> Markdown in IRC? No, Markdown in Slack, Discord, etc. > Chat messages shouldn't be longer than a tweet Says who? You? You're not the arbiter of how people

> Markdown in IRC? No, Markdown in Slack, Discord, etc. > Chat messages shouldn't be longer than a tweet Says who? You? You're not the arbiter of how people should choose to communicate. Aside from that, there are good situations on Discord and Slack where messages tend to be longer, such as announcements, lists of rules, when posting code blocks, giving detailed explanations, etc. > If you need formatting then you're writing a document, not chatting Again, says who? People have had formatting in instant chat for years, in AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, etc. People can use formatting to provide emphasis, to separate code blocks, etc. Even IRC supports basic bold text blocks. > There we agree you need another service for that No, we don't agree. Why should you need an external service for that? Why send people out of the discussion to an external website, a needless interruption of the flow? There may be times when that's appropriate, but a chat service, something that's inherently about conversations and keeping things in context, no longer needs to mandate this. There are no technical restrictions to this as there were in the 80s and 90s. If people want to share a snippet in the conversation, they should, and now can, do so. Same goes for images, videos, etc. > Good communication starts with choosing the appropriate tool People have found the appropriate tool, have flocked to it in droves, and are quite satisfied. It's only old-fashioned IRC-clinging fuddy-duds who think there's still any question about this. Everybody else is getting on quite productively and happily.