[Development] PSA: Qt Project IRC logs & statistics

[Alan Alpert]

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 3:43 PM, André Pönitz
<andre.poenitz at mathematik.tu-chemnitz.de> wrote:
> On Thu, May 02, 2013 at 12:40:39PM -0700, Alan Alpert wrote:
>> This issue has already been covered by the relevant IRC experts,
>> http://freenode.net/channel_guidelines.shtml (last point on that
>> page), so we don't need to keep reframing the question from first
>> principles here.
>>
>> Given those guidelines, our possible answers are either "No (i.e.
>> there is no permission given for public logging)" or "list it in the
>> channel topic for logged channels (and possibly leave some channels
>> deliberately unlogged)".
>
> FreeNode themselves clearly favour "No logging".

They can speak for themselves, the page link is right there! I seem to
get a different reading out of it somehow though...

>> I'm personally in favor of the latter, because the free flow of
>> information is generally useful to open projects
>> (and this is *not* sensitive personal data).
>
> Whether the data as such counts as "sensitive" depends on your
> whereabouts.

Okay, so maybe the position should be to advise against publishing
regional channel logs. But we shouldn't decrease utility for everyone
just because some people are extra "sensitive" (so long as there's
still a viable way for those people to participate of course - one of
the clear points on that freenode page).

> We are talking about IP addresses and timestamps of enter/leave events
> which make up the bulk of the logged data.

I find it interesting that the freenode guidelines do not
differentiate between types of content, it's not clear if that
omission is deliberate or not. Nor is it clear that we can effectively
say to allow only "partial" logging. But if you're addressing this
from a practical standpoint, just ask Robin to skip join/part events
in what his bot publishes instead of losing the valuable dialogue as
well.

> I have a hard time to imagine _any_ legitimate use of that information
> within the official scope of the Qt Project. If you have any in mind,
> please explain.

One imagined use: In the context of this discussion we check logs to
analyze how often Robin's bot was in the channel, and how many
channels it was in. That's entirely based on the leave/part events,
and seems to fall within official scope as it affects
self-determination decisions.

PS: For those who wish to hide their IP address from most IRC logs,
this is easy to do. See http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#cloaks .

--
Alan Alpert