John VanDyk wrote:
+1 on changing the name of #drupal. This will help stop wasting developers' time pointing newbies to the topic.
-1 on making #drupal for nickserv registered users only, if I understand Karoly correctly. We want new developers to feel welcome and we want #drupal to be accessible. I myself have only been registered with nickserv for a few months.
Agreed on both points. I realize developers shouldn't "have to" move from the channel they're used to since one would think reading the topic is a very basic netiquette thing. But most of the channels on freenode that I have seen which are #project-title are in fact support channels, so I can see why someone in a hurry to get their problem fixed might assume that #drupal is the same way. "See topic" comes up literally dozens of times per day and it makes developers incensed and in turn, makes users frustrated and with a bad taste in their mouths about Drupal both because they tend to get flamed from time to time, but also because they can see this room full of people who are actively chatting in #drupal, but who are unwilling to help them. The nickserv registration really threw me for a loop this morning. I had originally registered my IRC nick in a flurry of other SoC-related activities when the adrenaline was pumping but the brain wasn't retaining too much ;) , so I'd long since forgotten what my password was. It was no big deal, because I could just not identify and it would let me keep my nick, and I figured eventually it would be dropped and I could reregister it again. But then this morning I freaked out because it's the last day of SoC and I couldn't speak in #drupal. Luckily I was able to find a freenode staffer who dropped my nick for me so I could re-register but please DON'T just do this to people without warning! ;)