After our long-serving channel bot Scrambler had gone away for a period
of time, we setup a new channel bot (gncbot) for #gnucash, which is
hosted on {svn,lists,wiki}.gnucash.org.Another IRC channel that I frequent has a persistant, public channel logger: all channel activity is recorded, html-ized and published via HTTP. It is then indexed (primarily by Google, of course, though we have namazu as well) and searchable. I propose that we should institute the same mechanism for #gnucash. It turns out to be a convenient way to record both specific and general project knowledge. As well, the logs can be useful to "backfill" participants who are joining in the middle of a conversation, as well as those (devs and interested parties) who haven't decided to inhabit the channel persistently, but are curious about the goings on they might miss. As well, a longer discussion which results in a decision no longer needs to be copy-and-pasted to -devel, since the URL of the logs can be posted. On the down side, it does change the dynamic of the channel, both for the transient participants as well as the devs. We have certainly used the channel to discuss things that we would consider "private". However, the logger does support an "[off]"-log prefix, and in my experience this actually works pretty well in allowing off-log conversation; however, it only works if you know about it... It's only courteous to inform random people who stop by the channel that they're being recorded and published. While people do seem to err on the side of caution when spilling personal financial details, that is another wrinkle. The channel topic probably suffices, but some sort of channel entry notice -- as supported by the channel service of most other IRC networks -- would be better. On the whole, I think publishing channel logs is a win, or I wouldn't be suggesting it. :) But what do you think? I guess the options are: - do it. - do it for a month or two and re-evaluate. - don't do it. -- ...jsled http://asynchronous.org/ - `a=jsled; b=asynchronous.org; echo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
_______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
