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Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

libera.chat

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Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#131

Post by holler »

radarsat1 wrote: post #63
holler wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate your thoughts on this topic. What are some things that would help keep your interest in a topical chat app? Is it strictly that you're uninterested in the content and so the discussion is boring? Or is the asynchronous/disjointed conversation more of an issue? > My reaction is always kind of, well, we're here in this reddit where there is already a community I think that misses the different ways people se…

> you're uninterested in the content and so the discussion is boring? I would say that perhaps, at least from what I've seen, it's often not really a discussion at all, but more like a question answering forum. I suppose what I like about HN/reddit style forums more, is that there is a "post", with a clear topic or article, and then people actually have a full, long discussion about it. Sometimes of varying quality,…

Disclosure I'm building a topical chat site at https://sqwok.im

One thing I've noticed is many conversations will start out on-topic but eventually the active participants will exhaust whatever they have to say and it will pivot to more casual conversation. It isn't necessarily bad, but it creates the problem where new/arriving users see a conversation that appears unconnected from the topic. I recently received a bunch of feedback to that affect.

Another factor that someone else already mentioned is simply that many people like to lurk and don't want to engage in live discussion. Also not a problem if the previous issue is solved.

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#132

Post by gwern »

FoxbrushTailwag wrote: post #40
LeoPanthera wrote: post #2

The fact that this doesn't even mention Freenode is hilarious, and so awkward. Whoever wrote this had to really go out of their way to construct a history that isn't technically wrong, but, if you didn't know that Libera got its start as a fork of Freenode that almost everyone wanted to leave as soon as possible, you'd never figure it out.

Hi, one of the blog authors here, Fuchs. My initial draft did include a sentence about freenode in the first paragraph, but after a short internal discussion we decided to remove that, so I rewrote that part. Rather easy and quick, actually. Now on the why: Libera was a clear cut. Reasons for that are different per person affected, but include e.g. a lot of pain to see what has become of something we put years in, wa…

You may want to make it a 'clean cut', but that's not how it comes off as. When I read it (as well as everyone in our Libera channel who commented), it comes off as sounding so terrified of the clown prince that the word 'Freenode' can't even be mentioned, and the huge lacuna looks hilarious (especially the parts about growth).

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#133

Post by Macha »

Doxin wrote: post #32
someotherperson wrote: post #25

I think Freenode helped serve as a lesson to rasengan on a few things: 1. Technical prowess doesn't supersede the value of interpersonal/social abilities 2. Money doesn't let you control the narrative in a free system 3. Elon Musk isn't Elon Musk because he's rich, he's Elon Musk because he's good at marketing 4. Reputation is everything It's a shame that the cost of these lessons was the destruction of Freenode and…

I wouldn't accuse him of having technical prowess. Pretty much as soon as the takeover happened freenode started suffering technical issues. Libera on the other hand dealt with the insane influx of users really well. There was some connection troubles for the first hour if I recall correctly, but has been pretty much spotless ever since.

To be fair, when you don't own your servers, don't have any contracts with the volunteers who provide those servers, and then they exercise their ability to stop providing those servers, that's more a social problem than a technical one.

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#134

Post by Macha »

aaronmdjones wrote: post #54
Doxin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't accuse him of having technical prowess. Pretty much as soon as the takeover happened freenode started suffering technical issues. Libera on the other hand dealt with the insane influx of users really well. There was some connection troubles for the first hour if I recall correctly, but has been pretty much spotless ever since.

The most difficult thing to deal with in the first couple of days were the occasional server crashes. We would have liked some more time on our testnet to iron out the bugs in the IRC server software we were planning to migrate to (and started out with on the new network), but that didn't end up happening. In essence, we deployed a beta straight to production with >10k users on day 1 and had everything ironed out by…

I believe this was criticising the initial operation of post-Lee-takeover freenode, not Libera.

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#135

Post by Macha »

jokoon wrote: post #78

I wonder if discord might threaten IRC, it seems that is not the case. There are two servers dedicated to the c++ language.

Discord has absolutely hurt IRC, and supplanted it in many cases. Once upon a time, e.g. subreddits had their chats on Snoonet IRC, now it's all discord. Tech is still IRC-heavy, but Discord, Slack and Matrix all have sizeable presences now too.

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#136

Post by discardedrefuse »

radarsat1 wrote: post #41

Can people explain what they like about IRC? I've often found the idea of having a community chat around some topic quite intriguing, but in practice when I've tried briefly joining such communities, I simply don't last long, as it doesn't grab my attention. Rooms tend to have tens or a hundred people joined, but saying nothing, until someone has a problem they want to talk about or question they want to ask, which i…

> although I am consistently surprised by the number of requests posted to reddit to 'join our discord community'. (My reaction is always kind of, well, we're here in this reddit where there is already a community, so..

I feel the same way about IRC (and Matrix). I think a part of the problem is that the technical Q&A discussion that happens in most of the dev channels would be better served taking place on a forum. Lots of those chats aren't happening in real-time anyways. And if you're not there to receive the messages, the information is lost.

OTOH, certain activities do lend themselves better to real-time messaging. For example, the subreddit of your favorite sportsball team might have a Discord chat that is lots of fun during a live game. Another example; many video game subreddits will have all their LFG (looking for group) activity in a Discord server. Both of these scenarios are very "in the moment" interactions that don't really need to be preserved for the future.

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#137

Post by forgotmypw17 »

radarsat1 wrote: post #41

Can people explain what they like about IRC? I've often found the idea of having a community chat around some topic quite intriguing, but in practice when I've tried briefly joining such communities, I simply don't last long, as it doesn't grab my attention. Rooms tend to have tens or a hundred people joined, but saying nothing, until someone has a problem they want to talk about or question they want to ask, which i…

Open standard

Simple protocol

Use any client I like

Also accessible via the web

Decentralized and non-hierarchical

Been around for a while

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#138

Post by aaronmdjones »

Macha wrote: post #134
aaronmdjones wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most difficult thing to deal with in the first couple of days were the occasional server crashes. We would have liked some more time on our testnet to iron out the bugs in the IRC server software we were planning to migrate to (and started out with on the new network), but that didn't end up happening. In essence, we deployed a beta straight to production with >10k users on day 1 and had everything ironed out by…

I believe this was criticising the initial operation of post-Lee-takeover freenode, not Libera.

I was responding to "There was some connection troubles for the first hour if I recall correctly", most of which were caused by incorrect ulimits (easy fix; change limits, restart ircd) or server crashes (not so much; investigate, write patch, test patch, deploy patch to half a dozen boxes, restart ircd).

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#139

Post by yoz-y »

radarsat1 wrote: post #41

Can people explain what they like about IRC? I've often found the idea of having a community chat around some topic quite intriguing, but in practice when I've tried briefly joining such communities, I simply don't last long, as it doesn't grab my attention. Rooms tend to have tens or a hundred people joined, but saying nothing, until someone has a problem they want to talk about or question they want to ask, which i…

Runs from command line (with a quake-like terminal) so it’s easier to access than alt tabbing. Text only. Most users have technical background or are hobbyists so the conversations tend to be different.

Re: Happy Birthday, Libera Chat

#140

Post by Arathorn »

justaj wrote: post #123
rkangel wrote: post #93

I'm going to take this opportunity to point out that (for me at least) the best IRC client is Matrix. They offer a bridge to Libera.chat, and that then sets up a Matrix "room" for each IRC channel you join. You then get a consistent session, that all history automatically, with clients for every platform. Plus you're on Matrix which is a good thing :)

Except when it sporadically disconnects and forgets your login credentials.

it should never forget your login creds if you saved them. type !help in the admin room and it’ll tell you how to save them.
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