Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> On 19:06 Wed 11 Mar     , Thilo Bangert wrote:
>>>> 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.
> 
> I think IRC helps to build a more tightly knit community and, because of 
> this, is very important to Gentoo. The less close we are as a community, 
> the more free we feel to be hostile because we don't see the folks on 
> the other end of the big tube as real people. It's much like a technique 
> that militaries use during wars to de-personalize the enemy, except with 
> the Internet, we start that way and have to apply effort to grow closer.
> 

While it may be tight nit, there's the danger that it's so tight no one 
else can get in, so to speak.

I don't think anyone's saying anything like "no more IRC". What I at 
least am advocating is that what goes on on IRC gets summarized 
somewhere in addition. As I said before, this not only helps keep a 
"log" of what goes on for "future generations", but also allows others 
(users and devs who don't have time to follow everything) to look in and 
follow what the devs are doing more easily.

I think that this would ultimately help make Gentoo development more 
visible and more accessible, ultimately leading to an increased 
conversion of users to contributors, if not users to devs.

AllenJB