[development] #drupal and #drupal-contribute split (Was: Re:Proposal: Move all dev support off this list to newStackExchange site)

[Daniel F. Kudwien]

> How much more "us" vs. "them" can you possibly get? :(

That has always been the case, and I don't think that re-purposing and
clarifying channels and channel names made it any worse or better.  Like
you, I remember my initial attempts to participate very well.  And those
were actually two-folded - on one hand trying to connect to the community,
getting involved, and learning how to communicate with those weird folks in
IRC blaming and kicking me for being in the wrong channel(s) - and on the
other hand, a Drupal [core] project that is changed and maintained
mysteriously by some unknown small crowd of people who are sometimes
referred to as "Drupal core developers", neither listed or depicted
anywhere, nor identifiable on IRC or anywhere else.

Because of my original experience, I can only applaud the improvements we
did.  Today, people wouldn't piss on me for posting questions in #drupal
instead of #drupal-support.  Also no "F*ck off" when trying to participate
in #drupal-dev.  And after crossing the n00b bar, if I'd like to learn how I
can contribute back, I'd at least have a unique and focused place to go to
talk about my contributions and learn about others.

All of this is a natural and required evolution.  As soon as any group of
people gets larger, different interests and goals need to be channeled.
Otherwise, not a single person is able to get anything done, neither the one
that tries to solve a support-ish problem, nor the one who tries to improve
Drupal, nor the other one who'd like to talk card-games, kittens, and
ice-cream.  Scope-creep.

Your points can be summarized as "Danger of not training Drupal culture to
newcomers" due to separation of topics.  However,

1) not everyone is completely ignoring the other channels

2) frankly, what kind of essential Drupal culture am I able to contribute to
other topics/channels, say, support, except for "Your question doesn't make
any sense"?

sun