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IRC Will Never Die (2021)

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Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#51

Post by foul »

duskwuff wrote: post #14
op00to wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC is terrible for work collaboration. I say this as a long time IRC user. Conversations are not searchable, and if you're offline you are unable to follow along with what's going on with your colleagues. To make it anywhere near usable, you need to run IRC bouncers, chat loggers, search indexers .. at that point, just use something made for collaboration.

Not to mention: 1) IRC doesn't support any form of message threading. There's some user conventions like "username:" or "@username" to direct a message to a specific person, but there's no way to make a clear distinction between multiple conversations in a channel. (You can make a new channel for the conversation, I guess, but that's even more hostile than usual to other users trying to follow along.) 2) IRC doesn't…

I see only the 4th point as a real problem, which could be solved by fragmenting the network more, like connecting a server to it and not connecting the user directly (UI must reduce the visual noise of netsplits that should be a lot more frequent this way).

The other 3 are UX matters, 2nd point cracks me up because hexchat could split a message in batches of privmsg's eleven years ago, spam control is totally local (so being banned for spamming isn't a given), servers can nowadays buffer a lot of text and throttle messages, albeit bandwidth is mostly free.

Being them UX matters, they aren't worth much, thus IRC will remain broken because there are like two thousands IM competing software that dealt marvellously with those problems.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#52

Post by theshrike79 »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #49
paxys wrote: post #24

What makes IRC special isn't the protocol but the community, and that community has been steadily shrinking month after month, year after year. The average age of regulars continues to go up. Unless its popularity sees some kind of resurgence and the current trends reverse, IRC will most definitely die.

Funny, I think the exact opposite. All social spaces are about the people/community, which mostly adapts itself around whatever space they happen to be around, be it a park, shopping map, IRC, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. What's special about IRC is that it's really easy to set up. If all of the social platforms collapsed, you could set up and use IRC with your group of friends until the next social platform bl…

The biggest weirdness on IRC compared to all other platforms is that you NEED to be online 24/7 with your client or you'll miss stuff. There is no "backlog" except for the one you see yourself.

On the other hand it's a good thing, people can't just join and scroll down 10 years of chat history.

But you'll also be completely unfindable unless your client is online.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#53

Post by outime »

I began using IRC before the age of 10, creating fond memories along the way. But let's face the harsh reality: IRC has largely become obsolete for most purposes. The alternatives available now are not only more user-friendly but also offer superior functionality for the general population, so I highly doubt IRC will become popular once again anytime. While it is sad, why would anyone choose to use outdated 90s technology that poses challenges for the average user when there are more advanced and accessible options?

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#54

Post by Joker_vD »

jrm4 wrote: post #37

So, I was a decently heavy IRC user back in its heyday. Today, "the kids" are all about Discord -- and I do mean the geek coding creative kids most like me but younger and I absolutely see why. I think I do lament the abscence of a more aggressive "why not just update IRC to be like Discord?" WAY easier said than done, and I think Matrix is trying, but I suppose the most frustrating thing is trying to tell the young'…

> "why not just update IRC to be like Discord?"

Because one is a protocol and another is a platform. To quote from [0]:

    After 30+ years, email is still unencrypted; meanwhile WhatsApp went from unencrypted to full e2ee in a year. People are still trying to standardize sharing a video reliably over IRC; meanwhile, Slack lets you create custom reaction emoji based on your face.

    This isn’t a funding issue. If something is truly decentralized, it becomes very difficult to change, and often remains stuck in time. That is a problem for technology, because the rest of the ecosystem is moving very quickly, and if you don’t keep up you will fail. There are entire parallel industries focused on defining and improving methodologies like Agile to try to figure out how to organize enormous groups of people so that they can *move as quickly as possible* because it is so critical.

    When the technology itself is more conducive to stasis than movement, that’s a problem. A sure recipe for success has been to take a 90’s protocol that was stuck in time, centralize it, and iterate quickly.
[0] https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#55

Post by wkat4242 »

abstractbeliefs wrote: post #6
wkat4242 wrote: post #2

Funny that they mention freenode because it did burn to the ground 2 years after this article. However it was reborn as Libera which is once again doing great. If you don't know the story, Google it. I don't want to drag up the past, it's better forgotten. I don't think IRC will really die, it will become a more fringey thing though. Probably more than it already is.

It's not so funny, because this article was written at the time freenode was burning to the ground, and the article suggests that it would be very easy for everyone to move to libera if it turned out to be the better option. And that it worked so well is the point of the article! IRC is highly resilient because it's simple to set up, the clients and servers are free software and can be endlessly and independently con…

Oops, when I saw how old the article was I just skimmed it.

But yeah it worked out really well with Libera.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#57

Post by jayflux »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #29
Loughla wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that IRC absolutely is already super fringe. People have memories of it, but I'm betting active use of IRC today is limited to very tech people.

But it was already kinda fringe, even back in the late 90's. People would talk on AIM or AOL chat, but it was rarer to find IRC users among the hoi polloi.

IRC was home to a lot of gaming communities, it was basically Discord before that existed. There used to be live commentary in channels (Twitch replaced this).

I don’t believe any gamers use it today but fringe-tech communities still use it, I think that’s what the parent is referring to.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#58

Post by jokoon »

paxys wrote: post #24

What makes IRC special isn't the protocol but the community, and that community has been steadily shrinking month after month, year after year. The average age of regulars continues to go up. Unless its popularity sees some kind of resurgence and the current trends reverse, IRC will most definitely die.

I love irc, but irc is probably more problematic to manage for users and admins/moderators than discord.

I don't like the discord server model, but it allows the platform to prevent spam more easily and to put the responsibility on server owners.

Searching chat history is also a big plus.

IRC sets a high bar for users to choose a client, create an auth account etc. So obviously many of them are power users, and those users are qualitative.

Discord is just much easier for everybody, and it makes money.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#59

Post by cassianoleal »

theshrike79 wrote: post #52
Ferret7446 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I think the exact opposite. All social spaces are about the people/community, which mostly adapts itself around whatever space they happen to be around, be it a park, shopping map, IRC, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. What's special about IRC is that it's really easy to set up. If all of the social platforms collapsed, you could set up and use IRC with your group of friends until the next social platform bl…

The biggest weirdness on IRC compared to all other platforms is that you NEED to be online 24/7 with your client or you'll miss stuff. There is no "backlog" except for the one you see yourself. On the other hand it's a good thing, people can't just join and scroll down 10 years of chat history. But you'll also be completely unfindable unless your client is online.

There used to be whole websites dedicated to archiving IRC channels. Last time I tried to find one, I couldn't. It's a shame, really. It used to work as a forum you could go back to and find answers.

Re: IRC Will Never Die (2021)

#60

Post by theshrike79 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #59
theshrike79 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest weirdness on IRC compared to all other platforms is that you NEED to be online 24/7 with your client or you'll miss stuff. There is no "backlog" except for the one you see yourself. On the other hand it's a good thing, people can't just join and scroll down 10 years of chat history. But you'll also be completely unfindable unless your client is online.

There used to be whole websites dedicated to archiving IRC channels. Last time I tried to find one, I couldn't. It's a shame, really. It used to work as a forum you could go back to and find answers.

Yea all major channels used to run logger bots for themselves at least.

Then there were a few "unofficial" ones that just came in and lurked without telling anyone they were logging everything and publishing it on the internet. A bit of a breach of trust IMO.

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