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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

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.
    - solarbokeh 8y ago
      Because chat is not ephemeral? It’s an asynchronous communication method like sms, im, email, and snail mail of old. When I send a text to a friend at 2am I don’t expect a response right then. I expect that their phone will be muted and they’ll see my message in the morning and then they can choose if and when to respond back. This is how literally all my peers think.
  - zzo38computer 8y ago
    If it is a public channel, then I think it should be logged. (People who do not want their messages logged should send them privately to the recipient instead; you can still use IRC for this). A command for receiving the log may be helpful to have though as an optional extension.
- Frondo 8y ago
  Why even call it "part"? The word everyone's familiar with is "leave". "part" is already an irc jargon.
  - the8472 8y ago
    it is perfectly valid english. E.g. "to part ways".
- caf 8y ago
  It's definitely something that people have looked at, eg: https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/292 https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/292
- djsumdog 8y ago
  There are IRC bouncers and Matrix bridges that can give you server history.
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

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.
  - solarbokeh 8y ago
    Because chat is not ephemeral? It’s an asynchronous communication method like sms, im, email, and snail mail of old. When I send a text to a friend at 2am I don’t expect a response right then. I expect that their phone will be muted and they’ll see my message in the morning and then they can choose if and when to respond back. This is how literally all my peers think.
- zzo38computer 8y ago
  If it is a public channel, then I think it should be logged. (People who do not want their messages logged should send them privately to the recipient instead; you can still use IRC for this). A command for receiving the log may be helpful to have though as an optional extension.
Frondo 8y ago
Why even call it "part"? The word everyone's familiar with is "leave". "part" is already an irc jargon.
- the8472 8y ago
  it is perfectly valid english. E.g. "to part ways".
caf 8y ago
It's definitely something that people have looked at, eg: https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/292 https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/292
djsumdog 8y ago
There are IRC bouncers and Matrix bridges that can give you server history.

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