On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 11:24 AM, AllenJB <gentoo-li...@allenjb.me.uk> wrote: > Donnie Berkholz wrote: >> >> On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar , Thilo Bangert wrote: >>>>> >>>>> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via >>>>> IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize >>>>> more >>>>> of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC. >> >> I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of >> this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, the >> more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on the other >> end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique that >> militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with the >> Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer. >> > > While it may be tight nit, there's the danger that it's so tight no one else > can get in, so to speak. > > I don't think anyone's saying anything like "no more IRC". What I at least > am advocating is that what goes on on IRC gets summarized somewhere in > addition. As I said before, this not only helps keep a "log" of what goes on > for "future generations", but also allows others (users and devs who don't > have time to follow everything) to look in and follow what the devs are > doing more easily.
I think that summarizing "IRC" is insane. Remember we barely got summaries of council meetings (which are at a fixed time and date) until we got a secretary devoted explicitly to that task. Maybe more teams should take up the meeting model; that way non-IRC folks can either be on IRC for meeting times only, or peruse the meeting notes afterwards if they are interested in what happened. > > I think that this would ultimately help make Gentoo development more visible > and more accessible, ultimately leading to an increased conversion of users > to contributors, if not users to devs. > > AllenJB > >
