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Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

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Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#131

Post by xfitm3 »

TheSwordsman wrote: post #33

As an admin helping out the Go Slack workspace, which is about to cross 39,500 registered users, they would be ill-advised to go with Slack if moderation is one of their goals. Full disclosure: our Workspakce does have some sort of agreement with Slack, so our space isn't a free space (we have full history), and even then we aren't able to get them to provide support around moderation of users. There is no mechanism…

Slack is trash and hostile to users, but unfortunately, it has significant momentum. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mozilla switches over.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#133

Post by behringer »

maximilianburke wrote: post #28
incompatible wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They apparently want anyone to be able to easily connect and talk to developers, except for trolls, scammers, spammers etc. I'm not really sure what kind of authentication provides that, but they seem to have something in mind.

Perhaps something like being able to browse and search without registering, but if you want to chat you need to create an account?

So basically muting all unregistered users by default. Something IRC can do.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#134

Post by miki123211 »

I know there were/are a few blind people working on Mozilla's stuff and the move to anything that is not open source will make it much harder for them. There was a person[1] who had done significant work on the Rust compiler and said that he would have a much harder time doing it now, since the move to Discord and that he might not be able to participate in the community after the switch[2]. Proprietary solutions are a little bit better for the 80% of people, but way worse and/or unusable for the 1 to 5 percent, depending on how techy the community is. We have to realize that those solutions have big gains, but they also have huge tradeoffs. IRC inconveniences some people. Discord excludes some completely.

[1] http://camlorn.net/posts/April%202017/rust-struct-field-reor... [2] This thread https://twitter.com/camlorn38/status/1121879891035602945

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#135

Post by zamadatix »

newscracker wrote: post #8

> We are not rolling our own. Whether we host it ourselves or pay for a service, we’re getting something off the shelf that best meets our needs. I sincerely hope it’s not Slack and some restricted search archive platform. Moving away from IRC to a newer system could provide long lived archives to users. But if privacy is very important, then a “no archive” option would be fine (similar to IRC). Anything in between,…

Everything being encapsulated in HTTPS is the result of waiting so long to be secure by default that the base network abstractions had ossified too much to realistically change.

TLS would have made sense as well but if you're already at that point you might as well bump up yet another abstraction layer because the programming ecosystem is bigger and it frees you from being tied to one security abstraction forever e.g. now you can use QUIC.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#136

Post by vertis »

TheSwordsman wrote: post #33

As an admin helping out the Go Slack workspace, which is about to cross 39,500 registered users, they would be ill-advised to go with Slack if moderation is one of their goals. Full disclosure: our Workspakce does have some sort of agreement with Slack, so our space isn't a free space (we have full history), and even then we aren't able to get them to provide support around moderation of users. There is no mechanism…

I can't fathom open source projects and communities using slack as a communication platform. I like slack, it's a great product for business, where you can pay $X for each user in your org.

However, OS and non-profit communities quickly run into the history issue. There is no way that some of the communities I'm part of on Slack could pay for all the users. For example, the "Maker's Kitchen" slack has 1500-2000 people.

How much information and knowledge is lost and questions re-asked?

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#137

Post by floatingatoll »

doomrobo wrote: post #25

I just want to say, for all it's worth, that the #rust channel on MozNet has been by far one of the most healthy and productive IRC channels that I've participated in. The channel is always active, and there is a constant presence of extremely qualified and patient folks in the chat (and often Rust core members as well). I hope that whatever they switch to will be able to foster a community as open and welcoming as t…

Rust’s post about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19761836

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#138

Post by 0db532a0 »

michaelt wrote: post #115
0db532a0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then you close your laptop and reopen it and you have to reconnect. Oh, you want it to automatically reconnect? No problem, you can automate identifying yourself to NickServ with a simple command like /NETWORK ADD -autosendcmd "/^msg nickserv ident pass;wait 2000" ExampleNet Oh, a ghost session stopped you connecting as YourName and now you're YourName2 ? No problem, NickServ can kill your ghost session so you can ge…

Bullshit objections. I cannot remember the last time I had a ghost session that I needed to have killed. NickServ password integration comes by default even in Emacs’s ERC.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#139

Post by floatingatoll »

progval wrote: post #63
kibwen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could levy this complaint if they actually end up picking Slack (or something similarly proprietary like Discord), but that seems quite premature. I'll miss moznet as much as anyone, but there's no denying that IRC has been left in the dust this past decade or more.

Rust is moving to Discord https://blog.rust-lang.org/2019/04/26/Mozilla-IRC-Sunset-and...

HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19761836

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#140

Post by norswap »

I never see addressed the biggest reason (according to me) why IRC loses, so let's spell it out.

IRC isn't persistent (i.e. you can't read messages delivered while you were offline) unless you setup an IRC shell. This is technically difficult (much more so than dicking with nickservs and so, which is already a pain point). Hosting it is also not free. Count 5$/month on CloudOcean or some such.

https://www.irccloud.com/ is a great service that alleviates the pain, but now you're paying 5$/month and you just have IRC — you can't run other services on your server.

If you value 5$ or your time more than the idea of "fighting for freedom by using IRC", you just don't use IRC unless you're forced to. This is not unreasonable, so many people do that, and consequently, communities miss out on these people.

You want to save IRC? Make a free (as in free beer) clone of IRCCloud. Easy.

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