[dogscoff]

All that stuff (and more!) is what is already discussed in #se4.

Well, yeah, but the problem is that ppl turn up, find no-one active there and go away again, so it's nearly always dead in there. And becasue it's dead, when people turn up they find no-one active... it's an entropic downward spiral effect.

However, if you were to organise a panel of shipset-design experts fielding questions at a specific time and date, I think you might find a lot of ppl on the channel at that time.

Then everyone would get to chatting with one another after the meeting, and so would probably come back and visit more often, hopefully reversing the spiral. Personally I think it's a great idea.