6 ms·

The identical experience of libera chat makes me realize how useful open protocols are, and how much harder it would be to do something like this with some plat

The identical experience of libera chat makes me realize how useful open protocols are, and how much harder it would be to do something like this with some platform like discord

PicassoCTs 5y ago
It would be enough for each node, to know the whole contact graph, and have that stored in a open format? Like a xml adressbook, that could be parsed by any software and could be created even with limited apis as provided by discord etc.
- ajacksified 5y ago
  Good usecase for Solid (https://solidproject.org/ https://solidproject.org/).
  - hobofan 5y ago
    It's also a good use case for a good old .vcard, which already has semantics for plenty of contact fields, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are some for IRC.
    - medstrom 5y ago
      Modern phones have done their utmost to end these. If you even find the option to load a vcard they will (often sneakily) copy the contents to Google Contacts or similar, and you don't know if the phone is even keeping the vcard updated. It has made the approach feel unreliable.
      - hobofan 5y ago
        I've switched to self-hosting my contacts with Radicale[0] (with "backups" to a git repo) synced via DavX5[1], with no problem of them mixing with Google Contacts. It's pretty annoying though that basically no current contacts app recognizes common fields like the nickname for a person. [0]: https://radicale.org/ https://radicale.org/ [1]: https://www.davx5.com/ https://www.davx5.com/
  - simias 5y ago
    I fully expected some blockchain nonsense opening your link, I'm pleasantly surprised. It seems like an interesting project but I wonder if it has any chance of reaching critical mass. The incumbents have no incentives to interoperate with such a protocol as far as I can tell.
    - lolinder 5y ago
      The same is true for any open protocol, at least at first. Any open protocol has to reach widespread usage first, and only then will incumbents have to adopt it. That's an extremely difficult task, but hopefully not impossible.
      - simias 5y ago
        Is there a single example in recent memory of an open protocol achieving mainstream success without being sponsored by a large company? I really wish something like this Solid protocol would succeed, but I don't see how you could generate enough momentum for it at the moment.
        lolinder 5y ago
        I'm not aware of any, no, and there's 0 incentive for any large company to sponsor one.
        atatatat 5y ago
        Which large company sponsors Bitcoin? ActivityPub? Matrix (before they landed their gov contracts etc)?
- CornCobs 5y ago
  It's not the network, though - it's the experience. When some community decides to up and move to libera, I connect and register with the new server and it's literally the same thing. Clients create the UX and the community creates the content. Now I imagine trying to get a community off discord to a different platform with slightly different interactions, slightly different "channel" styles, different reactions or role-setting, would be a much harder sell. That being said, I have nothing against discord - I think they've made a really compelling product and have certainly set a bar for what a future open protocol should cover if it wants to be relevant
simias 5y ago
I don't use Discord but apparently there was some pretty drama a couple of weeks ago because they made a bunch of changes to the UI of the client that apparently the community didn't like. If you want to have control of your platform then don't use closed source, proprietary solutions!
- ziml77 5y ago
  While I do hate that Discord is being used for all chat needs instead of just sticking to being a replacement for Ventrilo or Skype for gaming groups, I want to point out that the drama is a massive overreaction. Discord made very minor style changes and slightly modified their logo, wordmark, and brand color scheme (with the logo being the only one of those you really end up seeing inside the application).
  - xbar 5y ago
    Thank you for the clear description of the change. It seemed like this was a teapot typhoon, but I was not quite interested enough to lift the lid myself.
  - jeltz 5y ago
    Yeah, I did not like the change but it was a tiny change so I agree with that it was an overreaction.
  - simias 5y ago
    I thought they seemed like trivial changes as well, although not being a user myself I couldn't really form an opinion. Still, it should serve as a wakeup call that the users really aren't in charge and that it can potentially suck. It's a taste of things to come whenever Discord decides to more aggressively monetize themselves for instance. But apparently the conclusion was more that they should insult the devs on twitter and reddit instead.
    - IntelMiner 5y ago
      I use Discord (grudgingly) and I have to admit I did not, and do not, give a single shit about the change. It's a god damn icon for like 99% of people I guess some people just want to sit and gawk at their start menu for hours on end and Discords change has broken that zen-like meditation for them or something
rplnt 5y ago
Not too long ago Slack supported IRC gateways, with limited features of course.
- dijit 5y ago
  It was a good way of appeasing people who prefer IRC/XMPP and getting them to accept the walled garden. A good trick because once slack is adopted it's very difficult to get rid of it for most companies.
- loeg 5y ago
  When the IRC gateway stopped working, I found https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack worked pretty well. But I switched employers months ago and no longer have to use Slack, which is even better! (So, I don't know how well it works today.)
  - dijit 5y ago
    You have to install it as an app on slacks side. Some employers don’t allow that.
    - loeg 5y ago
      There used to be two variants that worked; I think the other is "session tokens?"[0] Not sure if that approach still works, or not. [0]: https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack#get-a-session-token https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack#get-a-session-token
    - JeremyNT 5y ago
      It's not IRC, but there exists a working libpurple plugin that you just auth as with your normal user account: https://github.com/dylex/slack-libpurple https://github.com/dylex/slack-libpurple I just use it with Pidgin, but there are curses clients too (I'm aware of bitlbee, there are probably others) if you prefer the IRC-style experience.
- yrro 5y ago
  Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...
spike021 5y ago
I wouldn't say it was a 1:1 identical experience; registering was a pain as there was no process to take over user registrations or channel registrations from freenode. But, assuming you did those things smoothly then it was pretty identical and as simple as changing your client config to connect to libera instead of freenode.
judge2020 5y ago
I think that's just because of the simplicity of IRC - migrating off of discord would entail a lot of friction because of the features it gives you, like super granular permissions and access to channels. IRC channels are just places to chat with minor access control, so moving is easy as long as the community/people move.

The identical experience of libera chat makes me realize how useful open protocols are, and how much harder it would be to do something like this with some platform like discord

PicassoCTs 5y ago

It would be enough for each node, to know the whole contact graph, and have that stored in a open format? Like a xml adressbook, that could be parsed by any software and could be created even with limited apis as provided by discord etc.

ajacksified 5y ago
Good usecase for Solid (https://solidproject.org/ https://solidproject.org/).
- hobofan 5y ago
  It's also a good use case for a good old .vcard, which already has semantics for plenty of contact fields, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are some for IRC.
  - medstrom 5y ago
    Modern phones have done their utmost to end these. If you even find the option to load a vcard they will (often sneakily) copy the contents to Google Contacts or similar, and you don't know if the phone is even keeping the vcard updated. It has made the approach feel unreliable.
    - hobofan 5y ago
      I've switched to self-hosting my contacts with Radicale[0] (with "backups" to a git repo) synced via DavX5[1], with no problem of them mixing with Google Contacts. It's pretty annoying though that basically no current contacts app recognizes common fields like the nickname for a person. [0]: https://radicale.org/ https://radicale.org/ [1]: https://www.davx5.com/ https://www.davx5.com/
- simias 5y ago
  I fully expected some blockchain nonsense opening your link, I'm pleasantly surprised. It seems like an interesting project but I wonder if it has any chance of reaching critical mass. The incumbents have no incentives to interoperate with such a protocol as far as I can tell.
  - lolinder 5y ago
    The same is true for any open protocol, at least at first. Any open protocol has to reach widespread usage first, and only then will incumbents have to adopt it. That's an extremely difficult task, but hopefully not impossible.
    - simias 5y ago
      Is there a single example in recent memory of an open protocol achieving mainstream success without being sponsored by a large company? I really wish something like this Solid protocol would succeed, but I don't see how you could generate enough momentum for it at the moment.
      - lolinder 5y ago
        I'm not aware of any, no, and there's 0 incentive for any large company to sponsor one.
      - atatatat 5y ago
        Which large company sponsors Bitcoin? ActivityPub? Matrix (before they landed their gov contracts etc)?
CornCobs 5y ago
It's not the network, though - it's the experience. When some community decides to up and move to libera, I connect and register with the new server and it's literally the same thing. Clients create the UX and the community creates the content. Now I imagine trying to get a community off discord to a different platform with slightly different interactions, slightly different "channel" styles, different reactions or role-setting, would be a much harder sell. That being said, I have nothing against discord - I think they've made a really compelling product and have certainly set a bar for what a future open protocol should cover if it wants to be relevant

simias 5y ago

I don't use Discord but apparently there was some pretty drama a couple of weeks ago because they made a bunch of changes to the UI of the client that apparently the community didn't like. If you want to have control of your platform then don't use closed source, proprietary solutions!

ziml77 5y ago
While I do hate that Discord is being used for all chat needs instead of just sticking to being a replacement for Ventrilo or Skype for gaming groups, I want to point out that the drama is a massive overreaction. Discord made very minor style changes and slightly modified their logo, wordmark, and brand color scheme (with the logo being the only one of those you really end up seeing inside the application).
- xbar 5y ago
  Thank you for the clear description of the change. It seemed like this was a teapot typhoon, but I was not quite interested enough to lift the lid myself.
- jeltz 5y ago
  Yeah, I did not like the change but it was a tiny change so I agree with that it was an overreaction.
- simias 5y ago
  I thought they seemed like trivial changes as well, although not being a user myself I couldn't really form an opinion. Still, it should serve as a wakeup call that the users really aren't in charge and that it can potentially suck. It's a taste of things to come whenever Discord decides to more aggressively monetize themselves for instance. But apparently the conclusion was more that they should insult the devs on twitter and reddit instead.
  - IntelMiner 5y ago
    I use Discord (grudgingly) and I have to admit I did not, and do not, give a single shit about the change. It's a god damn icon for like 99% of people I guess some people just want to sit and gawk at their start menu for hours on end and Discords change has broken that zen-like meditation for them or something

rplnt 5y ago

Not too long ago Slack supported IRC gateways, with limited features of course.

dijit 5y ago
It was a good way of appeasing people who prefer IRC/XMPP and getting them to accept the walled garden. A good trick because once slack is adopted it's very difficult to get rid of it for most companies.
loeg 5y ago
When the IRC gateway stopped working, I found https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack worked pretty well. But I switched employers months ago and no longer have to use Slack, which is even better! (So, I don't know how well it works today.)
- dijit 5y ago
  You have to install it as an app on slacks side. Some employers don’t allow that.
  - loeg 5y ago
    There used to be two variants that worked; I think the other is "session tokens?"[0] Not sure if that approach still works, or not. [0]: https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack#get-a-session-token https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack#get-a-session-token
  - JeremyNT 5y ago
    It's not IRC, but there exists a working libpurple plugin that you just auth as with your normal user account: https://github.com/dylex/slack-libpurple https://github.com/dylex/slack-libpurple I just use it with Pidgin, but there are curses clients too (I'm aware of bitlbee, there are probably others) if you prefer the IRC-style experience.
yrro 5y ago
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...

spike021 5y ago

I wouldn't say it was a 1:1 identical experience; registering was a pain as there was no process to take over user registrations or channel registrations from freenode. But, assuming you did those things smoothly then it was pretty identical and as simple as changing your client config to connect to libera instead of freenode.

judge2020 5y ago

I think that's just because of the simplicity of IRC - migrating off of discord would entail a lot of friction because of the features it gives you, like super granular permissions and access to channels. IRC channels are just places to chat with minor access control, so moving is easy as long as the community/people move.