IRC Channel?

[eddie]

This is part suggestion, part 'poll'.

Do a lot of you use the IRC channel?

I've gone a couple of times, and it's *dead*. Perhaps it's just my timing, but I'm not sure.

Speaking for myself, if the IRC channel was on irc.freenode.org, I'd be on it a lot more. I'm always on freedode as it has some great channels (##C++, ##gentoo, #sdl, #opengl, #[gaming-libraries-here]), and I'm not really familiar with enterthegame.org or what not.

Anyways: I'm not sure if there's actually a population problem on the irc channel, or if uprooting to freenode.org will fix things or not, but I thought it worthy to ask.

Cheers!

[baldurk]

Well I'm normally idling in there, but if I'm afk that might not count :)

The problem is that freenode don't allow "community" channels generally, or at least they're frowned upon. It's generally for projects - similar to sourceforge I guess.

Besides, the network doesn't change who joins and who doesn't.

Note, there are also #c++ and #opengl on enterthegame which are active (and I idle in :)).

[Josh1billion]

I've gone into the channel a few times over the last few days, and I've never seen anyone else say a single message. A few people idle in there but there's never any discussion going on...

[bignobody]

I usually check it out when I'm at home (IRC is frowned upon at my day job), and have had the same experience. Just two or three others idling in the channel... So I end up posting my question to the forum instead...

[Josh1billion]

Perhaps we should state a time each day in which everyone should plan on joining.. that way, the daily peek-and-leave traffic gets concentrated into one time slot in which everyone can converse for an hour or so. It'd be kinda like an IRC meeting. The ultimate long-term goal is to make the IRC channel more active.

Anyone interested? State which time would be best for you.. I could join between around 4 PM and 10 PM central time.

[cypher543]

Why not advertise the IRC channel a bit more? Maybe hold some contests or game dev trivia every week on it. That could get it more active.

[baldurk]

Mainly because you can't inject activity into something. If you bring people artificially into the channel, not very many will stay. It needs to be a natural thing, IMHO.

[cypher543]

Why would it be bring people to the channel "artificially"? Putting some game dev trivia or a contest gives people a reason to check out the chatroom more, which could spark some conversation. Then they start coming back to talk more. It could work... why not give it a try?

[baldurk]

there's no reason why we shouldn't try, but I'm just saying it's not guaranteed to make the channel more active.

[Josh1billion]

I think Cypher's idea is a good one. Trivia would be good.. if no one else will, I'll set up a trivia bot sometime (though it wouldn't be online 24/7), maybe even within a few hours tonight.