1) IRC discussions are unstructured, with no formal threads. The KC
format is thread-based. This will involve a certain amount of squeezing
to fit - I will probably end up treating each day as a "thread" or
something similar.
It would really be nice to have a subject that corresponds to the
discussion. We have discussed embedding titles into the IRC text to make
that possible.
!!!TITLE Discussion GCD format changes
...
!!!TITLE END
The problem is that some text usually comes before we realize that we are
in a discussion
So we also discussed having something like
!!!TITLE STARTS -25
To denote that the discussion started 25 lines previously
Of course these examples are just examples and someone should think about
a syntax that makes sense.
2) How should I treat off-topic material? Should I ignore completely?
(Bear in mind that some days can be wholly off-topic - that's part of
the joy of IRC.) What about marginal stuff (general free software
issues, RMS toadying/badmouthing, etc.)? My personal preference is to
focus more on on-topic stuff, but not ignore off-topic.
I think we should ignore off topic stuff completely. We have two logs
that are accessible and most of us will read them anyway.
3) It is not always easy to identify the full name of speakers from
their IRC nick - the e-mail address will be in the log when they signed
on, but with some of the guys that will have been several months ago...
Accurate naming is important in KC, because it's used to generate
indexes/indicies.
Regular contributors use standard nicks unless they are involved in some
off-topic joking around. I don't think this will be a problem. I would
index by nick not by name. Names of regular contributors are listed on
our web pages.
To be fair, 1-3 can mostly be resolved with a bit of extra work by me.
But the big one is:
4) Will people be less forthright and honest, or feel at all
restrained, if they know their IRC comments are being summarised
elsewhere? Of course, the logs are open for anyone to look at already,
but that takes a different level of effort to dig out.
I would think summarization would be very positive and not effect the
quality of the content.
So in other words, I am not backing out, but I feel I ought to check
that everyone here is totally happy with what I am planning to do before
I do it!
I actually have a draft summary of last week's IRC that I pulled
together (not yet in proper KC format, however) which I can post to give
people an idea of what I'm thinking of.
Let me know what you think.
I think its an excellent idea.
--
Neil
address@hidden
GNU Enterprise
http://www.gnuenterprise.org/
http://www.gnuenterprise.org/~neilt/sc.html
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