Stop. Using. IRC. Handles. In. Public. Mail. [LWN.net]

Stop. Using. IRC. Handles. In. Public. Mail.

Posted Jun 21, 2005 3:58 UTC (Tue) by mem (subscriber, #517)
Parent article: Debian release team meeting minutes

Whilst I *am* on IRC I just don't join #debian-devel. IRC is nice for coordinating stuff (and absolutly *great* for BSPs!) but it *sucks* for general development in a context like Debian's: There are no public well-kept logs (without noise!); there's no sane way to refer people to past discussions; there's no sane way to follow up. Why? Because the C in IRC means "chat" and that's what it's good for: chatting.

So, please stop using IRC-handles in emails sent to public mailing lists. It's annoyingly hard to figure out WTF is "aj", "nooby", "overfiend", "wiggy" and "aba". And don't get me started on "vorlon" (I have to look up this one every single time, no idea why). And yes, I do know how to look it up, and yes, I have a cheat sheet here, that's not the point.

Thanks!

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Stop. Using. IRC. Handles. In. Public. Mail.

Posted Jun 21, 2005 8:35 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

And use what instead? debian.org usernames?
http://people.debian.org/~aba/

Stop. Using. IRC. Handles. In. Public. Mail.

Posted Jun 21, 2005 11:50 UTC (Tue) by mem (subscriber, #517) [Link]

Real names?

Stop. Using. IRC. Handles. In. Public. Mail.

Posted Jun 21, 2005 15:39 UTC (Tue) by dilinger (subscriber, #2867) [Link]

For those of us who do hang out on #d-d, IRC nicks are much more convenient. Who can remember real names, anyways? :P

Stop. Using. IRC. Handles. In. Public. Mail.

Posted Jun 23, 2005 22:19 UTC (Thu) by vorlon42 (subscriber, #28435) [Link]

You realize that these minutes were prepared for internal use, right? Maybe you should be criticizing LWN instead, for pulling in this mail without providing a legend? ;)