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Did Web 2.0 make us all forget how open IRC networks were run? Resources donated by an organization in the form of a server linked into a larger network, a com

by oogali 4y ago

Did Web 2.0 make us all forget how open IRC networks were run? Resources donated by an organization in the form of a server linked into a larger network, a committee that vetted new server applications to the network, volunteer administrators for the network and the individual servers, coordinated regional and global upgrades. And as network users increased, reforming under a hub and spoke models to improve scale and capacity. And when a single IRC server went away after some time operating for its various reasons, the network kept going. Could the average IRC user start/host their own instance *and* link it to the larger network? No. But they didn't need to.

lapcat 4y ago
> Did Web 2.0 make us all forget how open IRC networks were run? I haven't forgotten about the Freenode hostile takeover.
- Doxin 4y ago
  Except that the freenode takeover didn't really have much to do with IRC as such. It had to do with a domain name theft.
- importgravity 4y ago
  And yet a large number of channels and a large number of communities migrated seamlessly to Libera and survived.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > migrated seamlessly I disagree with that characterization. > and survived Survival is not the issue. Mastodon will survive. Tumblr survives. Even MySpace survives. But major disruptions tend to lose users. (And yes it's true that the potential Twitter acquisition is a potential major disruption. But it's not going to be shut down after a $44 billion investment.)
    - importgravity 4y ago
      The staffers setup the new servers and did all the heavy-lifting. As a user, I only had to point my client from Freenode to Libera (exactly one line change in my client config), run /msg nickserv register to register myself, run /msg chanserv register to register the channels I op-ed, and it was all done. Total time spent was less than 30 minutes. The next few days, others did the same and the community started trickling in to the channels in the new servers. Seems seamless enough to me. I doubt such an easy migration is possible if Twitter disappears suddenly.
      - efdee 4y ago
        And yet userbase got decimated for most channels when moving from Freenode to Libera. Just because it was only 30 minutes (for you or for anyone) doesn't mean people will go through the effort.
        wizzwizz4 4y ago
        The active userbase was not affected very much. (Note that some channels moved to OFTC, not Libera.) The lurker userbase was more than decimated – I think it about halved – but they were barely part of the communities, and there might not even have been anyone sitting behind the IRC clients.
        PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
        anecodote only, but #ardour lost precisely zero users when moving from freenode to libera. just because people on channels you joined weren't willing to go through "the effort" doesn't mean that other people feel that way.
        kaetemi 4y ago
        We switched to a bridged Libera IRC, FreeGameDev IRC, and a Discord channel, when the freenode drama happened, and our total lurker count went 10x.
    - verdverm 4y ago
      It's not $44B that twitter will have available and can spend. Most (all?) will go to current investors to buy their stocks at a set price, which is where the $44B comes from It's probably more about how much the new owners will want to drop into it and how long before it moves to x.com (?) and becomes an everything app
monkin 4y ago
As a daily IRC user I can say this: IRC never was reliable. Constant attacks, splits, nick squatting or other crap ware pain in the ass. That’s why it never was adopted as a mainstream communication platform, and at its peak it had maybe 400k+ users. Now most of that are bots and stale sessions.
- importgravity 4y ago
  I am a daily IRC user and I think you are exaggerating the problems. I can count on my one hand the number of times I have seen an attack on my nick or the channels I hang out in, in the last 15 years. Those attacks pass without much disruption (sometimes requiring staffer intervention). Nick squatting is solved by Nickserv these days. Splits do happen occasionally but they resolve on their own automatically without much disruption. It is ok if it never gets adopted as mainstream communication. But for the target audience (like opensource support communities being the target audience of Libera), it works quite well.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  As a daily IRC user: IRC was never reliable, but it persists still. A distributed system is easier to hurt but far harder to destroy.
- mvanbaak 4y ago
  in the last 20 years I have had more attacks on my email account and $whatever_current_social_network account then I had on my irc account. Things like nickserv and ip cloaks (which have been part of nearly all networks I used to connect to and those I connect to) do the job just fine. Is it easy to flood down a server, sure is, but if there's more then 1 hub on the network, things will settle pretty quickly normally. In my opinion, the main reason why it was never adopted as a mainstream platform, is because it was never picked up by a big corp that saw a way to earn money off of it.
- zo1 4y ago
  I don't think we can just assume that "reliable" is a globally agreed property to judge alternatives. That property is something that came about and on some level spoiled users. Because for commercial social network providers any downtime meant a loss of users, eyeballs, and most importantly money.
Griffinsauce 4y ago
Besides the other comments, was this anywhere near the same scale?

by oogali 4y ago

lapcat 4y ago

> Did Web 2.0 make us all forget how open IRC networks were run? I haven't forgotten about the Freenode hostile takeover.

Doxin 4y ago
Except that the freenode takeover didn't really have much to do with IRC as such. It had to do with a domain name theft.
importgravity 4y ago
And yet a large number of channels and a large number of communities migrated seamlessly to Libera and survived.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > migrated seamlessly I disagree with that characterization. > and survived Survival is not the issue. Mastodon will survive. Tumblr survives. Even MySpace survives. But major disruptions tend to lose users. (And yes it's true that the potential Twitter acquisition is a potential major disruption. But it's not going to be shut down after a $44 billion investment.)
  - importgravity 4y ago
    The staffers setup the new servers and did all the heavy-lifting. As a user, I only had to point my client from Freenode to Libera (exactly one line change in my client config), run /msg nickserv register to register myself, run /msg chanserv register to register the channels I op-ed, and it was all done. Total time spent was less than 30 minutes. The next few days, others did the same and the community started trickling in to the channels in the new servers. Seems seamless enough to me. I doubt such an easy migration is possible if Twitter disappears suddenly.
    - efdee 4y ago
      And yet userbase got decimated for most channels when moving from Freenode to Libera. Just because it was only 30 minutes (for you or for anyone) doesn't mean people will go through the effort.
      - wizzwizz4 4y ago
        The active userbase was not affected very much. (Note that some channels moved to OFTC, not Libera.) The lurker userbase was more than decimated – I think it about halved – but they were barely part of the communities, and there might not even have been anyone sitting behind the IRC clients.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
        anecodote only, but #ardour lost precisely zero users when moving from freenode to libera. just because people on channels you joined weren't willing to go through "the effort" doesn't mean that other people feel that way.
      - kaetemi 4y ago
        We switched to a bridged Libera IRC, FreeGameDev IRC, and a Discord channel, when the freenode drama happened, and our total lurker count went 10x.
  - verdverm 4y ago
    It's not $44B that twitter will have available and can spend. Most (all?) will go to current investors to buy their stocks at a set price, which is where the $44B comes from It's probably more about how much the new owners will want to drop into it and how long before it moves to x.com (?) and becomes an everything app

monkin 4y ago

As a daily IRC user I can say this: IRC never was reliable. Constant attacks, splits, nick squatting or other crap ware pain in the ass. That’s why it never was adopted as a mainstream communication platform, and at its peak it had maybe 400k+ users. Now most of that are bots and stale sessions.

importgravity 4y ago
I am a daily IRC user and I think you are exaggerating the problems. I can count on my one hand the number of times I have seen an attack on my nick or the channels I hang out in, in the last 15 years. Those attacks pass without much disruption (sometimes requiring staffer intervention). Nick squatting is solved by Nickserv these days. Splits do happen occasionally but they resolve on their own automatically without much disruption. It is ok if it never gets adopted as mainstream communication. But for the target audience (like opensource support communities being the target audience of Libera), it works quite well.
FeepingCreature 4y ago
As a daily IRC user: IRC was never reliable, but it persists still. A distributed system is easier to hurt but far harder to destroy.
mvanbaak 4y ago
in the last 20 years I have had more attacks on my email account and $whatever_current_social_network account then I had on my irc account. Things like nickserv and ip cloaks (which have been part of nearly all networks I used to connect to and those I connect to) do the job just fine. Is it easy to flood down a server, sure is, but if there's more then 1 hub on the network, things will settle pretty quickly normally. In my opinion, the main reason why it was never adopted as a mainstream platform, is because it was never picked up by a big corp that saw a way to earn money off of it.
zo1 4y ago
I don't think we can just assume that "reliable" is a globally agreed property to judge alternatives. That property is something that came about and on some level spoiled users. Because for commercial social network providers any downtime meant a loss of users, eyeballs, and most importantly money.

Griffinsauce 4y ago

Besides the other comments, was this anywhere near the same scale?