­cide some­one is be­hav­ing ma­li­cious­ly, you have made an as­sump­tion about their mo­ti­va­tion which may be dif­fi­cult to dis­prove. Try to make your as­sump­tions about oth­er peo­ple's mo­ti­va­tions as pos­i­tive as pos­si­ble.
3. Re­spon­si­ble. Peer-di­rect­ed projects are a group ac­tiv­i­ty with a strong need for re­spon­si­ble in­di­vid­ual be­hav­iour. Ru­mours, in­nu­en­do and gos­sip can de­rail projects and ruin rep­u­ta­tions. If every­body knows some­thing is true, who is "every­body?" Did the per­son you are talk­ing to get their in­for­ma­tion from doc­u­ment­ed, fac­tu­al sources, or is it hearsay? If you can­not be sure of the an­swer to those ques­tions, should you be pass­ing on what they have said?
4. Un­ob­tru­sive. It is not nec­es­sary to in­voke au­thor­i­ty to help solve a prob­lem, and far bet­ter if you do not. Look for an op­por­tu­ni­ty to nudge the sit­u­a­tion into a more pro­duc­tive track. Do not crit­i­cise the user if a qui­et change of sub­ject, or a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion on a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent top­ic, can help make the prob­lem fade away.
5. Re­al­is­tic. Ac­cept the per­son­al­i­ties of your users and con­cen­trate on prob­lem res­o­lu­tion. Do not ex­pect peo­ple to sud­den­ly change their per­son­al­i­ties to make prob­lem res­o­lu­tion eas­i­er.
6. Care­ful. Every­thing you say will be in­ter­pret­ed by the users with whom you in­ter­act. Con­sid­er how your re­marks will be in­ter­pret­ed be­fore you make them. Make sure the mes­sage you con­vey is the one you in­tend.
7. At­ten­tive. Un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion you have walked into be­fore you act. Ques­tion your as­sump­tions. Look for signs that you may have mis­in­ter­pret­ed the sit­u­a­tion, in or­der to avoid caus­ing dif­fi­cul­ties for a user who did not cre­ate the prob­lem.
8. Min­i­mal­ist. Do not do more than you need to in or­der to re­solve a prob­lem. A prob­lem scene is of­ten the wrong time and place to set pol­i­cy. Con­cen­trate on the res­o­lu­tion, and on col­lect­ing in­for­ma­tion you can think about lat­er.
9. Cour­te­ous. Even un­der time pres­sure, cour­tesy costs lit­tle and im­press­es peo­ple a lot. It is not about whether work­ing with the per­son is easy or dif­fi­cult; it is about set­ting the right tone.
10. Co­op­er­a­tive. Look for op­por­tu­ni­ties to get peo­ple in­volved in the res­o­lu­tion of their own and oth­er­s' prob­lems.
11. Some­one with an in­ter­nal lo­cus of con­trol. Cat­a­lysts con­cen­trate on solv­ing prob­lems, not be­stow­ing blame. Treat the sit­u­a­tion as the prob­lem, ac­cept the users for who they are and try to fig­ure out how best to help re­solve the dif­fi­cul­ty.
12. A user. Re­mem­ber that you are not in charge. Every­body runs their own lit­tle cor­ner of the world. Let them do the job they are ca­pa­ble of. Just help the process along as un­ob­tru­sive­ly as pos­si­ble. Oth­er cat­a­lysts are users as well, and no­body is per­fect.

We are all just here to do our best to keep things run­ning well.