freenode vs. oftc

Tue Mar 13 21:48:24 UTC 2012

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On 03/13/2012 11:20 AM, Steve Gordon wrote:
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Karsten 'quaid' Wade" <kwade at redhat.com> To:
>> arch at ovirt.org Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 1:05:56 PM Subject:
>> Re: freenode vs. oftc
>> 
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>> 
>> On 03/13/2012 09:21 AM, Steve Gordon wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Usually this is done by registering the channel, and setting
>>> it up to kick everyone who joins with a kick message
>>> indicating where to go/what to do. If you leave any possibility
>>> for joining/lurking you end up with two communities for active 
>>> discussion which in my opinion is far worse that just
>>> happening to be on a 'less popular' network.
>> 
>> As it happens, this is what was done with #ovirt on Freenode.
>> 
>> Despite the clear message, though, people have approached me 
>> wondering why they are "banned" from #ovirt.
> 
> Then that is the way it should have remained. Are people who
> ignore an explicit kick message any more likely to join in the
> correct place if they are permitted to join the channel and it's in
> the topic or they asked to?

Here is one of the only Freenode conversations I've seen:

07:53 < Raboo> does ovirt run on centos?
07:53 < Raboo> can i run it on a server?
07:57 <@pmyers> Raboo: I'm not sure of the status of centos packaging.
 But oVirt does run on RHEL and Fedora, and there are other
                distributions being worked on.  You might want to pop
over to #ovirt on OFTC.  This channel is just a secondary
                channel for oVirt, most folks are over on OFTC
08:06 < Raboo> pmyers oftc is a unknown network for me
08:06 < Raboo> first time i hear of it.
08:06 < pmyers> oftc.net
08:06 < pmyers> it's used for a lot of open source projects
08:06 < Raboo> i thought that was what freenode was for
08:06 < Raboo> :)
08:07 < pmyers> freenode isn't the only irc network, just one of many :)

I show this example so we are clear that putting up the
autokick+message on the Freenode channel (or just not having a
Freenode channel) breaks the expectations and experience of many
people, and puts up a barrier that some will not climb over.

Are we obligated to help those people? If it's not hurting the project
to do so, I think yes.

> If we absolutely must have it open to allow people to join (and
> again, I can't see why) then set it to moderated (+m) and put a bot
> in there to tell people off periodically.

Let me be clear with an Americanism - I don't have a dog in this
fight. I say that so it's clear I'm not advocating for using Freenode,
I'm just following through on some requests that arose.

Discussions arose (in IRC, I think) about *returning* to Freenode.
History AIUI is there was a wave of evil bots spamming channels,
#ovirt folks decided enough-is-enough, and decamped to OFTC.

In the process of evaluating all of this, I hunted down the former
Freenode channel admins and "obtained" (a lead sap may-or-may-not have
been used) credentials to manage the channel a bit. I removed the
autokick because ... well, I reckon a closed channel can't answer for
itself about whether it should survive or not. How do we know if it's
needed without opening it for a while to see what happens?

So, it's OK for a project to discuss alternatives and migrations
around toolsets, as long as it's a healthy process. That's all I see
this as.

>> Anyway, in the process of getting permissions so we can actually
>>  control that channel, we removed the kickban. The /topic now
>> says to go to OFTC, etc., and there is zero discussion on the
>> Freenode channel.
>> 
>> So the consensus of this list seems to be, "Leave things as they
>>  are," and in this case it seems to be better that the channel
>> is populated but quiet.
> 
> Well except, "As they are" had already been changed.

Because the kickban etc. was removed? True, and my mistake if I jumped
the mark on that, acting ahead of discussion here. I mainly did it
because I was getting private messages from people who were trying to
get in to the channel, etc. I figured, let them join, and see what
happens.

>> Let's go ahead and move discussions that start on Freenode to
>> OFTC wherever possible.
> 
> That doesn't really address the concern that people will just end
> up having splintered discussions in both places. After all your 
> suggestion in the previous mail was for us to join in *both*
> places to move people on. How is that an improvement?

Open source projects survive just fine on multiple IRC channels.
Usually it's by topic, but not always. So I'm not going to agree that
in-and-of-itself having >1 IRC channel or even IRC network is always a
bad idea.

Discussions will arise on Freenode about oVirt on other channels, and
those need to be sent to OFTC. I understand your argument that people
would be helped along if they attempted to join #ovirt and got kicked
with a message to go to the other IRC network. But all around,
"discussions on Freenode should move to OFTC #ovirt, please." But we
cannot dictate what people will do, although, yes, we can gently
steer. It helps if we're more sure about where we are steering.

> I know this is quickly turning into a bikeshed post, but from my 
> point of view we have taken this from what should have been a
> fairly simple problem (choose a network) and found the one solution
> which is even worse (both).

My last post wasn't intended to say 'both', it was intended to say,
'keep OFTC and move any traffic on Freenode to OFTC'. (Call that my
low-energy solution.) There were multiple questions in this discussion
since there are some projects on Freenode, some on OFTC. One question
was to move the canonical channel, no reason was found, and it
appeared more related projects were on OFTC already. Another question
is what to do with #ovirt on Freenode.

So long way around, the final question above results in your proposal,
"Return #ovirt on Freenode's kickban + clear message to go to OFTC",
to which I add, "And request other oVirt discussions on Freenode to
move to OFTC." That seems workable for the current need.

If you agree to that proposal, I reckon we have your +1 and I'll
remain +0 for now.

- - Karsten
- -- 
name:  Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Architect
team:    Red Hat Community Architecture & Leadership
uri:              http://communityleadershipteam.org
                         http://TheOpenSourceWay.org
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