Re: IRC channels in gnome development

["C.J. Adams-Collier" <cjac colliertech org>]

I would not go so far as to recommend against discussing important items on irc, but there is general consensus that it is a somewhat ephemeral medium and that anything requiring persistence should also be documented as a bug or blog post.

On Feb 5, 2011 9:26 AM, "Maciej Piechotka" <uzytkownik2 gmail com> wrote:
> 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