Would an IRC Channel be a Good Idea?

[christopher_wolf]

I was just wondering if an IRC Channel would be a good idea for the Forums; I know there are a few on DALnet; but they seem to be dead most of the time and specialize mostly in Linux. What are the opinions on this?

It would prove useful for quick questions, urgent issues, and whatnot.

[doppelfish]

What are the opinions on this?

IRC is good for quick fixes to easy problems. Newsgroups or Forums (Forii? Fora? whatever :) are good for letting a number of experienced people check the forum once a day, have a look at your question, and to allow a few of them to respond with a well-resarched answer. This forum does the latter job pretty well.
Frakly, I can't see how an IRC channel would help with the stuff that is in this forum's focus.
Then again, I'd be delighted to meet You on FreeNode, UnderNet or EuIRCNet :)

cheers,
-- fish

[carbon_unit]

I think there is already an #ibmthinkpads on freenode.

[doppelfish]

I think there is already an #ibmthinkpads on freenode.

Lemme check ...

--> You are now talking on ##ibmthinkpad
--- Topic for ##ibmthinkpad is Free software support for IBM thinkpads // Mailing list archive: http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/mailm ... x-thinkpad // Wiki: http://www.thinkwiki.org // Why the channel name change? http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#channelnaming - #freenode for queries.
--- Topic for ##ibmthinkpad set by honey at Sun Aug 14 23:11:27 2005

And indeed there is.
Now, nothing is going to stop two (or more) forum users to meet at a particular time on an IRC channel where one walks the other through some problem/solution. I wouldn't expect that many of the forum users would hang out on IRC all day in the hope that someone shows up.

cheers,
-- fish

[christopher_wolf]

I know about those Thinkpad Channels; but how active are they nowadays?
I have been in them several times over a month thus far, duration 2 hours each time, asked a few questions, and haven't got anything back; they seem near dead for some reason. I can't say how helpful they are on any other OS other than Linux as well. Just something to think about.