Angela Byron wrote:
If those are our options, then let's also throw in #4, proposed by Earl (I think?) on IRC earlier: that #drupal become just a general "anything goes" Drupal chat room, and we can refer people to #drupal-support or #drupal-dev if someone starts to monopolize the channel. Unless that's what #2 means... I don't seem to have that e-mail... but "indrection" sounds like you want the channel basically dead with sign posts leading to the various options. If so, I don't believe this is a desirable option, either.
Btw, another reason #1 is undesirable is that there is a distinct lack of developers in #drupal-support. #drupal is the main channel that people will see, and it would be nice if there were a plethora of contributors in that channel to help new potential contributors get up to speed or to discuss new, cool things they're working on, etc.
I believe I'm generally in favor of this. At that point I personally would probably go in and out of the channel as I had free time and a desire to be generally social around Drupal, or to show stuff off to people who might be hanging around. I think people would feel comfortable just hanging out and absorbing there, and at the same time when I'm trying to get work done I can drop to just -dev and still interact with the usual IRC-enabled developers and have fewer distractions. I suspect the line between #drupal-support and #drupal would blur but it would also be very easy to take complex or annoying stuff and say "Let's take this to #drupal-support" which is very different from "Please let us alone, we're trying to get work done here." Then again, a channel with 300+ people on it has a way of just getting unruly.