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In this case, you have full knowledge of the pool of people you are talking to. It wouldn't be a 'regular' forum or IRC, but rather... say you and 5 and your fr

In this case, you have full knowledge of the pool of people you are talking to. It wouldn't be a 'regular' forum or IRC, but rather... say you and 5 and your friends all signed into a single IRC channel (so only the 6 of you), but all with randomized names, so you don't know exactly who you're talking to. As for how the interaction would differ? Depends completely on the people involved.

gnosis 15y ago
"It wouldn't be a 'regular' forum or IRC, but rather... say you and 5 and your friends all signed into a single IRC channel (so only the 6 of you), but all with randomized names" I still don't see any difference between this and regular IRC. There's no requirement on regular IRC to use your real name. Make up a random name if you want. If you're too lazy to pick a random name yourself, you could automate it with something like this: # # IRCUSER is set to a random dictionary word # BIG_RANDOM=$(echo $(($RANDOM * 2))) # A number between 0 and (32767 * 2) # Note, this will not be regularly distributed # but who cares? export IRCUSER=$(head -n $BIG_RANDOM /usr/share/dict/words | tail -n 1)
- bricestacey 15y ago
  The whole point is to make it easy to get n specific people chatting together where they can speak anonymously. Yes, it's not different than IRC... so long as you had a bot that could create a room, invite n people, install an irc client on their machines, get them in the room, teach them how to use it, etc, etc. This is an attempt to make it easier. This is like the dropbox of inviting specific people to an anonymous irc room. It's nothing new, nothing innovative, but it makes it easier.
  - gnosis 15y ago
    Web-based IRC clients have existed for a long time. To use them all you have to do is point your browser at a website. The usernames assigned by these clients are usually something like "guest0", "guest1", etc. That's probably anonymous enough. You could connect to any number of public IRC servers already set up all over the world. Then simply join the channel of your choice. No bots necessary. As far as invitations go and teaching people what to do, you're going to have to do that any way. With existing web-based IRC clients it's as simple as pointing your friends/colleagues to the website and telling them to join channel #whatever.
    - nyellin 15y ago
      Your friends would still know who invited them to the discussion.
      - gnosis 15y ago
        Well, they could also join without being invited. In fact, most of the communication happening on IRC is between people who've spontaneously joined without being invited.

gnosis 15y ago

"It wouldn't be a 'regular' forum or IRC, but rather... say you and 5 and your friends all signed into a single IRC channel (so only the 6 of you), but all with randomized names" I still don't see any difference between this and regular IRC. There's no requirement on regular IRC to use your real name. Make up a random name if you want. If you're too lazy to pick a random name yourself, you could automate it with something like this: # # IRCUSER is set to a random dictionary word # BIG_RANDOM=$(echo $(($RANDOM * 2))) # A number between 0 and (32767 * 2) # Note, this will not be regularly distributed # but who cares? export IRCUSER=$(head -n $BIG_RANDOM /usr/share/dict/words | tail -n 1)

bricestacey 15y ago
The whole point is to make it easy to get n specific people chatting together where they can speak anonymously. Yes, it's not different than IRC... so long as you had a bot that could create a room, invite n people, install an irc client on their machines, get them in the room, teach them how to use it, etc, etc. This is an attempt to make it easier. This is like the dropbox of inviting specific people to an anonymous irc room. It's nothing new, nothing innovative, but it makes it easier.
- gnosis 15y ago
  Web-based IRC clients have existed for a long time. To use them all you have to do is point your browser at a website. The usernames assigned by these clients are usually something like "guest0", "guest1", etc. That's probably anonymous enough. You could connect to any number of public IRC servers already set up all over the world. Then simply join the channel of your choice. No bots necessary. As far as invitations go and teaching people what to do, you're going to have to do that any way. With existing web-based IRC clients it's as simple as pointing your friends/colleagues to the website and telling them to join channel #whatever.
  - nyellin 15y ago
    Your friends would still know who invited them to the discussion.
    - gnosis 15y ago
      Well, they could also join without being invited. In fact, most of the communication happening on IRC is between people who've spontaneously joined without being invited.