Freenode IRC logging archive Echelog is shutting down

I just wanted to take a moment and share with the HN community that IRC is definitely very alive and kicking! There are great channels for thousands of amazing projects, communities and teams spread across so many great IRC Networks, from Freenode [1] to OFTC [2], to Rizon [3], to DALnet [4], to tildeverse [5], Snoonet [6], Quakenet [7], EFnet [8], IRCnet [9] among other networks [10].

IRC is no longer difficult to use; there are great software applications across nearly every device that can be named which can work with and present the RFC1459 protocol splendidly, including weechat [11], KiwiIRC [12], Textual [13], Palaver [14], to mIRC [15], and AdiIRC [16], among others!

IRC has bots hosted by the community that can hook into github like bitbot [17] and supybot [18] among others.

You can also stay connected to IRC using an IRC bouncer like KiwiBNC [19], znc [20], IRCCloud [21], Quassel [22], Bitlbee [23] or shamlessplug jbnc [24].

[1] https://freenode.net

[2] https://oftc.net

[3] https://rizon.net

[4] https://www.dal.net

[5] https://tildeverse.org

[6] https://snoonet.org/

[7] https://quakenet.org/

[8] https://efnet.org

[9] https://ircnet.com

[10] https://netsplit.de/networks/top100.php

[11] https://weechat.org/

[12] https://kiwiirc.com

[13] https://codeux.com/textual

[14] https://palaverapp.com/

[15] https://mirc.com/

[16] https://adiirc.com/

[17] https://github.com/jesopo/bitbot

[18] https://github.com/Supybot/Supybot

[19] https://kiwiirc.com/

[20] https://znc.in

[21] https://irccloud.com/

[22] https://quassel-irc.org/

[23] https://www.bitlbee.org/

[24] https://github.com/realrasengan/jbnc

Edit: Added a few that I accidentally left out. Thank you all! If I left anyone else out I apologize - IRC is so decentralized, spread out, and... alive... that it's hard to name all of the amazing projects, networks and implementations out there!

IRC is still hanging in there. You can get a taste by using the web UI, no registration required.

1) Go to https://webchat.freenode.net/ 2) Type something into the "Nick" box. 3) Solve the CAPTCHA 4) Hit Start.

Freenode has thousands of channels, there's a bot called "alis" that can help you find something interesting. To do that:

5) type "/msg alis list python -min 50", which will open a chat with alis, which will then show the channels with "python" in the name that have at least 50 users. 6) type "/join #python" to join the channel

Some channels require you to register before you can chat, for that, see https://freenode.net/kb/answer/registration

First of all, you're not too young for IRC, it's still out there! Lots of people! Lots of channels! Depending on your interests your usage could resemble a live-action Reddit.

Second, I don't think this is necessarily a big deal, though I could imagine that channel users liked the convenience of having their channel logged for them. There may even have been an ersatz Slack use-case there that people could easily get used to.

However, channel logging has historically been the responsibility of channel users themselves, so there's a loss of convenience that could easily be taken up by a channel user setting up their own facility: a tiny AWS instance running a bot logging to S3, with a web interface and maybe a search engine. But that takes time and money and maintenance and interest.

However, all of this functionality is out there on the web and internet, and has been used for a long time in various incarnations. I'm sure there are EFNet logs out there that go back well into the 90s.

Add Bitlbee to the list and you can do magic.

How can you not list QuakeNet?!