[falcolas]

That's exactly what I did (I was aware enough of IRC ettiquite that people idle in the rooms but may come back sometime later & answer): ask a question and usually answer my own question and quit without a response some 4 hours later.

[DasIch]

Keep in mind that those people may have been in a different timezone and simply were sleeping.

[falcolas]

Which is fine, but it doesn't make IRC any more effective than mailing lists for getting answers for open source projects.

[jlgreco]

Which is better depends entirely on what the question is. Most questions asked on IRC have absolutely no business on a mailing list, and the ensuing discussions would render the mailing list unusable.

Nobody advocates abandoning email for IRC. Right tool for the job, like anything else in life.