Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

Post by sciurus » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 11:46 AM UTC

axaxs wrote: post #38

tannhaeuser wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too harsh IMO. FF is working absolutely great on my desktops, phone, and as dev browser. And Rust seems extremely popular with a vocal minority on HN at least. But yeah, I'm concerned as well - Mozilla should focus on producing a good browser rather than pouring energy into side projects such as Rust and especially WASM which do not contribute to that goal.

I want to believe that, and even tried to go all Firefox for the previous two weeks. I will say they have good Sync, which nobody outside of Chrome had achieved at all. The desktop browser is mostly OK, no real complaints. On mobile, however, Firefox is noticeably slower than any of the usual blink based browsers, and most importantly to me, uses way more battery life. I love PL things and am glad Rust exists, but fr…

Post by andai » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #102

andai wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And when we’re talking about blind spots and invisible social access controls, of course, what we’re really talking about is privilege. “Working in the open”, in a world where computation was scarce and expensive, meant working in front of an audience that was lucky enough to go to university or college, whose parents could afford a computer at home, who lived somewhere with broadband or had one of the few jobs who…

Given ... everything ... about the internet, do you ever think we're at the "throw one away" point of the dev cycle?

Post by michaelt » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 12:12 PM UTC

0db532a0 wrote: post #65

stormbrew wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, systems that add registration onto irc tend to make it even harder to use than it already is. In order to make it better you basically have to make it at best act strangely with existing clients, or at worst make it completely incompatible with them.

You sound like you have absolutely no idea. You are greeted by NickServ on connecting with an unregistered nick, asking you to register with your email by sending a standard /msg. You open the email and click the link. I remember doing this for FreeNode at the age of 13. It’s fine.

Post by stevewillows » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 12:16 PM UTC

orev wrote: post #3

As an IRC user since the early 90s (EFnet and freenode), I can say that it really feels like it is dying. There are still a few popular channels with helpful people, but the vast majority of channels are silent with no one but afk users logged into a seemingly forgotten ‘screen’ session. And of the channels that do have real people, those people often seem to be there for no reason other than to tell people to RTFM,…

Post by iforgotpassword » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #86

iforgotpassword wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it sounds like regarding moderation, slack is at best on par with irc. And while on orc you can pretty much script and automate anything you want to facilitate the moderation job, with slack you're at the mercy of having some documented or undocumented api call available? One step forwards and two steps back...

And yet, slack has seen exponential growth, while IRC was always available but rarely used. We have seen this before and we will see it again. If OSS wants to be widely used, it needs to take UI seriously, and not dismiss it as frivolous “eye-candy”. It’s ok so say ‘no, we are fine within our niche’. But then you don’t get to arrogantly explain to them how they are “taking one step forward, two back” by not embarking…