In a new post on his blog Aaron Wormus raises concerns on the growing community size of the PHP IRC channels, and especially the problem with lurkers ("Note that when I say lurkers, I just mean people who park themselves in an IRC channel and don’t contribute to the channel. People who contribute and then go dormant for weeks/months are a different story").

"Sometime in the beginning of 2007 the community size started to grow quickly, however the number of active participants remained roughly the same. Basically the lurkers were growing, the channel is currently about to break 100 users. This situation brings up some special concerns, says Aaron.

• is it reasonable to expect that a public IRC channel can afford you any privacy.
• does a community that was built around “just farting around” have the right to be exclusive when they think that too many people are involved?
• is there any reasonable way to limit the number of lurkers?