Hey there. A lot of us who work at IT Mill (are geeks) enjoy chatting on IRC. Therefore we decided to start two #itmill channels. If you have any fast questions, or just want to drop a “hello” - join us on ircnet or freenode. #itmill is the place to be!
Would it be better to be only one network and to have only one channel? This way all the people would gather in one place. Or would it make joining the channel too hard for people that would otherwise be in some other network? If being in only one network would be the best option, what network would it be? Please post your opinion!
Whan doing cross-network channel searches on http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/ I noticed that (similar) ##gwt, #dojo, #hibernate and #spring channels are only available in freenode. Should we follow this pattern?
What’s the harm of having to channels? If the other channel has nearly zero participants, then people will most likely migrate to the other channel, don’t you think?
If we just make it clear, that people working at IT Mill use the other channel, it should be enough. Let people choose themselves what network to use.
Disclaimer: I’ve never used IRC, so I’m not sure if I’m talking rubbish or not 
It might a bit artificial to ‘ban’ one of the network channels. I think there’s no harm in having someone idling at the other channel, even if only one is deemed official. It’s not as if the either channel was too crowded currently…
Sure, it’s practical to have only one network and only one channel, but I also would want everyone to use a Mac, so I’d get more games and get them earlier, but I can’t have everything, now can I? 
(Seriously though,
if
there should be only one channel, I guess the Freenode one would be the natural choice.)
Sorry for being unclear - I am not proposing “banning” or “closing” one or the other of the channels. Self-organization is one of the most important aspects of the IRC. I was just wondering if we should promote one channel as “official”. On the other hand - what would be the value of it - maybe one of the channels start to gain popularity and “kills” the other other one just by being the one with more people on it
Freenode is more of an “tech” server, and would be a strong choice. However, most of linger in ircnet already and I for one would like to keep the needed irc servers at a minimum (already at ircnet and quakenet). This can already be seen in that we have 8 devs in ircnet and 2 in freenode.