How to Communicate

Communication with the developers is a great step to becoming a developer yourself.

There are several ways to communicate with people who are involved in Pioneer. We have some general guidelines for using these methods:

• The different media for communication are there for a reason. For instance, discussion on the IRC is the primary communication method but cannot be used for full coordination, as it's not used as a medium of collaboration by all - some contributors are available only through Github or the forum for collaboration and new contributors only observe Github or the Wiki.
• We try to keep Github Issues and Pull Requests the primary arena for code reviews and bug reports - for example, providing Pull Request feedback in the forums is not only off-topic, but also unproductive as not all contributors read the forum.
• Similarly, it is not appropriate to discuss aspects of project management/policy or non-relevant topics in a focused Github Issue or on a Pull Request - it is not visible to the critical audience, it disturbs the process of reviewing a Pull Request or discussing the present issue, and it makes things hard to find later.
• If an aspect of project management or high-level design comes up as a consequence of a focused discussion in an Issue or Pull Request, please avoid discussing it there and make a new Issue or post on the Forum where it may be appropriately addressed instead.

IRC

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. We use it for real-time internet text messaging related to the project.

The IRC channel #pioneer on libera.chat is where the core team hangs out during day/evening (time zone CET) and is a fast mean of communication. Chat is faster than a forum but it doesn't allow long messages and pictures.

All the engaged people from the community and the dev team can be found there, and are usually quick to answer during European day/evening time.

Connecting

As of 2021-05-26, Pioneer has moved to the libera.chat IRC network, which can be connected to at irc.libera.chat, port 6667 (6697 for SSL).

No Freenode?

Pioneer's IRC channel was on the freenode network at least from 2013-2021. However, in May of 2021, there was a hostile take over of the freenode network, and we joined the original freenode staff, and most other channels, in moving to its spiritual successor: libera.chat. For more info, please see:

• Freenode IRC operators now engaging in routine abuses of power
• freenode policy update
• andrew lee just seized over 700 channels on freenode
• Gentoo Freenode channels have been hijacked
• More hijacking

Webchat

Easiest if you're new to IRC, is to just click here (or use libera's own kiwi IRC here) which will open a webchat instance to the #pioneer channel in your browser (type message at bottom, where text indicates).

Software

In order to use IRC, you should download a client program. Popular programs are:

• Leafchat
• irssi
• X-Chat (free on Linux only, almost always available in distribution repositories)
• HexChat (fork of X-Chat, free on Windows and Linux, not always available in distribution repositories)

Channel Info

The channel has a bot, in cmdr_jameson, to which one can leave messages to users who are currently not logged in. A number of users are in the channel 24/7 and check the backlog daily. Usually, the channel is quiet during CET night.

Channel flooding

Channel flooding means the flooding of the channel with messages. This can be spam or repeated requests. If no one answers to your request, just wait a bit. If no one answers in the next half hour you can repeat your request. Please don't do drive by posting, answers will take time if posted in the middle of the night when the devs are counting sheep.

Netiquette

In addition to this there are also the rules of netiquette (Net+Etiquette). This means that you should always be nice to others. Always remember:

• Manners don't cost anything.
• The people who work on pioneer aren't paid for this, they are volunteers. So don't expect them to do everything you want them to do.

GitHub Issues

GitHub Issue tracker is where we track bugs. Please don't open feature requests here, as it will clutter up what we need to address. Feature requests are best posted on IRC (timezone CET) or the development forum. More Information about GitHub can be found here.

Development forums

For vetting of things, brainstorming, dicussion, feature requests, notes and proposals we use the development forum.