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And yet, slack has seen exponential growth, while IRC was always available but rarely used. We have seen this before and we will see it again. If OSS wants to

And yet, slack has seen exponential growth, while IRC was always available but rarely used. We have seen this before and we will see it again. If OSS wants to be widely used, it needs to take UI seriously, and not dismiss it as frivolous “eye-candy”. It’s ok so say ‘no, we are fine within our niche’. But then you don’t get to arrogantly explain to them how they are “taking one step forward, two back” by not embarking on the joyful journey of fiddling with config files.

caf 8y ago
It seems a bit rich to be complaining about "fiddling with config files" when the alternative in this specific case is writing custom code against an undocumented API ;)
- johncolanduoni 8y ago
  The difference is only a small number of users need to write that custom code, while with tools like IRC everyone needs to fiddle with config files.
  - snazz 8y ago
    There are plenty of easy to use GUI clients with no config files.
astrobe_ 8y ago
IRC has gigatons of clients because it is an open protocol. Some clients are even shareware/commercial. Same goes for servers and server admin interfaces. IRC may have its shortcomings, but its worst defect, for the too many people that want to have fun while pretending to communicate, is that it is not "modern".
- IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
  This is quite close to what I would write as a parody to prove my point.
- dTal 8y ago
  Its worst problem is the inability to request scrollback from the server. I don't understand why that extension wasn't written, like, 20 years ago. You also need a "de facto official" client that includes a small list of default servers, and big friendly buttons for /JOIN and /PART - in fact the user should not be required to type a /COMMAND at any point.
  - swiley 8y ago
    Yes, I think this is fundamentally the main issue people have with IRC. Some IRC users don’t like the idea of the channel being logged though? That’s the best I can come up with for an argument against it.
    - TheSwordsman 8y ago
      I think if you make it clear the channel is logged it's the best you can do, since they can choose to partake in the conversation or not. No forcing function. The downside comes when you've a Netsplit and you lose one side of the conversation. It does surprise me that some people are supporters of open source, but aren't supporters of open and transparent communication. Seems like a miss.
      - thanatropism 8y ago
        I haven't seen netsplits since my teens and I'm 36.
        the8472 8y ago
        they happen regularly on efnet, occasionally on freenode. Presumably they don't occur on mozilla irc since it's a single node?
    - gnu8 8y ago
      I can't see why anyone would want that. If you weren't connected to the server then those lines were not sent to you. They're ephemeral. Ask someone to fill you in on what happened or send you a log.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  > for the too many people that want to have fun while pretending to communicate It's exactly this kind of flippant dismissal that is why IRC is dying, because there are too many people who equate modernity with frivolity. That is, unless our requirements strictly adhere to your arbitrarily-defined notions of that which has merit, our voices are left unheard. And IRC's greatest defenders wonder why everybody jumps ship. Whereas, for the rest of us, we just want the same features I've been using on other platforms not just since the rise of Slack, Discord and its ilk, but other platforms besides, both before and after the rise of Web 2.0 and social media. I find it pretentious that anybody could consider the following features "having fun while pretending to communicate", showing their profound lack of understanding for what communication can, perhaps should, be: - the ability to modify one's own messages - the ability to delete one's own message, and have that deletion propagated - the ability to delete other peoples' messages, and have that deletion propagated - simple but flexible role-based permissions systems that can be defined on a per-community basis - collections of text channels in one community/guild/server that can be ordered, and that ordering propagated and standardised for all participants in that community (for the sake of consistency) - usernames and nicknames that don't collide, using a normally-hidden primary key for each user that is associated with an account rather than ever-changing hostmasks that can be hidden, making bans and ignores ineffectual - automatically-created community-based moderation logs - the ability to create private group discussions without needing to create a text channel - the ability for all participants in the community to see messages in the same format, including code blocks with syntax highlighting, images, video links, and web embeds - a contacts list that travels across sessions, regardless of client, sign-in location, etc., and associated direct message history - the ability to read missed messages while offline without needing to set up a bouncer (either necessitating a home computer be left on all the time AND be accessible via the web, not always practical; or every individual user paying for a bouncer, something that should be considered vastly unnecessary) - everything just working Instead of thinking "everybody just wants to send silly emojis and video chat, what a waste of time", the IRC crowd would do well to listen to what people actually want, need, and have come to expect from online communication, rather than derisively and condescendingly covering their eyes and putting their fingers in their ears.
  - swiley 8y ago
cf498 8y ago
To be fair, it is "frivolous eye-candy”. But that doesnt change the fact that you are not going to reach the people which rank eye candy higher then functionality.
- monsieurbanana 8y ago
  In what world being able to read offline messages is "frivolous eye-candy"?
  - cf498 8y ago
    Sounds like a functionality to me edit: sounded a bit impolite. I was trying to point out, that just covering all needed functionalities doesnt mean anyone will use your product. Frivolous eye candy, ie the appearance is a key aspect for quite a few people. The issue is not that its dismissed as eye candy, but that being eye candy is an important point to look out for.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Why would you want to reach those people? Avoiding them sounds like a feature!
  - detaro 8y ago
    It's the same kind of question like "Why would you want to hire people that don't want to do our algorithm puzzles/don't want to call themselves coding rockstars/don't have the same interests outside work". It's restricting the people you interact with along more or less arbitrary lines that are not a reliable indicator of quality/usefulness. People like to frame it as "if they can't even figure out IRC", but that's a straw man. Nearly everyone can "figure out IRC", the question is if they want to bother with it when there's alternative things they could do. (and I say that as someone who by far prefers IRC over every other group chat system)
- Frondo 8y ago
  Much of the eye candy is functional, not frivolous anyway. This is the false dichotomy. Being able to apply slight styling to text is better than wrapping words in asterisks or underlines. Adding reactions and emojis is better than using punctuation to simulate it. It's really common to confuse "what I'm used to" with "what's better" and I think that's especially happening here.
iforgotpassword 8y ago
If you have to fiddle with config files to use irc, you're doing something wrong. Every client I ever used shipped with a list of networks, you basically just click the one you want, get asked for your nickname, click a button, enter channel name, all set for next time.
- snazz 8y ago
  But if you want a TUI client that involves editing config files, it’s an option. I like being able to make that decision for myself.
nickjj 8y ago
> while IRC was always available but rarely used. Freenode has about 85,000 people logged in right now and there's over 50,000 channels. I'm in a bunch of tech related channels and there's hundreds (or 1,000+) people in most of them. It's still active and has been for 15+ years. Freenode is just 1 IRC network of many too but it's where a lot of tech channels are set up. IRC is awesome. You can use it from a terminal (or get a GUI client that uses < 20MB of RAM), it opens instantly, you can connect to a bunch of channels and networks automatically (with password protection on your nick), typing feels instant and you get infinite log history. Doesn't get much better in my opinion.
- Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
  You don't get the log history of what happened while you were offline, though. This is probably the killer feature of Slack over IRC, especially for professional use, together with more seamless attachment integration. Don't get me wrong, I love IRC. I have been using it for over 20 years (wow, I'm old). I have met there very important people in my life. But I coordinate a team at work, we use Slack and I wouldn't even consider using IRC instead.
  - nickjj 8y ago
    You can track logs if you want. It's up to the channel owner. Once you have that set up you won't miss anything, and people new to the channel could view previous history. You could also connect remotely through a server that never reboots too and log things yourself (as a client). I find Slack to be even worse in that regard because they'll purge your history after 10,000 lines unless you pay, but the payment scheme doesn't make sense for a lot of communities. Like, whose going to pay $15/month per USER if you have 300 people in your channel? That would be $4,500 / month to get unlimited history right? I never signed up because I don't want to pay a mortgage to get chat history. I dunno. I just don't see the appeal of Slack for both communities and small teams.
    - seancorfield 8y ago
      First off, the history is NOT purged. It's just not searchable beyond 10,000 messages. Pay for a month (if you can afford it!) and you'll see the entire history available. Further, the cost is $6.67/month -- substantially less that $15. I'm not fan of Slack for large communities but, seriously, let's stick to facts when discussing the pros and cons.
mcguire 8y ago
Slack also has a marketing department.
c0vfefe 8y ago
> If OSS wants to be widely used, it needs to take UI seriously, and not dismiss it as frivolous “eye-candy”. More than this, if mass-market OSS wants to be widely used, it needs a mass marketing budget. Not many deep-pocketed stakeholders in a community united around non-profit work.

caf 8y ago

It seems a bit rich to be complaining about "fiddling with config files" when the alternative in this specific case is writing custom code against an undocumented API ;)

johncolanduoni 8y ago
The difference is only a small number of users need to write that custom code, while with tools like IRC everyone needs to fiddle with config files.
- snazz 8y ago
  There are plenty of easy to use GUI clients with no config files.

astrobe_ 8y ago

IRC has gigatons of clients because it is an open protocol. Some clients are even shareware/commercial. Same goes for servers and server admin interfaces. IRC may have its shortcomings, but its worst defect, for the too many people that want to have fun while pretending to communicate, is that it is not "modern".

IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
This is quite close to what I would write as a parody to prove my point.
dTal 8y ago
Its worst problem is the inability to request scrollback from the server. I don't understand why that extension wasn't written, like, 20 years ago. You also need a "de facto official" client that includes a small list of default servers, and big friendly buttons for /JOIN and /PART - in fact the user should not be required to type a /COMMAND at any point.
- swiley 8y ago
  Yes, I think this is fundamentally the main issue people have with IRC. Some IRC users don’t like the idea of the channel being logged though? That’s the best I can come up with for an argument against it.
  - TheSwordsman 8y ago
    I think if you make it clear the channel is logged it's the best you can do, since they can choose to partake in the conversation or not. No forcing function. The downside comes when you've a Netsplit and you lose one side of the conversation. It does surprise me that some people are supporters of open source, but aren't supporters of open and transparent communication. Seems like a miss.
    - thanatropism 8y ago
      I haven't seen netsplits since my teens and I'm 36.
      - the8472 8y ago
        they happen regularly on efnet, occasionally on freenode. Presumably they don't occur on mozilla irc since it's a single node?
  - gnu8 8y ago
    I can't see why anyone would want that. If you weren't connected to the server then those lines were not sent to you. They're ephemeral. Ask someone to fill you in on what happened or send you a log.
zapzupnz 8y ago
> for the too many people that want to have fun while pretending to communicate It's exactly this kind of flippant dismissal that is why IRC is dying, because there are too many people who equate modernity with frivolity. That is, unless our requirements strictly adhere to your arbitrarily-defined notions of that which has merit, our voices are left unheard. And IRC's greatest defenders wonder why everybody jumps ship. Whereas, for the rest of us, we just want the same features I've been using on other platforms not just since the rise of Slack, Discord and its ilk, but other platforms besides, both before and after the rise of Web 2.0 and social media. I find it pretentious that anybody could consider the following features "having fun while pretending to communicate", showing their profound lack of understanding for what communication can, perhaps should, be: - the ability to modify one's own messages - the ability to delete one's own message, and have that deletion propagated - the ability to delete other peoples' messages, and have that deletion propagated - simple but flexible role-based permissions systems that can be defined on a per-community basis - collections of text channels in one community/guild/server that can be ordered, and that ordering propagated and standardised for all participants in that community (for the sake of consistency) - usernames and nicknames that don't collide, using a normally-hidden primary key for each user that is associated with an account rather than ever-changing hostmasks that can be hidden, making bans and ignores ineffectual - automatically-created community-based moderation logs - the ability to create private group discussions without needing to create a text channel - the ability for all participants in the community to see messages in the same format, including code blocks with syntax highlighting, images, video links, and web embeds - a contacts list that travels across sessions, regardless of client, sign-in location, etc., and associated direct message history - the ability to read missed messages while offline without needing to set up a bouncer (either necessitating a home computer be left on all the time AND be accessible via the web, not always practical; or every individual user paying for a bouncer, something that should be considered vastly unnecessary) - everything just working Instead of thinking "everybody just wants to send silly emojis and video chat, what a waste of time", the IRC crowd would do well to listen to what people actually want, need, and have come to expect from online communication, rather than derisively and condescendingly covering their eyes and putting their fingers in their ears.
- swiley 8y ago

cf498 8y ago

To be fair, it is "frivolous eye-candy”. But that doesnt change the fact that you are not going to reach the people which rank eye candy higher then functionality.

monsieurbanana 8y ago
In what world being able to read offline messages is "frivolous eye-candy"?
- cf498 8y ago
  Sounds like a functionality to me edit: sounded a bit impolite. I was trying to point out, that just covering all needed functionalities doesnt mean anyone will use your product. Frivolous eye candy, ie the appearance is a key aspect for quite a few people. The issue is not that its dismissed as eye candy, but that being eye candy is an important point to look out for.
coldtea 8y ago
Why would you want to reach those people? Avoiding them sounds like a feature!
- detaro 8y ago
  It's the same kind of question like "Why would you want to hire people that don't want to do our algorithm puzzles/don't want to call themselves coding rockstars/don't have the same interests outside work". It's restricting the people you interact with along more or less arbitrary lines that are not a reliable indicator of quality/usefulness. People like to frame it as "if they can't even figure out IRC", but that's a straw man. Nearly everyone can "figure out IRC", the question is if they want to bother with it when there's alternative things they could do. (and I say that as someone who by far prefers IRC over every other group chat system)
Frondo 8y ago
Much of the eye candy is functional, not frivolous anyway. This is the false dichotomy. Being able to apply slight styling to text is better than wrapping words in asterisks or underlines. Adding reactions and emojis is better than using punctuation to simulate it. It's really common to confuse "what I'm used to" with "what's better" and I think that's especially happening here.

iforgotpassword 8y ago

If you have to fiddle with config files to use irc, you're doing something wrong. Every client I ever used shipped with a list of networks, you basically just click the one you want, get asked for your nickname, click a button, enter channel name, all set for next time.

snazz 8y ago
But if you want a TUI client that involves editing config files, it’s an option. I like being able to make that decision for myself.

nickjj 8y ago

> while IRC was always available but rarely used. Freenode has about 85,000 people logged in right now and there's over 50,000 channels. I'm in a bunch of tech related channels and there's hundreds (or 1,000+) people in most of them. It's still active and has been for 15+ years. Freenode is just 1 IRC network of many too but it's where a lot of tech channels are set up. IRC is awesome. You can use it from a terminal (or get a GUI client that uses < 20MB of RAM), it opens instantly, you can connect to a bunch of channels and networks automatically (with password protection on your nick), typing feels instant and you get infinite log history. Doesn't get much better in my opinion.

Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
You don't get the log history of what happened while you were offline, though. This is probably the killer feature of Slack over IRC, especially for professional use, together with more seamless attachment integration. Don't get me wrong, I love IRC. I have been using it for over 20 years (wow, I'm old). I have met there very important people in my life. But I coordinate a team at work, we use Slack and I wouldn't even consider using IRC instead.
- nickjj 8y ago
  You can track logs if you want. It's up to the channel owner. Once you have that set up you won't miss anything, and people new to the channel could view previous history. You could also connect remotely through a server that never reboots too and log things yourself (as a client). I find Slack to be even worse in that regard because they'll purge your history after 10,000 lines unless you pay, but the payment scheme doesn't make sense for a lot of communities. Like, whose going to pay $15/month per USER if you have 300 people in your channel? That would be $4,500 / month to get unlimited history right? I never signed up because I don't want to pay a mortgage to get chat history. I dunno. I just don't see the appeal of Slack for both communities and small teams.
  - seancorfield 8y ago
    First off, the history is NOT purged. It's just not searchable beyond 10,000 messages. Pay for a month (if you can afford it!) and you'll see the entire history available. Further, the cost is $6.67/month -- substantially less that $15. I'm not fan of Slack for large communities but, seriously, let's stick to facts when discussing the pros and cons.

mcguire 8y ago

Slack also has a marketing department.

c0vfefe 8y ago

> If OSS wants to be widely used, it needs to take UI seriously, and not dismiss it as frivolous “eye-candy”. More than this, if mass-market OSS wants to be widely used, it needs a mass marketing budget. Not many deep-pocketed stakeholders in a community united around non-profit work.