AllenJB wrote:
> Markos Chandras wrote:
>> On Tuesday 10 March 2009 14:15:36 Thilo Bangert wrote:
>>>> Bugs aren't a good way to keep in touch with developers, that's what
>>>> irc is for.
>>> while i dont necessarily think, that bugzi is the best way to stay in
>>> contact with me, it surely is a better way than IRC - on which i am 
>>> close
>>> to never.
>>>
>>> the presumption seems to be, that as a dev one has to be available via
>>> IRC. it has long been my feeling that Gentoo as a project could realize
>>> more of its potential by better integrating people who dont do IRC.
>>>
>>> kind regards
>>> Thilo
>>
>>     To be honest , I don't agree with that. Being around on irc is 
>> quite helpful to get direct feedback from users and fix bugs before 
>> they hit  more users. This is a good way to reduce the amount of bugs 
>> that hit bugzilla. 
> 
> While IRC is undoubtedly a useful communication medium, it is pretty 
> much a "here and now" thing. I believe that Gentoo would benefit quite a 
> lot if teams started using more permanent forms of communication such as 
> blogs, wikis or websites. Not only would this allow the current set of 
> developers within a team to know what one another are up to and what 
> needs to be done, but it would also allow those who are not so 
> intimately involved (both other devs, contributors and users) to keep up 
> to date and contribute as well as leaving something for future 
> developers to be able to look back on and see what options / 
> improvements / etc were considered / done in the past.
> 
> I recently wrote a blog post that went somewhat along these lines:
> http://allenjb.me.uk/blog/why-only-think-about-projects-for-gsoc
> 
> As someone who's very interested in getting involved in Gentoo 
> Development, I often find it hard to gather information on what projects 
> / people are up to, what's currently going on and what the plans for the 
> future are.
> 
> 
> AllenJB
> 

Just wanted to quickly add mailing lists to the explicitly mentioned 
venues for improved communication.

As a quick example, I'm interested in the PR / Newsletter side of 
Gentoo, but I find it very hard to keep up-to-date. I recently learned 
that there's a new blog-like version of the newsletter in development 
but I've heard nothing else about it and searching hasn't turned up 
anything.

While I am on the gmn irc channel, I don't have time to read through all 
the backlogs for relvent information. I am also on the gentoo-pr mailing 
list (among many others, as well as checking on the lists via gmane) and 
it's basically completely silent. I'm currently waiting to catch one of 
two devs who might be able to give me more information on IRC.

To all eyes looking from the outside in, unless they happen across the 
one forum thread I did, the newsletter is dead and nothing is being done 
about it, which gives a poor view of the state of affairs within Gentoo 
Development.

To take the bus analogy to this, if these 2 developers are hit by a bus, 
then who knows what's currently going on with the newsletter and where 
all the resources are?

I have said it before and I will say it again, yes the newsletter may be 
a current weak point for Gentoo, but it's a very obvious one because 
it's the one that's visible to everyone in the community. I still think 
my points are valid for any area of Gentoo development tho.

AllenJB