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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)

#271

Post by Karunamon »

magsarion wrote: post #184
rcxdude wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So supplement IRC with a bunch of other services? Realising people didn't want to deal with this shit is why discord is so popular. (Seriously, this response and others like it demonstrate that IRC will continue to remain a niche. I won't fault you if this kind of setup works for you but suggesting this kind of thing is acceptable for the average user is really, truly, genuinely out of touch. I'm among the demographi…

[dead]

>An IRC client with some bells and & some plugins that expand web-linked media would offer most of Discord's feature set.

And yet, this hypothetical client does not exist. Discord does.

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

#272

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

bitwize wrote: post #226
WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somehow fail to see how you cannot implement an IRC server that does logging and offers search/download of them on the side. That existing IRC implementations may be antiquated mammoth shit shouldn’t prevent anyone from building something new.

It's one of those things like "building an X server that isolates the graphics and events of untrusted clients from evert other client". It could be done, but people won't do it. They'll just whinge about its lack being inherent to the technology because there's more excitement in sweeping away the old tech and starting afresh than there is in building on what's there.

I can see that there’s no easy money in doing such a project, and that it’s quite a bit more than a few nights hobby project, so there are too many shits to give, but instead of whining about how technology is outdated, one can at least be frank about it.

I understand that a part of this whining is a desire to market one’s own proprietary silo which purports to solve these problems.

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

#273

Post by washadjeffmad »

imtringued wrote: post #48
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…

I recorded logs back in my IRC days but I never used them for anything or searched through them. That is a complete red herring. Nobody who uses IRC cares about persistent chat. What most people want is to see the last X hours of chat history while they were offline, so if they open their chat client they don't have to stare at an empty window, not the last X months. Also you forgot to say that Discord had a high qua…

I used Roger Wilco and Ventrilo until Mumble came out. I haven't given Discord a try because it's smothering, obsessive integration just rubs me the wrong way, like Teams.

Once every 5-10 years, I look through the logs I have that aren't on textfiles because the statute of limitations hasn't run out and relive a little of the history of how certain things came to be.

Those chats are an ethnography waiting to happen. You'll wish you had yours one day.

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

#274

Post by qudat »

agumonkey wrote: post #79
veave wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that IRC has no backlog support. When you join a channel it's like you actually joined a room. You don't know what they were talking about when you weren't there.

It's a very interesting topic. Feature will alter the sociological / human aspect of the tool. I could feel it on discord, you join a room like on IRC, you join a realm, a group with lots of idiosyncrasies. When I join an IRC chat there's a lot less baggage.. it's just a label / topic, it's very freeing. logging, message fixing, embedded replies .. all great but not important in the end. These things are blending pro…

Having the ability to reply to a message would be incredibly useful in irc, which is being worked on: https://ircv3.net/specs/client-tags/reply.html

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

#275

Post by jmclnx »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #134
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…

I somehow fail to see how you cannot implement an IRC server that does logging and offers search/download of them on the side. That existing IRC implementations may be antiquated mammoth shit shouldn’t prevent anyone from building something new.

I think because many people would not want that. I think if some channels start this, people would flee.

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

#276

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#277

Post by stefandesu »

jokoon wrote: post #250
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.

It's very interesting how different people's definition of "chat" is. The comment above yours (at the time of reading this) says "Chat without history is such a waste", so the opposite of what you are saying.

I think when I was a teenager, I did a lot of chatting online in the sense you are talking about, and I didn't really care about the backlog. But nowadays, there's no room for "chat without log" because it's way too involved. I don't do synchronous chatting anymore at all, basically. After reading your comment, it seems like "chat" in general is just not for me anymore. Asynchronous messaging, however, still has a big part in my life.

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

#278

Post by chromatin »

scarygliders wrote: post #78

I've been on IRC since the 90's and was an Op for Undernet #Linux & #Japan for many years, used to run an IRC server for a small IRC network back in my London days, and also ran a server for the same little network in my Japan days... The article was excellent, however, it made no mention of Matrix. Matrix, like IRC, is decentralised. You can run your own homeserver - just like running an ircd. Connecting to a Matrix…

Many who have causally read about Matrix and looked into running a homeserver have run across the reference implementation Synapse, which is (IMO only, pls no flame) a bloated python monstrosity. This turned me off for years.

A second-gen (?) alternative written in Go called Dendrite is much lighter weight, but is lacking in some features last I looked.

A couple of years ago, I found Conduit (https://conduit.rs/) an ultra lightweight homeserver implementation written in Rust with an engaged and responsive community. I've been running this for 18-24 months now and use it for family communications, as well as small business and my group at my $DAYJOB. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't already to check out Conduit :)

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

#279

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

hengheng wrote: post #7

At its core, I agree that the bare-bones nature of IRC can be wonderful. But all of the modern services like Teams, Slack and Discord, have seamlessness between client devices as their first priority. People leave their laptop, go to the bathroom, get their phone out and go on typing. I used IRC for a brief period even after we began to have multiple devices. It was always through some kind of proxy, or basically an…

> have seamlessness between client devices as their first priority. People leave their laptop, go to the bathroom, get their phone out and go on typing.

On IRC, I leave my desktop (quasselclient), go to the bathroom, get out my phone and go on typing (quassel app) (*)

All functioning because I'm actually connected to Quassel.

(*) actually I would never do this.

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

#280

Post by [deleted] »

tharne wrote: post #265
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 and telling people to just run an always-on logging service on top doesn't cut it. If you want a full conversation history then use something like email/listservs. IRC is for real-time chat. We already have a plethora of async options.

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