I think the reason for "regional" IRC channels is primarily to cater to non-english community members or where there is a very high communication level, which needs to be filtered from the rest of the community to help everyone better process it.
What is the desired goal of providing an IRC or Twitter (or any other channel)? or perhaps, what is lacking from the current channels that makes you feel we need something different?
I have to second Ryan's questions here. A further concern is that ever-growing numbers of different communication channels will only fragment communications, not streamline them. I'd rather see a Drupal group -> Twitter bot or something like that than I would like to see people's messages themselves getting dispersed through multiple channels.
You certainly wouldn't want to fragment any communication channels. I'm not too sure if IRC would benefit non-english speaking developers because the mailing lists could be used in any language anyway. I haven't really looked at it that closely.
I would wonder if it would augment communication because the Australian developers could chat in real time which does provide some opportunity (to share workloads for instance). I think some Australian developers use the #drupal-ecommerce as a sort of pseudo regional channel.
But I was just wondering if other developers thought it would be a good idea. If not then it's not a concern.
Often things things just have to grow organically and sprout out of a need.
My point about non-english speakers is that all the official channels use english, so having other channels allows them to discuss things in their native languages. The mailing lists also have english as its official language as well.
I would suggest giving it a try if you think it will help. Its pretty easy to create a new channel, #drupal-au ?, so put it together and announce it here and maybe at the other channels and see if anyone starts hanging out there. If people find it useful, then they'll keep it going and then it will just be a matter of "officializing it" by getting it listed on the handbook page and logged via druplicon.
You might note the new IRC channel created for group admins at #drupal-groups which is very fresh, but which I find useful so have made a point of adding it to my auto-joins (but i'm not there 100% of the time).
For anyone following this thread, I have created the #drupal-au channel. There are currently a few people hanging out there. If it becomes a regular channel for people over the next week or so, then I'll ask for it to become a proper channel with the druplicon-bot in it.
Im not a heavy IRC user, but
Im not a heavy IRC user, but i find the the main drupal irc rooms are not too busy and contain some core developers.
So for me things like the meetups and groups are probably the best form of communication with other Australian developers.
But other heavier users may feel differently?
Twitter?
How about a group login for twitter? The Group Admin could own the Twitter login & announce from that
Alternate Languages
I think the reason for "regional" IRC channels is primarily to cater to non-english community members or where there is a very high communication level, which needs to be filtered from the rest of the community to help everyone better process it.
What is the desired goal of providing an IRC or Twitter (or any other channel)? or perhaps, what is lacking from the current channels that makes you feel we need something different?
--Ryan
I have to second Ryan's
I have to second Ryan's questions here. A further concern is that ever-growing numbers of different communication channels will only fragment communications, not streamline them. I'd rather see a Drupal group -> Twitter bot or something like that than I would like to see people's messages themselves getting dispersed through multiple channels.
-Meitar Moscovitz
Personal: http://maymay.net/
Professional: http://MeitarMoscovitz.com/
irc
You certainly wouldn't want to fragment any communication channels. I'm not too sure if IRC would benefit non-english speaking developers because the mailing lists could be used in any language anyway. I haven't really looked at it that closely.
I would wonder if it would augment communication because the Australian developers could chat in real time which does provide some opportunity (to share workloads for instance). I think some Australian developers use the #drupal-ecommerce as a sort of pseudo regional channel.
But I was just wondering if other developers thought it would be a good idea. If not then it's not a concern.
:)
Try It
Often things things just have to grow organically and sprout out of a need.
My point about non-english speakers is that all the official channels use english, so having other channels allows them to discuss things in their native languages. The mailing lists also have english as its official language as well.
I would suggest giving it a try if you think it will help. Its pretty easy to create a new channel, #drupal-au ?, so put it together and announce it here and maybe at the other channels and see if anyone starts hanging out there. If people find it useful, then they'll keep it going and then it will just be a matter of "officializing it" by getting it listed on the handbook page and logged via druplicon.
You might note the new IRC channel created for group admins at #drupal-groups which is very fresh, but which I find useful so have made a point of adding it to my auto-joins (but i'm not there 100% of the time).
--Ryan
Channel Created
For anyone following this thread, I have created the #drupal-au channel. There are currently a few people hanging out there. If it becomes a regular channel for people over the next week or so, then I'll ask for it to become a proper channel with the druplicon-bot in it.
--Ryan
yes, let's try it
I'm there! :)