David McNab wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> At present, there's only one Cinelerra-related channel on IRC, which is
> serving multiple purposes as development discussion, help and general
> chat.
>
> As Cobra has expressed, there's a conflict between these purposes, with
> developers logging #cinelerra and using that to keep up to date with
> development issues, while others (including myself, guilty as charged)
> have also been using it for general interactions within the Cinelerra
> community.
>
> I apologise if I've been 'spamming' #cinelerra with subject matter which
> is not 100% specifically on-topic for Cinelerra.
>
> I can see two options for meeting all the needs:
>
> 1. have #cinelerra as the 'formal' channel for Cinelerra development
> and help, and a separate #cinelerra-chat channel, mentioned in the
> #cinelerra channel topic, or
>
> 2. allow general chat in #cinelerra, with a separate formal channel
> such as #cinelerra-dev for the more development-related discussions,
> and mention #cinelerra-dev in the #cinelerra chan topic
>
> Either way, it would meet the dual purposes - having a formal
> development-related channel, with relevant matter on the logs, not
> spammed by chat - and a separate place for cin users/devs to interact
> less formally in real time.
>
> Either option would work, as long as the #cinelerra topic mentions the
> other channel.
>
> Personally, I feel it's a healthy thing for the Cinelerra community to
> have an announced, active informal realtime discussion channel.
>
> Thoughts?
The IRC communnity is not that big, I think one channels where users,
developers and some private discussions coexist is fine. Splitting this
small community is bad. Just be careful that you stop private
discussions about knitting, cooking, politics, whatever, when a more
proper (cinelerra) topic is discussed.
I never felt comfortable with the public logging. IRC is meant to be a
volatile place where humans meet and talk, this is also a social part of
the community, you wouldn't like either if your pub-talks are logged,
even if you meet with programmer buddies at the pub! IMO there is no
much benefit of (public) logging an irc channel its rather even
contraproductive for serveral reasons:
* Things will be on google for eternity, one has to fear that things he
saied could be misinterpreted out of context.
* The signal to noise ratio is very high, you have to read pages of logs
to gather little usable information.
* in an chat are many errors, assumptions, half baked ideas, rumors.
* People who know that this is logged are less motivated to write
conclusions down to some formal/official document.
My suggestion how to solve this:
Don't log! Whenever we talked about something important and have some
final conclusion (this could be howtos about doing things in cinelerra,
or programming/design decisions) write a short transcript/conclusion
down to a proper place (Documentation Wiki, FAQ, Design Drafts, ML
Announce, ...). This makes sure that the text is reviewed and on topic.
Further it directly addresses the intended audience, while keeping the
IRC channel as place where the community can meet, no matter if
developer or user.
Btw I am fine if people log the channel privately and maybe exchange the
logs, this ranting was only meant about public logging which ends up on
some webserver.
Christian
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