My experience is otherwise. I've found the IRC groups for Python and PHP to be quite friendly. The one for Wordpress suffers a bit from "I don't know you, so I

My experience is otherwise. I've found the IRC groups for Python and PHP to be quite friendly. The one for Wordpress suffers a bit from "I don't know you, so I presume you're an idiot" but not to the same degree as the Emacs or Lisp ones. I think there's some interaction between IRC and Lisp that causes this sort of sociopathic behaviour in a small but loud subset of the community -- and the rest don't do enough to discourage it, which makes them all complicit.