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

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