The channel #wikimedia-codereview was created as part of T128371: Set up Code Review office hours. The creation was opposed on that task almost immediately after it was done. Excerpts from various comments and arguments can be found below (tried to adress both sides with everything I could find, despite my bias). Personally I've already expressed that I'm in favor of dropping that channel and move things over to #wikimedia-tech. As I found a lot of other comments that seem to agree (or that at least stated this channel should not have been created in the first place) I've got the impression one could even say there is consensus not to have a seperate channel for this, hence I'm creating this task.

In T128371#2212270, MZMcBride wrote:

I've seen #wikimedia-tech get some use for code development and review lately and it's been very refreshing to see. We also have #mediawiki (and #wikimedia-dev and...) of course.

In T128371#2212668, Nemo_bis wrote:

Both wikimedia-tech and mediawiki qualify. It's extremely sad that another channel has been created.

In T128371#2214580, Legoktm wrote:

But more generally, if people begin discussing patches in a separate channel fragmented away from where everyone else is, how am I supposed to help? Many of my reviews are "drive-by" because I see people discussing them on IRC and have an opinion that I think will be helpful. Fragmenting what community we have left seems like a terrible idea. Instead, I'd like to point to an example which I really like, and that's been [@]coren's use of #wikimedia-tech, which seems to have been effective in getting CR and people excited about his project. Kudos!

In T128371#2214876, Dereckson wrote:

The code review windows could be a real thing totally integrated to regular workflow. So if people confirms #wikimedia tech is A. a quiet channel B. a channel where development discussion happens, it's totally suitable for code review.

In T128371#2215472, hashar wrote:

I tend to agree there are already enough channels as such and adding yet another one is adding confusion.

In T128371#2217530, Bawolff wrote:

Having it in #wikimedia-dev (or MediaWiki-General) would help involving drive by participants.

This has come up again in T173770: Code Review Hours advertised but not taking place? lately:

In T173770#3626123, EddieGP wrote:

IMHO:

• I think #wikimedia-codereview shouldn't exist. This was already discussed on T128371 right after that channel was created and of course it "feels right" to have a dedicated place for something as "important as code review", but the effect basically is that fewer people take notice of these events. As I write this, 27 accounts are idle in that channel. #wikimedia-tech has 237. Move there, that automatically increases the number of people aware of the event - at least on the side of people being able to review and CR+2, as much more of them seem to actively look into #wikimedia-tech regularly.

In T173770#3674582, Bawolff wrote:

I think if we were to ressurect code review office hours we should have some rules to recognize its not a one size fits all sort of thing:

• it should take place in a busyish channel (vitally important to draw in idling devs who arent specificly attending but could be drawn in)

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Opposing voices:

Luke081515 created that channel, though I haven't seen a comment from him about this.

In T173770#3628207, mmodell wrote:

@EddieGP: I agree that the IRC channel isn't the best way to get noticed by a lot of people, however, the low volume of messages has an advantage. If you paste a link into that channel it's much more likely to get seen by someone instead of being drowned out by wikibugs notifications or other unrelated discussion. So, while it's not regularly monitored by many developers, at least I check there often and regularly do code reviews when someone requests them.

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So, the arguments are basically:
Keep #wikimedia-codereview, stuff won't get lost in unrelated discussion there, which is likely to happen in other channels.

vs.

Drop it, move code review (sessions) elsewhere (i.e. in #mediawiki or #wikimedia-tech), where more (hopefully most?) people will notice it and are more likely to do 'drive-by' reviews. Also, let's not have Yet Another Channel™. With the "Technical Advice IRC meeting" there are other events somewhat aiming for newcomers in #wikimedia-tech already too, so having it there might help concentrating things in one place.

To counter the "stuff get's lost there" argument: Both of these channels do not have bots (wikibugs, monitoring or similar) sending messages to it (humans only). Especially #wikimedia-tech is rather low-traffic (having a quick look at the txt log files with wc -l exposes it were about 54 messages/day for September - on average, that is - but granted, 4 days peaked to >100).