4 ms·

Do you have an opinion on any particular technological successor to IRC?

by sanqui 5y ago

wumpus 5y ago
As those of you who frequent alt.irc.recovery recall, I quit IRC cold turkey a long time ago. But I'm fascinated by what Slack has done with the IRC concept -- it can be an amazingly positive cultural transition for a tech company to switch from mostly email to nearly 100% slack.
- bhaak 5y ago
  Yes, Slack works for a company environment (where you only have one community open). But how does it feel if you have several different communities open? In an IRC client, there is no difference between two channels on the same server and two channels on different server. Switching between channels is seamlessly. Discord fails there pretty hard.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    I'm really hoping matrix is the long term solution to this, and the general vacuum of an open source base for communication protocols.
  - croon 5y ago
    As someone who has been on IRC since ~95 and still uses it, I view Discord as several self-hosted IRC servers (with voice/video features on top), and in that way it compares more favorably. I wont speak to the privacy issues/data issues, but as a user, Discord has honestly been fantastic and beyond my expectations. Its' API for making integrations has been great too.
    - bhaak 5y ago
      How do you handle the plethora of channels every Discord server has? Like, I usually are only interested in a few channels on a given Discord server but by default, I get everything. How do you switch between different servers or different channels? In my IRC setup, I can switch to the next channel with activity with the press of a key. Or get a list of channels with a search input to jump to.
      - croon 5y ago
        I mute most things I'm not interested in. I admit it's less manouverable by keyboard only (or I haven't dug around enough), but maybe the likeness to self-hosted IRC servers is still to broad and every Discord server is more like an IRC channel, but with segmented topics you can hide (like muting everything regarding sports or spoilers or cars). Are you asking for discoverability of unknown (to you) Discord servers? Because that would be the closest likeness to an IRC channel search for me, which I rarely used. I discover the project/hobby/group I am interested in through word of mouth or web, and then find their IRC channel (or now Discord server).
        bhaak 5y ago
        The discoverability is bad with IRC servers as well. But I really meant how to switch to channels on different discord servers you are subscribed to. In my IRC mindset, channels aren't attached to particular servers. They exist all in the same bubble. Not so with Discord. The Discord UI prevents me from seeing activity in the channels I'm interested in if they are on a different Discord server. Quickly jumping to another channel on another server is not possible AFAIK (there are keybindings for switching servers or going to the next or next unread channel on the same server though). I think that is due Discord being tied to livestream gaming. When you livestream, it makes more sense that you don't switch to other channels during that session. You are more involved with that channel.
        croon 5y ago
        Ok, yeah I understand your issue now. I haven't been bit by this particularily since I seem to just use it a bit differently and don't jump a lot between servers at the same time. I could definitely see a usecase for creating your own views though where you could tag in specific channels from various servers.

Do you have an opinion on any particular technological successor to IRC?

by sanqui 5y ago

Do you have an opinion on any particular technological successor to IRC?

As those of you who frequent alt.irc.recovery recall, I quit IRC cold turkey a long time ago. But I'm fascinated by what Slack has done with the IRC concept -- it can be an amazingly positive cultural transition for a tech company to switch from mostly email to nearly 100% slack.

bhaak 5y ago
Yes, Slack works for a company environment (where you only have one community open). But how does it feel if you have several different communities open? In an IRC client, there is no difference between two channels on the same server and two channels on different server. Switching between channels is seamlessly. Discord fails there pretty hard.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  I'm really hoping matrix is the long term solution to this, and the general vacuum of an open source base for communication protocols.
- croon 5y ago
  As someone who has been on IRC since ~95 and still uses it, I view Discord as several self-hosted IRC servers (with voice/video features on top), and in that way it compares more favorably. I wont speak to the privacy issues/data issues, but as a user, Discord has honestly been fantastic and beyond my expectations. Its' API for making integrations has been great too.
  - bhaak 5y ago
    How do you handle the plethora of channels every Discord server has? Like, I usually are only interested in a few channels on a given Discord server but by default, I get everything. How do you switch between different servers or different channels? In my IRC setup, I can switch to the next channel with activity with the press of a key. Or get a list of channels with a search input to jump to.
    - croon 5y ago
      I mute most things I'm not interested in. I admit it's less manouverable by keyboard only (or I haven't dug around enough), but maybe the likeness to self-hosted IRC servers is still to broad and every Discord server is more like an IRC channel, but with segmented topics you can hide (like muting everything regarding sports or spoilers or cars). Are you asking for discoverability of unknown (to you) Discord servers? Because that would be the closest likeness to an IRC channel search for me, which I rarely used. I discover the project/hobby/group I am interested in through word of mouth or web, and then find their IRC channel (or now Discord server).
      - bhaak 5y ago
        The discoverability is bad with IRC servers as well. But I really meant how to switch to channels on different discord servers you are subscribed to. In my IRC mindset, channels aren't attached to particular servers. They exist all in the same bubble. Not so with Discord. The Discord UI prevents me from seeing activity in the channels I'm interested in if they are on a different Discord server. Quickly jumping to another channel on another server is not possible AFAIK (there are keybindings for switching servers or going to the next or next unread channel on the same server though). I think that is due Discord being tied to livestream gaming. When you livestream, it makes more sense that you don't switch to other channels during that session. You are more involved with that channel.
        croon 5y ago
        Ok, yeah I understand your issue now. I haven't been bit by this particularily since I seem to just use it a bit differently and don't jump a lot between servers at the same time. I could definitely see a usecase for creating your own views though where you could tag in specific channels from various servers.