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The above commenter is correct, the original question is silly, however much flak they may get as people here love IRC. Do you genuinely believe (1) IRC is any

The above commenter is correct, the original question is silly, however much flak they may get as people here love IRC. Do you genuinely believe (1) IRC is anywhere near as usable as Twitter for the general population, or that (2) a real-time chat is an equivalent offering to Twitter?

throwaway894345 5y ago
I'll add (3) the only reason IRC isn't equally abused is because it's so bad that it can't attract enough people to justify any kind of ad-based (or otherwise) monetization model. IRC is the opposite of being a victim of one's own success. EDIT: I should note that beyond being more usable than IRC, I have precious little good to say about Twitter.
dorkwood 5y ago
You just need to make an IRC channel that contains everyone in the world.
- blitz_skull 5y ago
  Well to compare that to Twitter you'd also have to have everyone in the world on Twitter which is overwhelmingly not the case.
- Arnavion 5y ago
  No, it would be one channel per person. Only you would be able to talk (post) in your channel. People who want to read your posts would join your channel. Private DMs easily map to one-on-one privmsgs. Public replies and threads won't have an equivalent unless there was some meta-protocol to temporarily allow another person to talk in your channel + duplicate your posts in your channel to theirs + expire that access eventually. Also subscribing to tags won't work without a similar "copy all messages from one channel to another" relay.
  - eurasiantiger 5y ago
    Channels are basically tags, without history for those who join. Anyone can PRIVMSG a channel by default, it is prevented by setting the common +n mode.
    - Arnavion 5y ago
      My point is that IRC messages need to be duplicated across multiple channels to be the equivalent to how Twitter works.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Make all channels -n and you now have Twitter hashtags, kind of.
- ok123456 5y ago
  That's basically what twitter is.
thereddaikon 5y ago
I'm beginning to seriously believe the general population doesn't deserve services like Twitter and giving it to them was a mistake. When something can be had so easily there is no respect for it. A lack of respect for the technology and a lack of thoughtfulness into its implications have caused a lot of harm. The hope of the internet was that it would increase communication and understanding. But nobody is communicating. They are talking at each other. They should be listening but have just become more self absorbed. So in a way IRC is better. If for no other reason because it required some personal discipline and will to learn to use and it segmented the internet to prevent these monstrous echo chambers. Humans aren't ready for a global forum. We are still only good at small communities.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  If this is your takeaway you’re following toxic people. I have learned a lot and changed my mind on several issues just from Twitter discourse.
  - ballenf 5y ago
    Or they clicked on a trending topic on the wrong day. Or they read an article about one twitter group bashing another twitter group and clicked on one of the tweets. There's no path from toxic Twitter to constructive Twitter, but there are thousands of paths the other way. Which can only mean that toxic twitter is where Twitter wants its users, so it seems like you're using twitter wrong in their view.
    - richardfey 5y ago
      That would imply that Twitter has total control about such paths; I find it hard to believe.
  - thereddaikon 5y ago
    My point isn't that meaningful conversation is impossible on twitter. Its that the majority isn't and most abuse the gift of an instant global platform. Its tragedy of the commons on an unprecedented scale. Of course there are worthwhile interactions to be made. But the people making them would have been doing so on the less accessible older internet anyways.
Spooky23 5y ago
Malicious bots are definitely more effective and reliable on Twitter.
xtracto 5y ago
IRC is just a protocol... one could potentially implement a client (or website if you wish) which presented IRC comments as a "tweet stream".

throwaway894345 5y ago

I'll add (3) the only reason IRC isn't equally abused is because it's so bad that it can't attract enough people to justify any kind of ad-based (or otherwise) monetization model. IRC is the opposite of being a victim of one's own success. EDIT: I should note that beyond being more usable than IRC, I have precious little good to say about Twitter.

dorkwood 5y ago

You just need to make an IRC channel that contains everyone in the world.

blitz_skull 5y ago
Well to compare that to Twitter you'd also have to have everyone in the world on Twitter which is overwhelmingly not the case.
Arnavion 5y ago
No, it would be one channel per person. Only you would be able to talk (post) in your channel. People who want to read your posts would join your channel. Private DMs easily map to one-on-one privmsgs. Public replies and threads won't have an equivalent unless there was some meta-protocol to temporarily allow another person to talk in your channel + duplicate your posts in your channel to theirs + expire that access eventually. Also subscribing to tags won't work without a similar "copy all messages from one channel to another" relay.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Channels are basically tags, without history for those who join. Anyone can PRIVMSG a channel by default, it is prevented by setting the common +n mode.
  - Arnavion 5y ago
    My point is that IRC messages need to be duplicated across multiple channels to be the equivalent to how Twitter works.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
Make all channels -n and you now have Twitter hashtags, kind of.
ok123456 5y ago
That's basically what twitter is.

thereddaikon 5y ago

I'm beginning to seriously believe the general population doesn't deserve services like Twitter and giving it to them was a mistake. When something can be had so easily there is no respect for it. A lack of respect for the technology and a lack of thoughtfulness into its implications have caused a lot of harm. The hope of the internet was that it would increase communication and understanding. But nobody is communicating. They are talking at each other. They should be listening but have just become more self absorbed. So in a way IRC is better. If for no other reason because it required some personal discipline and will to learn to use and it segmented the internet to prevent these monstrous echo chambers. Humans aren't ready for a global forum. We are still only good at small communities.

jdavis703 5y ago
If this is your takeaway you’re following toxic people. I have learned a lot and changed my mind on several issues just from Twitter discourse.
- ballenf 5y ago
  Or they clicked on a trending topic on the wrong day. Or they read an article about one twitter group bashing another twitter group and clicked on one of the tweets. There's no path from toxic Twitter to constructive Twitter, but there are thousands of paths the other way. Which can only mean that toxic twitter is where Twitter wants its users, so it seems like you're using twitter wrong in their view.
  - richardfey 5y ago
    That would imply that Twitter has total control about such paths; I find it hard to believe.
- thereddaikon 5y ago
  My point isn't that meaningful conversation is impossible on twitter. Its that the majority isn't and most abuse the gift of an instant global platform. Its tragedy of the commons on an unprecedented scale. Of course there are worthwhile interactions to be made. But the people making them would have been doing so on the less accessible older internet anyways.

Spooky23 5y ago

Malicious bots are definitely more effective and reliable on Twitter.

xtracto 5y ago

IRC is just a protocol... one could potentially implement a client (or website if you wish) which presented IRC comments as a "tweet stream".