#wikipedia-en is a channel where english wikipedia editors and admins hang out, and it is fun watching their discussions. #wikimedia-dev is where most of Mediawiki development happens these days, so that is nice too. #wikimedia-opearations is fun too once you ignore the icinga bot spam - not often do you get to see a world class ops team operate that transparently :)
Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
51–60 of 95 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#52I've found #bash to be full of very helpful people. They don't get tired at all of being asked common bash questions. On most channels, if you ask a common question, they tell you to RTFM. But not on #bash. They still tell you to RTFM, but nicely, and usually after they give you an actual answer. Especially that greybot guy.
+1. Bash people are great.
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
" Haskell is invariant under gender. Really!" Some great stuff in there :)
I think merijn got the highscore in the conversation though :-P
I think the whole channel joining in on the "we're going to troll you back by being super nice" is the real winner.
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#54HACKED!
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#55I don't know that there are too many interesting "abstract" IRC communities, beyond those Freenode channels specific to a given programming language or technology.
I leave a connection to Freenode running while I'm at work, in a few channels related to my job... so that during builds, or other short bursts of idle time, I can glace over and see if there are any questions I can answer. Likewise, I throw out a quick question of my own every now and then, when I'm afraid it's too subjective in nature to avoid being closed by StackOverflow-lawyers.
I've lost interest in general chat, outside of specific questions and answers. From what I've seen, the nicer communities are the newer channels. Ironically, they degrade over time as their underlying technology matures. You would think that channels like #clojure and #go-nuts would be populated by immature hipsters, while ##java would be made up of 40-something corporate types. However, I've found that those first two channels are welcoming and thoughtful, with interesting discussion always taking place... whereas ##java (even its mods) frequently sound like pre-teens yelling profanity at each other on XBox Live.
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#56#startups on Freenode was mentioned here before, I think.
#startups is a very unfriendly place with power-tripping mods. Don't go there.
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#57just connect to some popular network like freenode, and retrieve the channel list, and sort by users. #ubuntu 1701 #archlinux 1695 #bitcoin 1602 #debian 1492 ##linux 1360 #python 1349 #freenode 1304 #haskell 1200 #Node.js 1186 #dogecoin 1120 #gentoo 1091 #git 1047 #puppet 956 ##javascript 941 #vim 936 #python-unregistered #go-nuts 893 #android 889 #bash 858 #ruby 847 #jquery 750 #postgresql 747 #litecoin 711 ##math 7…
People are often assholes on IRC. I think the experience of using the channel is part of the OP's question.
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#58There is one particular use of IRC channels that is insanely useful, that I'd like to share. On various programming language channels, there are ad-hoc expression evaluation bots that experienced people use to guide newcomers through the intricacies of the language. If you're new to Haskell, for example, what you can do is grab the logs for the past 3 years, grep for "> " (used to invoke the evaluator) and you have i…
excerpt of #haskell quality of life https://gist.github.com/quchen/5280339
i just want to get kicked out of a bunch of channels for fun
13:20 why is no one cooperating with me
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#59#lounge @ entropynet
Re: Ask HN: Best IRC channels?
#60One that i run is www.chatwebdev.com webby types mainly UK based.