What's the story re. darcs.haskell.org?

[Adrian Hey]

Hello folks,

These may be dumb questions, but I'm afraid I haven't been keeping
up with what's happening in the Haskell world recently..

So..

  Is darcs.haskell.org the recommended place to start a new project?

  If so, who owns/runs this machine and how do I get access to it?

  What's the rationale for it's current organisation e.g. why
  is there a separate "packages" directory? (There seem to be
  packages elsewhere) and what's the "packages.hide" directory for?

Thanks
--
Adrian Hey