IRC channels seems to be used in gnome development. It may be just me but I believe that recent power setting "crisis" show (I contrast them to mailing lists): - Requires presence. Many people cannot afford being on irc 24/7 - both developers, potential developers or just interested users. The houres of the meeting may clash with working hours or other real live constraints. - Not logged. Sometimes during discussion it was said that something was discussed extensively on #gnome-design. That is good however there is no method of figuring out what the arguments where. - Provides less informations. In e-mails I can do smart things like marking read/unread, putting into folders to read/to respond/ignore (or simply - unread: requires action, read: still important, in archive: no action required). Smart clients can even filter out irrelevant threads etc. With IRC I cannot do anything except reading it. There is no side informations and I cannot attach informations. Could there be a recommendation against discussion of important decisions on IRC? While I understand that it may slow down process probably but it would improve developer-user relationships as well as transparency and inclusiveness of process. Regards
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