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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

#171

Post by llao »

bwoodward wrote: post #120
eterm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then everything ends up like the 'defaults', with memes and easy to vote up pictures utterly dominating. Despite scrapping the office "defaults" list, there is still clearly a rotation that get set up as default and they are by and large garbage.

>And then everything ends up like the 'defaults', with memes and easy to vote up pictures utterly dominating. I mod a good-sized sub all by myself, and I'm fairly militant about what gets through. The guidelines are clear and automod picks up a lot of the 'defaults' stuff -- but every so often something slips through and it gets so much karma. A while ago I figured I'd just allow memes and stuff, assuming that this w…

Thank you! I wonder if there is a way to see the % of votes from subreddit members vs others. Memes and similar sh*tposts can really ruin a subreddit in weeks.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#172

Post by itchyjunk »

Looks like I am too late to this party. I just recently started visiting the mozilla ircd. There are lots of channels and very little way of navigating around. I was trying to figure out who to talk to about network support or if such a channel existed and no one had an answer. People come in asking support questions but no one has an idea of which channels to best ask in. #firefox, #introduction and #newbie are 3 channels doing the same thing and the questions just get split off. If they can't maintain their ircd, maybe just register a project on freenode who seems to be able to handle roughly 80k people just fine.

Edit: Just checked, freenode has a #firefox, not sure how official or how maintained it is.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#174

Post by caltelt »

mirkules wrote: post #146
norswap wrote: post #140

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.c…

Once all the chat systems without persistence have disappeared, some new hip company will come along touting “no persistence” as a feature, maybe even a privacy feature. But seriously, I don’t understand why persistence is such a huge deal to people. Chat is for transient chat - it is meant to be non-persistent just like verbal communication. There are so many mechanisms for persistent messaging (forums, text message…

I know I hate it when I join IRC channels and have no context as to what anybody has been talking about, as there is no history to quickly go over. Even just having the past days history would help in this regard, at least for more active channels.

It's the same as just barging into a conversation a group of people are having. You don't want to just join and start talking about a completely different topic. So you join, and wait for a bit to get a feel for what they're talking about before piping in. But with IRC, sometimes it can take _days_ to get that amount of information, depending on how active the channel is. The same thing could easily be accomplished by being able to read the last 10 messages in the channel.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#175

Post by snazz »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #159
the8472 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - the ability to delete one's own message, and have that deletion propagated > - the ability to delete other peoples' messages, and have that deletion propagated That means you are asking for control over other people's computers and what information they are allowed to display, i.e. DRM. It is also a falsification of history. > - the ability for all participants in the community to see messages in the same format,…

Is it DRM when a moderator deletes a post on a phpBB forum? Or does it only count when it's on Slack?

If a complete copy of all messages sent were on your computer and the administrator had the ability to delete this data from your computer whenever they want, I consider that to be an infringement on the control I expect of my own computer. On the other hand, the contents a phpBB forum (or even HN) are stored on someone else’s computer and no one has the ability to arbitrarily delete stuff that I’ve downloaded.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#176

Post by 42wim »

fulafel wrote: post #75

There's really a need for IM interop. These fragmented islands stall the network effect (Metcalfe's law) that is needed to sustain and grow communities. I guess the best thing for the current situatio would be a headless service that would connect to your IM identities, and buffer messages, from many different IM identities and protocols. You would then have intermittedly connected web or terminal or mobile apps as i…

Take a look at https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge which bridges a lot of protocols.

It only support public channels at the moment, but we're planning to add user/user communication too.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#177

Post by linuxftw »

norswap wrote: post #140

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.c…

Chatting isn't about always being online and getting messages. Somebody else in the channel should be capable of responding to a request. That's the whole point of a community, IMO.

Need to make sure something important is captured from an IRC discussion? Put it on a wiki/mailing list. There's also things like meeting bots. Most communities I've seen, there's very little value in an IRC chat history for conversations other people had (eg, just stuff like 'help me with x').

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#178

Post by snazz »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #119
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you have to fiddle with config files to use irc, you're doing something wrong. Every client I ever used shipped with a list of networks, you basically just click the one you want, get asked for your nickname, click a button, enter channel name, all set for next time.

But if you want a TUI client that involves editing config files, it’s an option. I like being able to make that decision for myself.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#179

Post by lugg »

sumedh wrote: post #152
xfitm3 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Slack is trash and hostile to users It seems better than Skype and Hipchat and whatever Google's latest chat app.

That's debatable. I can't stand hipchat but at least it doesn't fall over loading gifs.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#180

Post by T-hawk »

mirkules wrote: post #146
norswap wrote: post #140

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.c…

Once all the chat systems without persistence have disappeared, some new hip company will come along touting “no persistence” as a feature, maybe even a privacy feature. But seriously, I don’t understand why persistence is such a huge deal to people. Chat is for transient chat - it is meant to be non-persistent just like verbal communication. There are so many mechanisms for persistent messaging (forums, text message…

Why do people use chat services? They want responses. Getting responses is what Slack and Discord are optimized for and why they've gained adoption.

The chat services enable responses, by making it low friction, by giving the feel of being informal and real-time in a way that email and forums don't. They also enable asynchronous responses by being persistent, that your message won't go lost and unseen by a moment without network connectivity, unlike IRC. They also enable responses by being cross-platform and device-independent, unlike SMS. They also enable responses by centralizing account control of who participates, so users can join a ready-made group organized by an administrator, unlike say Facebook messaging.

Users seek maximal interaction. The Slack/Discord model achieves this by supporting both synchronous and asynchronous responses. The former requires an informal real-time interface, the latter requires persistence. That's what came together on these services that hadn't before.

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