[drupal-devel] Move #drupal to #drupal-devel and #drupal-support to #drupal?

[John VanDyk]

The issue is not whether IRC-based support is a good idea. I think we 
can all agree that forum-based support is better. However, we already 
have a support channel where volunteers may offer support if they 
wish. So that point is moot.

I am also not opposed to people's first impression of Drupal being a 
"bustling hub of development activity". The problem is that this is 
not the case. The first impression people have is that they are 
rudely spoken to for unwittingly entering what appears to be a 
channel about Drupal, but is really a development channel. This has 
two negative effects:

1. Developer time is taken up redirecting people to #drupal-support. 
Frustration builds on the part of the developer.

2. Unsuspecting newbies, many of whom may be potential developers, 
are given a negative impression at the outset.

This is bad system design, plain and simple.

No one is saying that support is more important than developing 
software. What I'm saying is that after the 150th car crashes from 
going around a sudden turn in the road, it's time to recognize there 
is a design problem and rebuild the road.

No one is saying that development is not important. It is important. 
It's so important that it warrants its own channel. But what's also 
important is designing an on-ramp for new potential drupal users and 
developers that is as smooth and easy as possible. Inviting potential 
developers to the dev channel is far more uplifting than booting them 
to the support channel. The current system is broken. Let's fix it.