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IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

koshka.love

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Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#241

Post by backendanon »

op00to wrote: post #69
pmoriarty wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord has shitty logging and log-search capabilities. Discord's logging is shitty because: 1 - The logs aren't yours, they're Discord's. If you get banned from the server, your server shuts down, or Discord bans you altogether your access to those logs is gone forever. 2 - Unlike the logs of some IRC channels, Discord's logs aren't available on the web anywhere, so they can't be indexed or searched outside of Disco…

IRC is an information black hole where data that crosses the event horizon (scrolls off screen) will never return. Sure, you can write your own logs, but does your business want you creating even more information to have to submit as evidence if you’re sued? What a nightmare.

The wording reminds me of something I'd expect to read from a marketing person hoping to avert losing customers to an open source protocol.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#242

Post by _8j50 »

The one thing I dislike about matrix is how it has to use http. IRC is an escape from the web. The matrix api is simple enough to use a couple of curl commands for basic chat though.

A simple "everything is a json schema" protocol but over TCP/UDP would be cool.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#243

Post by ginko »

jrm4 wrote: post #213
ginko wrote: post #8

> The reliability and lack of bloat that are inherent to IRC ultimately also means that there are a number of fancy modern features that Discord has that IRC lacks, a big one being the inability to view backlogs of conversations that transpired while one was not connected to an IRC server. Although IRC does not itself provide this functionality, the extremely simple nature of IRC allows for a couple of lightweight op…

Genuine question: Why isn't "run bot on top" a solution for this? And for that matter, for "pretty much everything?" Seems to me the simplicity of the bot is the biggest feature?

Where do you host the bot? Not everyone has an always-on server.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#244

Post by spacecadet »

fzzzy wrote: post #6
spacecadet wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I occasionally connect to IRC on an Apple SE over wifi using an original ethernet card and a raspberry pi. Fun project.

Which client do you use? Back in the day i first loved Homer and then ircle

Here :) https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SHX3lRdVQS3U456yAJ9w...

Edit, Homer was great.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#245

Post by Dalewyn »

ginko wrote: post #8

> The reliability and lack of bloat that are inherent to IRC ultimately also means that there are a number of fancy modern features that Discord has that IRC lacks, a big one being the inability to view backlogs of conversations that transpired while one was not connected to an IRC server. Although IRC does not itself provide this functionality, the extremely simple nature of IRC allows for a couple of lightweight op…

>Logging isn't a "fancy" feature

If you're storing data, someone somewhere has to pay for housing it. One of the reasons IRC is lightweight is because a network and its constituent servers only facilitates exchanging data between users.

Consider how Discord is begging you and everyone to sign up for Nitro because they're housing and serving all of their data. Most IRC networks on the other hand operate perfectly fine off of donated volunteer time and hardware for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of users.

No data to store means cheaper and easier logistics. IRC is just a simple bridge, whereas Discord is a Costco.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#246

Post by Dalewyn »

Zetice wrote: post #210
eropple wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, this is a solved problem. On the other hand, mobile access on IRC not being unpleasant isn't and won't be, though, so the search for something better for users will continue. (To their credit, IRCCloud tries. They are the best swing at it I've seen. They aren't Slack-good, let alone Discord-good. The search continues.)

IRC isn’t an app, it’s a protocol. If you don’t like IRC clients as they exist, write or fund one of your own.

Why is this getting downvoted?

The spirit of what's argued is right in line with the spirit of free protocols, open source software, and venture capital funding for new challenges.

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#247

Post by TkTech »

redserk wrote: post #240
TkTech wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just started adding logs to notifico (ex: https://n.tkte.ch/c/1/2023-07-28 ), which is very barebones. Don't get much time to work on it, but I'm working on implementing search in a cost-effective manner. If the ~3000 IRC channels that use Notifico opt-in to logging they'll get it for free permanently, and I'll be offering nightly dumps to an SFTP server of your choice to make sure there's no lock-in. You're tot…

Thanks for hosting a service to help host the logs in a public manner. As far as logs hosting though, this only works for as long as you're willing to host though. It seems unlikely that Discord will disappear overnight -- or if this was a risk, I'd assume they'd be acquired with a large userbase. I've written IRC and Discord bots and don't think Discord bots aren't much more difficult. One of the best strengths of w…

I've already run it for more than a decade, it's not going anywhere :) The project is also open-source, and the daily SFTP log exports can be imported into another instance. I hate lock-in.

Ultimately, it uses an irrelevant % of resources on a dedicated box used for other projects, so it's not a financial or even operational burden. One of my favorite things about IRC is that if all you want to do is a JOIN a channel and PRIVMSG some people, the same code I wrote a decade ago works fine today. The project went almost 6 years without requiring a single code change from me, other than accepting 3rd party feature PRs.

I may have missed something last time I looked at it, but Discord was making it harder to react to all messages and wanted to force you to only use slash commands. The whole discord.py saga - https://gist.github.com/Rapptz/4a2f62751b9600a31a0d3c7810028....

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#248

Post by Beached »

tester756 wrote: post #16

Discord haters look, it is simple. Until Discord appeared we had Ventrilo, Mumble, TeamSpeak, Skype, etc, etc I've been using those for like 10 years almost everyday They had voice chat, some had viable text chat, etc, etc. And then Discord appeared which had: Voice Chat, Good text chat (images, code snippets, emojis, reactions, etc) Streaming Video (!!) File share Robust bot integration Lack of security problem unli…

I love and use discord daily. I totally understand why it is "winning".

I just wished it used an open protocol, and allowed its content to be indexed. I dislike proprietary as a principal, and I get that discord isn't going to open it's secret sauce, but at least allow the discord moderators to click a box that will index text channels for search engines and future people trying to solve the problem that's pinned on you faq I. your discord channel without having to join your discord channel. (mostly for when that discord channel goes away in the future, lal that knowledge isn't completely lost"

Re: IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

#250

Post by jokoon »

ginko wrote: post #8

> The reliability and lack of bloat that are inherent to IRC ultimately also means that there are a number of fancy modern features that Discord has that IRC lacks, a big one being the inability to view backlogs of conversations that transpired while one was not connected to an IRC server. Although IRC does not itself provide this functionality, the extremely simple nature of IRC allows for a couple of lightweight op…

Logging chat is really really expensive in terms of hardware and CPU.

I don't really understand why people would need to log chat, it doesn't really make sense to me. Chat is meant to be ephemeral, short lived, and not leave trace. Chat is spontaneous.

If users want to leave a trace, they use a database or email.

Discord added threads and forums, and those should be logged, but not channels.

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