It's a good idea not to ask for things in main chat. Some people find this difficult to comprehend but, if you've been online all day and the same question has been asked about 20 times it can get somewhat annoying.
For TV shows you can check
http://www.epguides.com for airing dates etc. Bear in mind that these are the US release times/dates and that the encoding of the show itself takes a couple of hours.
Most episodes appear on the wibbly wobbly web a in the early hours in the morning. However, because of the AUP this year, it may take a few days for new episodes to get onto the campus network.
Another thing to avoid is 'slotbegging' - requesting a download slot from someone, especially from the people sharing lots; they obviously are in high demand and will have many people in their upload queue. Although you may really desperately 'need' to see the newest episode of <insert generic popular TV show here> so will many other people: why should you get priority??
Despite this, if the file that you want is rare, and they are the only person on the hub with it, usually they are more than happy to oblige. Note: rare stuff does NOT mean new stuff
I will re-iterate the point that astropoint made: Share what you download. We know that people don't have infinite hard disk space [though it does seem like it with some people
] but, you've had enough space for the file that you've just downloaded so please, please reshare it. Don't just delete it immediately after you have watched it.
This is especially the case for new episodes or really rare stuff.
By re-sharing, the previous problem is also resolved - there are many places for people to download from, thus reducing any queues.
If you want a guide as to how long to keep stuff shared I'd say a week or after you've uploaded it about 5 times. This way you've contributed back [even if no-one did upload the file, it was available for them to - hard luck on their part]
There is also a section in the DC++ help about netiquette - available from the Help menu or by pressing F1 - most of it is just repeating what I've said here but there are a couple of extra bits if you wish to read it.
I'm sorry if this seems patronising/insulting. I'm also not accusing you of any of the above so please take them all as generic scenarios.
Oh, and welcome to the hub
[edit]Oooooo that's a long post... :S[/edit]