On Tue, 2006-07-11 at 18:17 -0700, Cliff Schmidt wrote: > On 7/11/06, Coach Wei <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Given the controversy about IRC meetings at > > [email protected], I'd recommend we do not do IRC meetings at > > all.
that wasn't a controversy :-) > > The original IRC idea was to have a regular (twice a month or once a > > month) Q&A for getting people to up to speed and introducing some "live" > > interaction to help build a community. However, Some people are > > concerned that we will either intentionally or unintentionally make > > technical decisions during IRC. Some people are concerned that XAP IRC > > meeting is an extension of existing corporate development practice. None > > of the above is true nor are they being intended for. However, given the > > amount of controversy different people feel about IRC, it seems best > > that XAP developers do not do IRC meeting at all. > > > > Any strong feeling from XAP community? > > I disagree. Sorry to repeat myself in the same thread, but I think: > > > A regular IRC session as an open Q&A or focused tutorial on some > > aspect of the current code base doesn't seem like a bad idea to me; > > If there are XAP committers who want to make themselves available to > explain parts of the code base or have a Q&A by IRC, I think they > should do it. The thing I think people were concerned about was > having a discussion among the committers about design ideas/directions > (similar to what I believe Synapse does) -- that's where there was > concern that decisions may implicitly get made. I don't think anyone > is worried that project decisions are going to get made from a > tutorial on the code. I suppose a user could have a really good > question that sparks an idea, but.... ;-) > > I do appreciate that you were willing to drop your own idea based on > the feedback of other Apache folks, but I don't want you to have to > drop a helpful idea that is not really what the concern was aimed at. > The harder part is probably getting users/potential contributors to > show up. the problem with being a mentor is that i'm all out of magic dust. i'd like to be able to tell a select few the secret of community builder but i'd have to find it out myself first. the best i can do is to reason inductively (as best i can) from past failures and successes... axis2 is very healthy and uses regular meetings over IRC (but dims is well known as an exceptional community builder). in the past, IRC has been suspected as a major contributory factor to issues with the health of some other projects (who will remain nameless) but it's hard to prove (see below). IRC is a bit of secret vice amongst projects. lots of projects use IRC but most are aware of it's dangerous reputation. hence the warnings to podlings and worries about IRC use by podlings. perhaps (though) there is a risk that these are now overstated. the mailing lists at apache are canonical and public. they document the open development of our code. that IRC has no public record is both a blessing and a curse. it's great to hang out and chill on IRC with the other members from time to time (and yes, we do have our own secret IRC channel). IRC allows informal social interactions that often seem off topic on development mailing lists. that's cool. but this lack of public record can really make things much worse if a community starts to become unhealthy. using personal insults on a development list makes you look pretty small. the public audience makes people think before they post. every post at apache is mirrored and will be used as evidence in the court of public opinion. but IRC is not and cannot. (trying hard not to offer an actual opinion) - robert
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