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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)

#311

Post by Dylan16807 »

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.

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

I don't know what expense you're imagining, but my IRC logs took almost zero CPU to acquire and they add up to well under a gigabyte per year before I apply transparent 4x compression.

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

#312

Post by Groxx »

ranger207 wrote: post #302
Groxx wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you are a Push To Talk user, I'm honestly curious: how is it different from temporarily un-muting yourself? Like, how does it work better for you, or cause fewer problems, or something. It's so popular in so many places that I assume I'm missing something obvious. I've always just hit a key to toggle mute though.

I mean, practically speaking it is just temporarily unmuting yourself. It's active while being held instead of toggling is the only major difference

That is what it seems like to me too.

Which is why I find it puzzling that it's so frequently a make-or-break feature, when everything I've used since early teamspeak days has had a keypress to toggle mute. (I have not used Teams)

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

#313

Post by zer8k »

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 don’t understand the problem. No one really connects to IRC directly. You always go through a bouncer. Bouncers can log.

I understand if what you mean is it’s an extra step the technically challenged don’t want to do but the ability to do so has existed forever.

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

#314

Post by nulbyte »

doublerabbit wrote: post #252
j45 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, connecting to a client or bouncer right on the server resolves this.

Yes, but then you need a client/bouncer which costs some sort of resource, whether it being your own computer, VPS or paid service. It's not trivial to setup a bouncer for the new guy who's just worked out how to connect to IRC.

> It's not trivial to setup a bouncer for the new guy who's just worked out how to connect to IRC.

As I recall, newbies often figured out how to do this pretty quickly, even before the recent trend of IaaS and free tiers. Shell accounts with bouncers were a quite common offering back in the day.

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

#315

Post by stagas »

madeofpalk wrote: post #3

> Even if you have full-on Stockholm syndrome in regard to advertisers data-mining your life to sell you garbage, who knows where else your data could be going? Considering the horrific epidemic of sexual abuse being abetted and covered up in the workplace, is it really too difficult to imagine malicious actors at Discord (or any other technology company) illegitimately accessing the data of their business' users and…

The lack of features, is a feature.

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

#316

Post by theshrike79 »

nologic01 wrote: post #171
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…

Its still somewhat slow with loading existing chats but Matrix has serious potential. It is already doing much better than the fediverse in terms of discovering niche communities.

The slow loading and tracking of who has read what are the two biggest gripes I have about the protocol.

If I'm joining a huge channel with thousands of people I _really_ don't care whether astroboy8756 has read my message or not. I don't want that traffic to enter my client at all.

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

#317

Post by stu2b50 »

lbourdages wrote: post #230
MildRant wrote: post #107

> The fundamental fact that Discord users refuse to see is that the platform isn't run on magic dust and fairy incantations, but actual human beings. Using Discord is no different from having a group of strangers sitting in your room with you, noting down every word you say to your friends and everything you run on your computer, and doing the devil knows what with it. Anyone making this argument doesn't understand w…

My main issue about Discord is not what it is, but what it replaced. A lot of websites or forums have been replaced by Discord. It sucks, because it's fundamentally a messaging app, but people will use it for reasons where a website would male sense ("link is in my Discord").

That's on the things (vbulletin forums, etc) that Discord and Reddit have replaced for being so bad that people would prefer using Discord over them. It's hard to blame Discord for making a good product. As to users, a UX principle is that users aren't wrong, the UX is wrong. There's a reason people use Discord for these purposes, and you need to resolve that reason, not make punitive actions towards users.

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

#318

Post by Zetice »

eropple wrote: post #264
Zetice wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I did "solve the problem". I use Slack and Discord to talk to the cohorts who used to be on IRC. Your behavior in this thread is really strange. Discord's a fine tool. So is Slack. I have nothing to fix, and my posts in this thread have been explaining why for me they're fit for purpose when IRC isn't. Why would I "do something about" a situation that isn't a problem for me?

Then why bring up IRC’s lack of a “pleasant” app? Just seems like a problem you can and should solve for yourself, but is otherwise wholly unrelated to the protocol.

One doesn’t complain about http because the mobile browser options aren’t to one’s liking.

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

#319

Post by Zetice »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #307
Zetice wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally all of your concerns are 100% solved by adding a log bot to the channels you care about, both on IRC and Discord. I’m beyond sick of the helplessness performative shtick around Discord. This is an ancient problem with obvious solutions. Do better.

Among other things, there's no way to add a log bot to private messages.

[flagged]

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

#320

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

jmclnx wrote: post #275
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.

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

This is a problem solvable with a newfangled thing called „server configuration”.
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