It's awkward that the author describes openstack, which is one of the few projects I am aware of that actually schedules meetings on IRC for discussions and deb

It's awkward that the author describes openstack, which is one of the few projects I am aware of that actually schedules meetings on IRC for discussions and debates (https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Meetings https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Meetings), quite literally to resolve issues where IRC doesn't work for them. Compare this to other projects/channel communities like #mysql, #postgres and #clojure where this doesn't happen, and all communications are ad-hoc. I agree with some of the other people that the author doesn't grok IRC. It doesn't force you to be instantly available, just available eventually. The amount of effort it takes me to respond to a question I know in IRC is an order of magnitude less than an email, and email lists with a lot of mindless chatter can just be as insular or more insular than IRC groups. If the author has issue with individuals getting constant highlights then they should redress them to communicate with the community as a whole. The appropriate interaction on IRC starts off with asking the channel/community as a whole a question (much like the mailing list described). It feels like openstack has a lot of newer people that don't really understand the expected etiquette/workflow on IRC.