#ingres IRC channel on freenode.net

Hi Everyone,

By popular request, I have created a #ingres channel on
irc.freenode.net. I invite you to join me in the channel.

You can do so with any number of IRC clients (including free ones) as
well as a number of web sites offering free access.

Enjoy,

Andrew

I completely understand the desire to be ubiquitous and to have a presence 
everywhere, but I am just not convinced the way to grow community is by 
dispersing the interested participants as thinly as possible over every 
available forum, channel and list.  Do we really need this?  IRC does not 
lend itself to cross-posting or archiving; there's a good chance it might 
take traffic away from some of the marginally viable channels that might 
otherwise have thrived given a bit more content.

I admit I've misjudged the community feeling on this kind of thing before, 
like when I suggested shutting down info-ingres, but the evidence of my own 
eyes is that we are dispersing into very small, isolated cliques, with so 
few participants that threads rarely run to more than one question and one 
answer, and often enough, no answer at all.  A newcomer to any one of the 
innumerable forums probably looks around and says "this place it dead; they 
get barely one posting every couple of days".  That's a shame, because 
actually there's a lot of posting going on, if you can be bothered to go 
around all the houses looking for it.

When it comes to communities, less is more.  We need a bustling city not a 
hermit colony.

Roy 

Hi Roy,

You raise a good point. I'm just one guy, and thus I can't provide the
definitive answer one way or the other. My experience with IRC has
been very positive so personally, I feel there is value.

A quick check of the channels such as #mysql, #postgresql, and #linux
shows serious numbers and interest. There are smaller channels for
budding open source projects as well.

I find IRC a complement to email lists and other forms of
communication rather than a substitute. I believe it *could* spread
our numbers thinner, but it also could help grow them by making it
easier to get involved.

I'd be interested in what others think?

Andrew


On Mar 24, 1:42 pm, "Roy Hann" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >

Disclaimer:
I have serious Luddite tendencies - had to Google IRC to find out what
it was -
so you won't be surprised that I agree with Roy and fear a watering
down of the
main Ingres 'community' channel, i.e. comp.databases.ingres.

I also agreed with the proposal to s{*filter*}info-ingres, but was too
cowardly to put my
head over the parapet when the flak started flying - not this time.

Right now, I think we already have one 'channel' too many, I mean of
course the Ingres
Corp community forum. Although I accept that Ingres Corp *had* to have
their own internal forum.

I'd even go further and suggest that the Ingres Community Wiki is of
questionable value...
No offence to those that have contributed, but it just doesn't do it
for me.

If you want a brilliant Ingres resource, that has informed me and
saved my DBA bacon countless times,
well, we already have one, you're reading it.
 http://www.**--****.com/ 

Steve

I have high hopes for the wiki.  In fact I have asked the UK IUA committee 
to take an interest in it.  The Ingres Apprentice project is also counting 
on using it extensively.  There are various bits of infrastructure that are 
needed to support the apprentices and other open source contributors, that 
are very near to being ready to use.  With a little luck and encouragement 
the wiki will blossom.  I am under no illusions that it needs more input 
before it can rival the 35,000+ postings of the comp.databases.ingres 
archive though.


Hear, hear.  (And for those of you who dislike web interfaces and want 
something more efficient, refer to 
 http://www.**--****.com/ , on the wiki! 
:-)  Or take a look at  http://www.**--****.com/ 

Note also that c.d.i. has been chosen as the official organ of the 
Apprentice Project.

Roy 

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| I have serious Luddite tendencies - had to Google IRC to find out what
| it was -

And I'm sure there are numerous people out there that never heard of
newsgroups or that never used mailing lists or forums or a wiki.
Everyone has his own preferences to communicate within the web - I am no
newsgroup or mailing list guy so I rarely use them. I like forums and IRC.


| Right now, I think we already have one 'channel' too many, I mean of
| course the Ingres
| Corp community forum.

Removing communication channels from the project _may_ bring people
closer together but instead I think a number of them would leave as it's
simply not their prefered way. We're all creatures of habit...


| I'd even go further and suggest that the Ingres Community Wiki is of
| questionable value...
| No offence to those that have contributed, but it just doesn't do it
| for me.

While you could argue that newsgroups, mailing lists and forums more or
less serve the same kind of communication - threaded and archived - wiki
and irc are completely different from them.
You would never post detailed HowTos, code examples, etc in a
newsgroup... a wiki is perfect for that.
You would also never do the same kind of talking on a mailing list or a
newsgroup as you can do it on IRC.
Having a synchronous channel can add so much value to a project. Right
now I am talking on another project's channel to get help for something
I couldn't find in their mailing list nor in their wiki. I simply asked
the developer and he is helping me in real-time.

In my eyes an IRC channel is obligatory for an open source project.


Alex


- --
PGP-Key:  http://www.**--****.com/ 
PGP-Fingerprint: B10A 947D 76BD 09E8 3F1A  2FA1 5902 87EA A3C7 D788

- ---
Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
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The delivery format question is an important one.  As you say, everyone has 
a preferred delivery format.  That is why c.d.i. and info-ingres are already 
cross-posted.  That is also why there is a stated intention cross-post the 
Ingres Corp forums to c.d.i. as soon as possible.    Your preference for 
forums is as much a mystery to me as my preference for NNTP newsgroups 
probably is to you, but we still want to talk about the same things in a 
single community.

I have numerous problems with IRC though.  Fragmentation of the community is 
only one of them.  Time will tell, I guess.

Roy 

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| Time will tell, I guess.
|

That's for sure. We'll see if the channel stays alive and if people will
accept it.

Alex


- --
PGP-Key:  http://www.**--****.com/ 
PGP-Fingerprint: B10A 947D 76BD 09E8 3F1A  2FA1 5902 87EA A3C7 D788

- ---
You're everywhere.  You're omnivorous.
		-- Homer Simpson, to God
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Hi Everyone,

Following up on this a week in. So far so good. We've seen the number
of people in the IRC channel steadily rise. Today there were 20 people
pretty much constantly. The questions have been good. A huge thank you
to those who have been answering the questions and helping people out.
Someone commented to me in private that a quick question that would
have taken them hours to find the answer to was answered pretty much
immediately and they really appreciated it.

We've also had a number of Google summer of code students swing by and
ask us questions. No surprise that the ones that pop by to talk put in
an application.

The best part has been a number of ideas about how to solve things or
ways to improve the community build and the product. Smart people in
the same room (provided they don't kill each other) seems to make
things happen.

Thank you, this is great.

Andrew


On Mar 25, 1:46 pm, Alexander Thiem < XXXX@XXXXX.COM 

Anyone who wants to keep up with what is going on has to look in at least 
six different places (twelve if you count each of the Ingres Forums 
individually).  That is a total pain in the ass and it impedes 
communication.   We just don't have the critical mass to support that many 
channels.  I can count the number of people who actively participate in more 
than one of these forums on the fingers of one hand.

Also, anyone NOT using the IRC channel has not seen the "good questions" and 
the undoubtedly even better answers, and apparently never will.   That can't 
be good.


I could not be more pleased that new people are taking an interest, but 
we've still got a massive (and growing) problem IMO.  I don't know what the 
solution could be, but it deserves thinking about.


Well that is exactly the point isn't it?  We're not in the same room, and we 
seem to be actively seeking out new rooms to disperse to.   I think that is 
just nuts.   (It's the same reason I want to shut down the conference calls 
we've been having: we need to have our conversations in public in such a way 
that everyone can join in.)

Roy 

Hi Roy,

I wanted to share the progress not to be inflamatory, but to let
people know what's going on in the channel. This will be best
discussed at the summit later this month face to face. I do understand
where you're coming from and I completely agree about the importance
of not diluting and thinning the community.

It seems to me that the interactions we're seeing in IRC would be
unlikely to happen in usenet or even a mailing list. IRC is a more
interactive and less formal comminications medium making it a
complement rather than a substitute for CDI, info-ingres, or even
service desk. The messages we're seeing are likely to be lost if there
were no IRC channel because those mediums are too heavyweight. Each is
appropriate for certain kinds of situations, at the right time.

Someone noted today that the people we're seeing in IRC are not people
who typically post to CDI or info-ingres which seems to agree with
this thougth. Regardless, we'll likely agree it is too early to tell.

We are planning to index the IRC logs to make them searchable which
addresses one concern we all have. I'm swamped personally, but if
anyone wants to volunteer to take this on, please contact me as it is
quite easy.

Andrew