Re: Proposed General Resolution : IRC as a Debian communication channel
>>"Anthony" == Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:
>> by letting future maintainers join (and
>> lurk), we'll let them learn faster how Debian works.
Anthony> Congratulations! Some actual justification for what you want
Anthony> to happen! And now, you'll even get some on point rebuttal,
Anthony> instead of meta-rebuttal. And you'll note it's on the topic
Anthony> of an actual *action* rather than some random wording
Anthony> change, or way of thinking about things.
Anthony> This isn't particularly true, though: for a start, we
Anthony> already provide debian-policy, the developers-reference,
Anthony> several example packages and helper tools, and the
Anthony> new-maintainer process; they're the "official" guides to
Anthony> learning how Debian works, and they're available via the
Anthony> traditional Debian avenues: the package system and email.
I would also like to point out that IRC is not a medium
accessible to everyone, and is certainly not a requirement in order
to be a Debian developer (not that any one has asserted that,
but). I also posit that presence on the channel does not actually
lead to any positive insight on the workings of Debian. It may permit
quick exchange of ideas and opinions with fellow developers (a beer
in a bar is even more conducive to that). Indeed, were I to base my
knowldge on the IRC channel, I would come off with a skewed view of
Debian, and one that is rarely flattering to the project. The
working of the project are carried out on specialized mailing lists,
(debian-www, debian-emacsen, debian-java, debian-perl, debian-policy,
debian-sgml, et. al), and newcomers should look for a mailing list in
an area of interest and lurk there, and they shall be far better off
than someone who spent that time hanging out on IRC.
New developers are far better off scanning the mailing lists,
and the documents aj has pointed out.
So, I reject the statement that it allows you to see the inner
working of the project; except in rare occasions.. I agree it lets
one get to know a few developers better.
Anthony> But there're a more important purpose to #d-d than teaching
Anthony> newbies: and that's providing a quick and easy means for
Anthony> developers to talk to each other. At the moment we come
Anthony> close to guaranteeing that everyone on the channel's
Anthony> committed to Debian, usually evidenced by them being a
Anthony> sponsored maintainer/in the n-m queue, or being a registered
Anthony> developer. For a long while, we kept it that way by
Anthony> ensuring that the channel's existance wasn't widely known,
Anthony> that way the only people who'd ever join would be people
Anthony> recommended by someone else cluey. The benefits of having a
Anthony> channel inhabited solely by people who're already actively
Anthony> involved in Debian seems pretty clear: don't have to worry
Anthony> about "Debian SuX" trolls, don't have to worry about
Anthony> answering user questions, don't have to worry that someone's
Anthony> watching your every word about to jump all over it.
Conduct rules can be enforced on IRC by chanops; and in my
experience very rarely have I seen out and out trolls on the
channel. Secondly, being a member of the project is a poor metric of
usefulness in a channel. I know a number of very cluefull people who
take part in the discussion on the mailing lists, excluding similar
people from the channel would not be in our best interest, merely
because they have not been blessed by penguin pee, as it is sometimes
put.
Exclusion rules should not be based on membership in an
organization or knowledge of secret hand shakes. Conduct rules, which
is what we seem to be talking, ought to be based on conduct, and not
merely on affiliation. I reduced my presence in the channel due to
some distress by caused by the conduct of the denizens, and these
denizens are card carrying debian developers. Conduct, and not
artificial indirect criteria, should be the basis of ensuring a
environment conducive to productive conversations.
I think not having to watch over your every word so that no
one jumps all over it has not been true of the channel for a
while now,
>> It's not only about
>> the channel utility, it's also about the channel "role" (within Debian).
Anthony> And as far as that's concerned there's another problem with
Anthony> making irc at all official, which has been alluded to
Anthony> elsewhere in this thread. IRC is a *very* poor "official"
Anthony> communications medium. Try summarising an IRC discussion
Anthony> sometime, or culling out the useful parts of an IRC log in a
Anthony> way that stands alone and is actually readable,
Anthony> sometime. It's very difficult to extract the sense from the
Anthony> noise even in a fairly focussed conversation. That pretty
Anthony> much wrecks it for archiving purposes. It's also realtime,
Anthony> which means that if two people don't happen to be available
Anthony> at the same time (because ones asleep when the other's
Anthony> awake, or because one can only do Debian stuff on the
Anthony> weekends and the other hates touching computers in his free
Anthony> time, eg) it's also useless. IRC's great as an unofficial
Anthony> communications medium, but IMO it's too inaccessible to too
Anthony> many people to warrant being considered "official".
Pardon me for not trimming this, but I think we need to
reinforce this message. Very well said.
manoj
--
if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { printf("Don't
Panic!\n"); exit(42); } Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95,
describing RCS
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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