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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

#361

Post by zapzupnz »

swiley wrote: post #323
zapzupnz wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These 1) don't work when you need them too They don't? They work perfectly fine for me and always have. Citation needed. > 2) are very much antifeatures According to whom? People use and profit from these features all day, every day on Slack and Discord. Whether you put any stock into them doesn't make any difference: they are features for a vast number of people other than yourself, they are definitely features. >…

> People use and profit from these features all day, every day on Slack and Discord. Whether you put any stock into them doesn't make any difference You have totally missed the point of what I said. I know some people want them and it's nice to be able to correct your "there" to "their." That's fantastic, good for them. My complaint is that these features are abused by nasty people who you end up having to work with…

> My complaint is these features are abused by nasty people who you end up having to work with

I mean, not being able to edit or remove messages, by one's own and those of others in the case of a moderator, can be just as susceptible to abuse.

Abusive messages not being able to be removed, potentially and needlessly staying in front of hundreds or thousands of users' eyes is one issue I can come up with off the top of my head. Especially true for IRC clients that provide image previews for posted spam links if those links contain disturbing content (and no, it's not a reasonable response to expect people to turn those off; people can enjoy media the way they want, not just the way you deem fit).

> When I can't trust software running on my own machines to accurately tell me what someone said yesterday that's unacceptable

Just as well Discord, Slack, and others put a little "(edited)" annotation next to edited messages. Plus, one can only edit one's own messages; moderators cannot edit other peoples' messages as they can on forums.

> I don't think there's any bigger work around than having to screenshot an app every time certain people send you a message

Bots can log messages, including message editing and deletion events. If your preferred Discord/Slack server provides a public log, that sorts that out; if it's your own Discord/Slack server, you can provide your own bot. These can be as simple as 20 lines of Python, maybe less. I'm sure services like Mattermost, which seems to be the top open Slack clone, would facilitate these features more easily.

I would imagine Mozilla would keep logs. Further, Discord also automatically provides a moderation log to keep a history of all those events.

It really sounds like you're inventing to do with software with which you've little experience.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#362

Post by zapzupnz »

zapzupnz wrote: post #110
astrobe_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC has gigatons of clients because it is an open protocol. Some clients are even shareware/commercial. Same goes for servers and server admin interfaces. IRC may have its shortcomings, but its worst defect, for the too many people that want to have fun while pretending to communicate, is that it is not "modern".

> for the too many people that want to have fun while pretending to communicate It's exactly this kind of flippant dismissal that is why IRC is dying, because there are too many people who equate modernity with frivolity. That is, unless our requirements strictly adhere to your arbitrarily-defined notions of that which has merit, our voices are left unheard. And IRC's greatest defenders wonder why everybody jumps shi…

https://xkcd.com/1782/

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#363

Post by NikkiA »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #245
mirkules wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Then presumably you never did work over IRC. The fact that you can have discussions in asynchronous real time out in the open makes (made?) for a far superior developer experience compared to forums, text messages, emails, and everything in between, because everyone could _passively_ follow the conversations that were happening. IRC is the ship's "always on" walkie talkie: do you need it? No. Does it provide a layer…

> 1995

Minor nitpick: 1988 to 1993, depending on what you consider 'irc'. (1988 for irc1, 1993 for the standardization of ircII that still defines irc today, 1992 if you consider the efnet/undernet fork to be the birth of true irc).

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#364

Post by laughinghan »

ohithereyou wrote: post #325
laughinghan wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you have them deal with harassment and spam, or do you not believe it is as much of a problem for them as they claim it is?

Usenet kill file style support for chat clients, optionally with a subscription option to shared blocklists like uBlock Plus supports.

Couldn't you trivially defeat that by randomizing your IRC username? Blocking email addresses does literally nothing against email spam, why would chat be different?

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#365

Post by ohithereyou »

laughinghan wrote: post #364
ohithereyou wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usenet kill file style support for chat clients, optionally with a subscription option to shared blocklists like uBlock Plus supports.

Couldn't you trivially defeat that by randomizing your IRC username? Blocking email addresses does literally nothing against email spam, why would chat be different?

More of what I was thinking was a killfile controlled by the user, uploaded to the server when updated, that would allow the server to filter messages. You could allow shared blocked lists and support wildcards with whitelist exceptions. In this way, you can block everyone and whitelist who you want, so changing your IRC user name does not help.

In most cases, unless the person connects from somewhere else, specifying a sufficiently wildcarded netmask for the host part also prevents the IRC nick change.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#366

Post by laughinghan »

ohithereyou wrote: post #365
laughinghan wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you trivially defeat that by randomizing your IRC username? Blocking email addresses does literally nothing against email spam, why would chat be different?

More of what I was thinking was a killfile controlled by the user, uploaded to the server when updated, that would allow the server to filter messages. You could allow shared blocked lists and support wildcards with whitelist exceptions. In this way, you can block everyone and whitelist who you want, so changing your IRC user name does not help. In most cases, unless the person connects from somewhere else, specifyin…

Doesn't blocking everyone except a whitelist defeat the purpose of having your IRC chatroom open to the public?

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#367

Post by djsumdog »

dTal wrote: post #109
astrobe_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC has gigatons of clients because it is an open protocol. Some clients are even shareware/commercial. Same goes for servers and server admin interfaces. IRC may have its shortcomings, but its worst defect, for the too many people that want to have fun while pretending to communicate, is that it is not "modern".

Its worst problem is the inability to request scrollback from the server. I don't understand why that extension wasn't written, like, 20 years ago. You also need a "de facto official" client that includes a small list of default servers, and big friendly buttons for /JOIN and /PART - in fact the user should not be required to type a /COMMAND at any point.

There are IRC bouncers and Matrix bridges that can give you server history.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#368

Post by swiley »

zapzupnz wrote: post #361
swiley wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People use and profit from these features all day, every day on Slack and Discord. Whether you put any stock into them doesn't make any difference You have totally missed the point of what I said. I know some people want them and it's nice to be able to correct your "there" to "their." That's fantastic, good for them. My complaint is that these features are abused by nasty people who you end up having to work with…

> My complaint is these features are abused by nasty people who you end up having to work with I mean, not being able to edit or remove messages, by one's own and those of others in the case of a moderator, can be just as susceptible to abuse. Abusive messages not being able to be removed, potentially and needlessly staying in front of hundreds or thousands of users' eyes is one issue I can come up with off the top o…

> people can enjoy media the way they want, not just the way you deem fit

Unless the official client doesn't support it of course. (showing edits as new messages is a great example of this.)

And I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to enjoy that, but everything has trade offs and automatically opening links from strangers certainly has a lot of those.

>Just as well Discord, Slack, and others put a little "(edited)" annotation next to edited messages. Plus, one can only edit one's own messages; moderators cannot edit other peoples' messages as they can on forums.

I'm well aware of that, it still doesn't help me when I need to see the original version of the message.

> Bots can log messages,

Having to run personal bots is one of the arguments you've made against IRC. Furthermore, it's often not allowed.

> If your preferred Discord/Slack server

If I could pick the server most of my problems would go away.

>It really sounds like you're inventing to do with software with which you've little experience.

I have less experience with it than IRC, when I used to use IRC it was voluntary because it was actually pleasant. I never use slack, discord, or lync/skype voluntarily, but I've been forced to use all three by various organizations.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#370

Post by carterschonwald »

mcguire wrote: post #306
carterschonwald wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently evaluated a number of options. I was surprised to realize discord has by far the best moderation / permission / access conctrol management. Plus unlimited webhook and boy support. Granted, it has to handle gamer communities.

I'm hoping you meant "bot support". :-)

hot damn, thats a good typo. ROFL. thanks for catching that :)
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