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> But we still need to make it much easier for the general public to use. People understand WhatsApp and Messenger, not servers, ports and commands. Please don

> But we still need to make it much easier for the general public to use. People understand WhatsApp and Messenger, not servers, ports and commands. Please don't do that. I like the fact the IRC is controllable in plain text via commands. Also, what is wrong with knowing about servers and ports? Why is it that IRC should be changed to appeal to the masses?

dewey 8y ago
Because 99% of the people don’t know what a port is. If they want to rethink the way things work and make the protocol more attractive you have to rethink some assumptions that were maybe correct in the early days. Nobody is going to stop you from just using the “old” protocols. Maybe it’s even backwards compatible in the way that right now you can also add port 80 to a URL but you don’t have to.
- beefhash 8y ago
  > Because 99% of the people don’t know what a port is. And at the rate things are going, that percentage is only going to be going up. We're tunneling more and more over HTTP(S) -- lately, DNS over HTTPS has been unleashed upon humanity --, so ports as a concept are kind of an endangered species at this point.
- Shorel 8y ago
  And when I was in high school 99% of people didn't know what a disk drive was, much less something fancy at the time like a pen drive. Now everyone including grandmothers knows what a pen drive is. And people are using a chat application 99% of the time. Anything they need to know to chat with their friends, they will learn, fast. IRC did not die because it used ports and servers. That actually had nothing to do with its decline. IRC was replaced by something without the feudal structure of founders, SOps, and Ops, and the medieval control they had over normal users, muting and kicking people off channels all the time. It was a social issue, not a technical one.
SaberUK 8y ago
Full disclosure: i'm being paid to work on InspIRCd for use on the IRC.com network. This is my personal opinion not an official statement on behalf of my employer. Everything IRC.com is working on usability-wise is happening on top of the existing protocol. If you're an advanced user you'll be able to connect to the server with your IRC client of choice just like you always have to any other IRC server.

dewey 8y ago

Because 99% of the people don’t know what a port is. If they want to rethink the way things work and make the protocol more attractive you have to rethink some assumptions that were maybe correct in the early days. Nobody is going to stop you from just using the “old” protocols. Maybe it’s even backwards compatible in the way that right now you can also add port 80 to a URL but you don’t have to.

beefhash 8y ago
> Because 99% of the people don’t know what a port is. And at the rate things are going, that percentage is only going to be going up. We're tunneling more and more over HTTP(S) -- lately, DNS over HTTPS has been unleashed upon humanity --, so ports as a concept are kind of an endangered species at this point.
Shorel 8y ago
And when I was in high school 99% of people didn't know what a disk drive was, much less something fancy at the time like a pen drive. Now everyone including grandmothers knows what a pen drive is. And people are using a chat application 99% of the time. Anything they need to know to chat with their friends, they will learn, fast. IRC did not die because it used ports and servers. That actually had nothing to do with its decline. IRC was replaced by something without the feudal structure of founders, SOps, and Ops, and the medieval control they had over normal users, muting and kicking people off channels all the time. It was a social issue, not a technical one.

SaberUK 8y ago

Full disclosure: i'm being paid to work on InspIRCd for use on the IRC.com network. This is my personal opinion not an official statement on behalf of my employer. Everything IRC.com is working on usability-wise is happening on top of the existing protocol. If you're an advanced user you'll be able to connect to the server with your IRC client of choice just like you always have to any other IRC server.