Thilo Bangert <bangert@g.o> posted
200903101315.52142.bangert@g.o, excerpted below, on  Tue, 10 Mar
2009 13:15:36 +0100:

> 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.

This has bothered me too.  Some people simply don't do well in 
"immediate" (textual) communication mode.  They much prefer the minute-
resolution mode of email/web-form/newsgroup to the second-resolution mode 
of IRC/IM.  I'm one such person.[1]  As a result, I have experienced a 
high barrier to getting further involved with Gentoo, toward becoming an 
AT or dev.

That may be simply the way things must be (after all, to take an extreme 
example, who could reasonably argue that snail mail contributions could 
even work at all for more than the one-off, for something like Gentoo), 
but I can't say I see it that way.  Even in instances where the second-
resolution of IRC really does work better, say meetings, a mixed-mode 
approach much as the council has recently taken, with most of the 
discussion via minute/hour resolution mailing list leaving the official 
IRC meetings as ideally little more than formalizing the vote, arguably 
works far better.

---
[1] I like to be able to type up my message, look at it, revise a bit 
where necessary, then send, on second-resolution media such as IRC/IM, 
that's hardly possible as it looks like "dead air" from the other end 
when there's 2-3 participants and the discussion has usually long moved 
on by the time the submission is ready, in larger groups.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman