[Mageia-discuss] IRC community channels - need a ruling from the board

[Christopher Swift]

Ar Llu, 2010-10-04 am 12:35 +0100, ysgrifennodd Romain d'Alverny:
Let's see other projects:
> 
>  * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate#International has no
> strict scheme (although it looks like a 2-letters ISO for language
> primarily)

As you can see in the Internation list, the channel for the United
Kingdom users of Fedora is #fedora-uk.  

>  * https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IRC/ChannelNaming has a strict one (2
> letters ISO for country ONLY - no language-based channel)

Being a Point of Contact for an Ubuntu LoCo team I can tell you that
Ubuntu does indeed have language groups as well as country groups.  For
example #ubuntu-es isn't aimed at Spain but rather spanish speakers who
use Ubuntu.  

It should also be noted that Ubuntu uses the ccTLD to set the name of
the channel, so for example the channel for United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland would indeed be #ubuntu-uk as it is.  The
ccTLD for the UK is indeed .uk whereas Ukraine's ccTLD is .ua.

>  * http://irc.mozilla.org/ has no strict scheme

The Mozilla naming scheme for the channel of the Ukraine is #mozilla-ua.

>  * http://wiki.debian.org/IRC has no strict scheme

#debian-uk is also the Debian channel for the United Kingdom, it even
says in the brackets that it is not the channel for the Ukraine.

>  * others?

Another project which uses -uk for the channel naming for the group of
users in the United Kingdom is the Gentoo project using #gentoo-uk for
the name of the channel.

> What matters more anyway is the index we provide to route people to
> their preferred channel.
> 
> 
> So, I would suggest this for #mageia-{suffix}:
>  0. 2-letters ISO code for _language_ (as we do today, already);
>  1. 2-letters code _may_ be used for location/country coding;
>  2. in case of conflict between rules 0 and 1, ask IRC management team
> - and rule 0 is most likely to  apply anyway;
>  3. so full location/country name is encouraged for location coding;
> 
> In this case, #mageia-uk would go for Ukrainian language and
> #mageia-unitedkingdom for the United Kingdom; given the context, both
> would encouraged to put a welcome message on their channel in the
> coming days to help people re-route themselves in case needed.

Despite every other project that you have listed using -ua for Ukraine
and -uk for the United Kingdom as those are their respective ccTLDs you
wish to break this uniformity?  By extending the shortened name of -uk
to -unitedkingdom you are making it less likely for people to find the
channel.  -uk as a suffix is an already declared identifier for the UK
in both domain names and open source IRC projects.

> That would also mean, for instance, that #mageia-br would go for
> Breton - Celtic language, not for Brasil that would need
> #mageia-brasil instead.

Actually for Breton is more likely that they would be using #mageia-bzh
as that is their proposed ccTLD.  The Brazilians are free to choose to
use either -br, -brazil or -brasil in this instance.

> That drives me to pre-announce that we will have some sort of a "IRC
> Council" of admins/moderators/mediators of IRC channels, to
> collaborate with Forum and Mailing-lists peers to manage
> technical/conflict/discussion topics/issues and escalates to the
> community council in case of need (more on the whole organisation
> soon).
> 

Doesn't it make more sense to comply with the already existing standards
of the Ubuntu and Fedora projects in regards to naming IRC channels?
And as far as naming the channel #mageia-gb for the UK, many Irish would
simply feel offended in not recognising their official status in the
United Kingdom,  as a Welshman if you were to name the -UK channel
-England or -Eng for short I would not be best pleased.

Cofion Gorau,
Christopher Swift
-- 
Christopher Swift <christopher.swift at linux.com>