openmoko irc logs available ?

[Rod Whitby]

Hanno 'Rince' Wagner wrote:
> Rod Whitby schrieb am 06. August 2007:
> 
>> Such things are common-place on IRC (look for a user named 'apt' or
>> 'ibot' or 'jbot' or '*-log').
> 
> These are bots, of course. But no one said that they are logging and
> publishing in the same way.

Well, no one said they weren't either (and the -log part of the name is
a bit of a clue too).  It's not a new thing - it's been happening for at
least 5 years in *lots* of channels that I know about.  There are logs
on ibot.rikers.org (which I have no association with) dating back to May
2001.  The #debian channel has been logged there since 2002.  The
#bzflag channel has been logged there since 2001.

>> I hope you realise that the archives of this mailing list are publicly
>> available for people to read too ...
> 
> You realise that there is a huge difference between mailinglists and
> irc-channels? 

Obviously not as far as privacy of the discussion goes ...

The simple fact is that if you say something in a publicly accessible
place, then you really need to assume that Google is going to index it
sooner or later.

> You have quite often a discussion in irc-channels which have nothing
> to do with the subject of the channel itself - between friends, who
> are just talking since they are there at the same time. But these
> talks also get published - without their knowledge. Usually you only
> "see" the people who are active on that channel.

Perhaps the logging will help to curtail the amount of off-topic chatter
on channels that are specific to a topic.  It's not a 'my friend and I
having a chat' channel - it's an 'openmoko' channel.

There are lots of people in various timezones around the world that
depend on the logs to keep up with what is being discussed in the IRC
channels.  Do you think that they want to read through the off-topic
chatting of friends?

>> Oh well, at least you can still read what's going on in the IRC channel
>> by looking at the logs ;-)
> 
> If the policy is that everything gets logged, I don't care for the
> irc-channels since I see it as a breach of privacy. then I prefer to
> see the official announcements or see some people in more trusting
> channels where I know that nothing someone sais gets logged and
> published in the wide world.

I doubt there is any policy, the simple fact is that most technical
discussion channels are logged, for the simple reason that people want
access to the technical information and discussion that is happening
when they are not able to be physically present in the channel.

[BTW, what is a "more trusting channel"?]

Sorry to be the messenger of this bad news for you - I didn't make the
rules, nor did I start the general practice of logging of technical
discussion IRC channels.  It's a fact of life on the Internet ...

-- Rod