So apparently I had #drupal-dev and #drupal-contribute confused.  Apologies on that.

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 4:17 PM, Earl Miles <merlin@logrus.com> wrote:
On 3/18/2011 1:12 PM, Neil Hastings wrote:
> As a developer of several contrib modules (previously including
> taxonomy_menu, a top 100 module) I agree.  I'm not part of the *in*
> crowd and not allowed the #drupal-conttribute and do feel like an outsider.

There is no hall pass to go to #drupal-contribute so if you believe
you're "not allowed" this is a construct of your own mind.