Reddit is a bad measure. Many people don't browse it.
Most of the content/users are from one political side making it an echo chamber and a place to avoid.
Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
21–29 of 29 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
#22> The freenode subreddit on reddit has less than 200 subscribers.
Er, yeah, because they're on bloody IRC?
Tons of people know about Freenode. I barely ever use chat platforms other than IRC excepting communications with family.
It seems like a meme to me to pretend IRC is dead. It's about as dead as email.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
#23For chat, people will use Slack, Discord or Gitter. These new chat apps have clients on Linux/Mac/Windows and mobile apps and log messages remotely out of the box, where as with IRC, it requires additional setups and the solutions can be porous. The other thing is IRC is one of those things where instant feedback isn't guaranteed. So many /join, ask a question, and /part by the time I even read it. In those cases, th…
> With IRC, messages fade away and its really a matter of timing you find someone with the right expertise that bites. If you ask something at the wrong hour, you have to hope someone reads far enough up to answer you.
This is what connection bouncers solve. I think IRC just needs a good client. IRCCloud is a good client and bouncer service, cheap too. I can keep track of IRC convos from forever ago.
The only thing stopping an IRC client from being as resourceful as Slack or similar is the client developers. I've seen clients that preview images like Slack does, long before Slack was a thing. I think the KDE one does this? Or at least Quassel does.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
#24I my experience Freenode has lots of aholes like the admins in ##java who just want to insult people who join, asking them to Google everything, Tia's (try it yourself) and ban people who try to help since it ruins their feeling of power. Very toxic, so I would recommend everyone to stay away.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
#25A lot of programmers don’t want to be on IRC and prefer Slack or Discord. Simple as that.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
#26I spend every day on Freenode but it’s important to mention that Freenode is now operated by London Trust Media aka Private Internet Access, a beloved VPN service that was just bought by people with a shady past involving malware. Something to consider here.
I wouldn't say operated by. PIA is the largest sponsor but the network is operated by independent volunteers.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
#27I actively use Freenode (nominally for open source development, but in practice for keeping in touch with my friends), as well as other IRC networks. I don't think it's a good platform for a rich exchange of ideas or for developing software for the following reasons: - Messages are one line long. I couldn't write something like this comment. Much like Twitter, it's good for casual conversation with lots of people rea…
Your point about the length his true on other platforms as well.
I was recently automatically warned by a bot when I asked a question on a discord channel. The question was detailed, with some code and about 20 lines long. I got slapped because it is "spam" (and apparently hard to read on a mobile which is not true after checking on my phone) . Others channels are fine with that.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
#28I my experience Freenode has lots of aholes like the admins in ##java who just want to insult people who join, asking them to Google everything, Tia's (try it yourself) and ban people who try to help since it ruins their feeling of power. Very toxic, so I would recommend everyone to stay away.
I wouldnt recommend staying away. That implies the whole thing has no value. I've used it and found it ok for what it is. The tumbleweed effect of no-one around hits me due to timezones. That is a bigger negative to me.
My experience with freenode was similar to other forums. But I'd never be surprised by an online forum containing aholes. It almost necessary as part of a diverse ecosystem. How the forum deals with the bad is the real measure. That's hard when the admin is the part of that bad.
I prefer Discord for actual online group tasks because just about everything is better for our group's usecases, especially voice chat, bots, history, images, video etc. Being text only, IRC is less useful now in comparison.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't more people know about Freenode?
#29I spend every day on Freenode but it’s important to mention that Freenode is now operated by London Trust Media aka Private Internet Access, a beloved VPN service that was just bought by people with a shady past involving malware. Something to consider here.
I wouldn't say operated by. PIA is the largest sponsor but the network is operated by independent volunteers.
PIA went from a Freenode sponsor to owner a couple years ago.