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IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

koshka.love

421–430 of 446 posts

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

#421
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in fairness, I believe the guy that got caught posting classified docs in a small private discord server would appreciate privacy, even if I myself and a lot of people almost exclusively use public servers and would prefer if they were even less private so internet search would work.

His friends passed the documents along to their friends, and they eventually got the attention of the New York Times. At that point tracing the documents back to him would probably have happened regardless of whether he used IRC or anything else. Do you have any evidence that him using a centralized platform like Discord played a role in him getting caught?

Hypothetically speaking if instead of using Discord normally and using his real info for billing Discord only accepted Monero and was only accessible via Tor it would be harder to identify him.

But that's not really my point, just picking a random famous example of someone who would want Discord to be private.

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

#422
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have higher expectations and needs than single word matching.

It’s amazing someone just doesn’t connect an existing open source search to it Oh wait they’re probably using nosql

They're using ScyllaDB, which is indeed a NoSQL database. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xmFOAUhsk

Their main consideration is latency, not search.

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

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond the backlog support, it's the addressing of the backlog. Discord's search function is so bad it's essentially unusable so having the backlog is often useless, however the ability to "pin" a useful message or discussion by getting a link is very relevant. Baseline IRC doesn't have message addressing, regardless of backlogging. You need the "message-tags" extension ( https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/message-ta…

"Discord's search function is so bad it's essentially unusable" Discord's search function is 1,000x better than what's built into Windows 10 and 11. I've found pictures I posted from years ago in discord, Windows 10 can't even find half the files I downloaded and transferred to another drive the other day.

Windows is the lowest bar to clear, isn't it?

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

#424
post #333
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chat without history is such a waste. I used IRC recreationally back in the day, then at work for 10 years. What a total garbage communication format IRC is. People changing nicks to indicate being away was my biggest complaint.

It is unnecessary, AWAY indicates status, however people prefer changing their nick. of course, on mobile era, AWAY is unnecessary given you have a good mobile irc client.

I like my sleep undisturbed.

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

#426
post #131
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are good reasons to not have a backlog in a chat system. For one it stops you from being lazy and not maintaining FAQs and documentation. It also forces you to stop treating the chat as something you need to keep up to date with. At work I see people commonly scrolling back for pages and pages to find the last read marker and continue reading from there. This seems unhealthy to me. I use a bouncer but I very ra…

This is a good point. Using chat as a source of truth is not a good idea Over time it becomes more and more ridiculous to use it as your knowledge base.

Telling people to stop chatting is close to a nonstarter. You have to offer a better alternative.

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

#427
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you said third party and meant Discord, falsely presuming Discord stores the content of your private conversations in an accessible way, and in this context in a way that makes it… harder? To publish as documentation (you know, the original topic). And since you’ve apparently never joined an IRC channel before, you don’t get any history of the channel at all, you only get the messages that are sent while you’re i…

> falsely presuming Discord stores the content of your private conversations in an accessible way What do you mean presuming? I can log in from anywhere and access them, and they're not encrypted with any key I'm the controller of. > and in this context in a way that makes it… harder? To publish as documentation (you know, the original topic) You can't add a bot to an existing direct chat. You can only make new group…

Private conversations are completely irrelevant to this discussion, so not sure why you keep bringing them up.

And you did say IRC logged without bots, which it doesn't. You were wrong.

And a bot would stay connected to get every message, regardless of the year, and no a "good chunk" of IRCv3 efforts aren't around server logging, that's hilariously incorrect and just shows you're randomly saying shit to try and be right.

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

#428
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> falsely presuming Discord stores the content of your private conversations in an accessible way What do you mean presuming? I can log in from anywhere and access them, and they're not encrypted with any key I'm the controller of. > and in this context in a way that makes it… harder? To publish as documentation (you know, the original topic) You can't add a bot to an existing direct chat. You can only make new group…

Private conversations are completely irrelevant to this discussion, so not sure why you keep bringing them up. And you did say IRC logged without bots, which it doesn't. You were wrong. And a bot would stay connected to get every message, regardless of the year, and no a "good chunk" of IRCv3 efforts aren't around server logging, that's hilariously incorrect and just shows you're randomly saying shit to try and be ri…

> Private conversations are completely irrelevant to this discussion, so not sure why you keep bringing them up.

You said "Literally all of your concerns are 100% solved by adding a log bot to the channels you care about, both on IRC and Discord." to someone that was talking about Discord being bad at logging in general, which to me would include private conversations.

> And you did say IRC logged without bots, which it doesn't. You were wrong.

I said you can log it without bots. Every standalone client I have ever used did it by default.

A client can stay connected all the time. A bot may or may not stay connected all the time. You should not conflate the two.

On Discord you need a special bot account to log without breaking the ToS. On IRC you not only don't need a bot account, you can just connect your normal client and be done.

> and no a "good chunk" of IRCv3 efforts aren't around server logging, that's hilariously incorrect and just shows you're randomly saying shit to try and be right.

Specifically I was saying that in response to "you only get the messages that are sent while you’re in there".

https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory

https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/read-marker

I'd call this a good chunk. Every time I've seen someone list the features of IRCv3, servers buffering messages to send channel history to clients is one of the features they mention.

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

#429
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private conversations are completely irrelevant to this discussion, so not sure why you keep bringing them up. And you did say IRC logged without bots, which it doesn't. You were wrong. And a bot would stay connected to get every message, regardless of the year, and no a "good chunk" of IRCv3 efforts aren't around server logging, that's hilariously incorrect and just shows you're randomly saying shit to try and be ri…

> Private conversations are completely irrelevant to this discussion, so not sure why you keep bringing them up. You said "Literally all of your concerns are 100% solved by adding a log bot to the channels you care about, both on IRC and Discord." to someone that was talking about Discord being bad at logging in general, which to me would include private conversations. > And you did say IRC logged without bots, which…

The client is the “bot” , which you know and are intentionally being obtuse.

And your links aren’t in any way suggesting the server logs messages, please try again.

But none of this is relevant to the original point that you can 100% obtain equal or better outcomes using Discord in all cases for conversation persistence. Complaining about Discord as a replacement to IRC is ignorant and pointless.

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

#430
post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Private conversations are completely irrelevant to this discussion, so not sure why you keep bringing them up. You said "Literally all of your concerns are 100% solved by adding a log bot to the channels you care about, both on IRC and Discord." to someone that was talking about Discord being bad at logging in general, which to me would include private conversations. > And you did say IRC logged without bots, which…

The client is the “bot” , which you know and are intentionally being obtuse. And your links aren’t in any way suggesting the server logs messages, please try again. But none of this is relevant to the original point that you can 100% obtain equal or better outcomes using Discord in all cases for conversation persistence. Complaining about Discord as a replacement to IRC is ignorant and pointless.

I'm not being obtuse.

The biggest problem with discord bots is that you need a completely different kind of account to have a bot, and even worse that account can't join servers normally. You're not allowed to run a logger on your own personal account.

Because of that, IRC gives better results in many scenarios. Discord is not equal or better in all cases. If I don't set up a special arrangement with the moderators or break the ToS, all my channel messages are vulnerable to being deleted forever on a moment's notice. And if I get locked out of my account I lose all past private messages.

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