[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Proposal: Public logs for the OpenILS-Evergreen IRC channel

[Dan Scott]

Hi folks:

Up to now we haven't made public logs of the #OpenILS-Evergreen IRC
channel available. I think we've discussed the possibility in IRC once
or twice, but I can't remember the rationale of why we decided not to
make public logs available - probably a combination of laziness (it
would require somebody to do something, when we've got lots of other
things to work on) and a desire to keep the tone of the channel
informal when we're not discussing problems or helping people out.

However, I received an email from Randy Metcalfe of eIFL today that
made a very good point: right now, most (all?) of the Evergreen
deployments are in North America. So our time zones are roughly
synchronous (8:00 AM EST -> 1:00 AM EST) and we have come to expect
pretty much pervasive connectivity - if you want to be on IRC, you can
get on IRC.

However, as our i18n work proceeds and Evergreen becomes a realistic
option for more countries throughout the world, we will increasingly
run into situations where the time zones of the North American core
development team doesn't match the time zones of potential adopters
and potential developers. In addition, in many places Internet
connectivity is more sporadic: it might be available just a few hours
per day. In those cases, the knowledge that is shared via IRC could be
greatly beneficial to others if they were able to at least search for
previous discussions on the IRC logs.

In fact, I think this would also benefit those in North America who
can't currently connect to the IRC channel because of restraints at
their place of work, or an inability to concentrate while IRC is
running, etc.

So, I would like to propose that we set up a publicly searchable log
of the #OpenILS-Evergreen channel.

The Freenode policies towards logging channels are as follows (as
stated in Freenode connection MOTD):

[08:38] [MOTD] - By connecting to freenode you indicate that you have read
[08:38] [MOTD] - and agree to adhere to our policies and procedures as per
[08:38] [MOTD] - the website (http://freenode.net). We would like to remind
[08:38] [MOTD] - you that unauthorized public logging of channels on the
[08:38] [MOTD] - network is prohibited. Public channel logging should only
[08:38] [MOTD] - take place where the channel owner(s) has requested this
[08:38] [MOTD] - and users of the channel are all made aware (if you are
[08:38] [MOTD] - publically logging your channel, you may wish to keep a
[08:38] [MOTD] - notice in topic and perhaps as a on-join message).

If the community agrees with my proposal to start publicly logging
#OpenILS-Evergreen, I would suggest that we add that statement to our
topic and as an on-join first and foremost, and then worry about where
and how we will make the logs starting from that date available
thereafter.

-- 
Dan Scott
Laurentian University