5 ms·

The centralized mess of Discord is neither stable, nor reliable, nor lightweight to access, and it's going to bite a lot of communities in the rear end, very ha

by Syonyk 3y ago

The centralized mess of Discord is neither stable, nor reliable, nor lightweight to access, and it's going to bite a lot of communities in the rear end, very hard, at some point down the road. The history of "convenient, free to use tech" like Discord is "Someone buys it and tries to turn a profit, and squeezes the life out of it." IRC is a "fully mature technology" at this point in the internet. It just works. I believe a number of tech companies keep IRC servers around for the "Everything but TCP/IP has gone down" emergency communications technology. But it's fine. The filter of IRC is part of what makes it worth it these days to use. It's the anti-Reddit.

jeltz 3y ago
I agree with the first part but IRC in no way just works. Maybe after all seers and clients support IRCv3, but right now it does not just work.
- Syonyk 3y ago
  The majority of my life spent on IRC argues "It works just fine, the way it is." I use a znc bouncer these days because my home ISP is less than reliable some months (I consider "cybering" a channel to be quite rude and try to avoid it at all costs), but I've run that on free tier VM instances before with no trouble, and if you don't have one, it's no big deal for the most part. I'm connected to about half a dozen servers, some major, some "a dozen user backwaters servers," and it's easily the bulk of my "not with people I know directly" communications, just as it's been for literally the past few decades of my life.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    I am with you with IRC experience, but the definition of "works well" is dynamic. These days it means secure and easily accesible from a browser and no "trust me bro" irc server ops lol. I love IRC, the mess that exists today is a result of e2ee being implemented at the application layer instead of transport or session. But much like email, you have to let go of nostalgia. If the horse been dead for 20 years, dismount! I had the same opinion as you but for better or worse I find myself changing my opinion as a result of new experiences. I have a million things i need to do, fighting with a chat client for security or privacy or basic features isn't one of them. Anecdotally, I have been burned by irc operators and clients in several ways over the years. Be wary when trusting strangers!
    - Syonyk 3y ago
      > But much like email, you have to let go of nostalgia. If the horse been dead for 20 years, dismount! It's not nostalgia. It's quite literally the best way I've found to get deep, weird, technical details on the deep weeds I play in, because IRC has a lot of other people who are similarly skilled in the arts of wizarding at and below the kernel. I simply assume everything said on IRC is public, and act accordingly. I'll move sensitive conversations over to other platforms if needed, but it's not been a regular issue. And, yeah, I ran an IRC server, I'm familiar with the power of the admins. I'm also familiar with the power of large tech companies, and don't find them more trustworthy. ... my Thunderbird client says "Email isn't dead either."
      - _8j50 3y ago
        By "dead" I meant the tech is outdated. You can run and enjoy IRC and email and plenty of people will join you but that does not mean it's a good solution. Even SSL was not a thing when those techs came out and security was an afterthought. It's not just transport security but also your machine/network getting compromised. IRCv3 sounds promising since you can finally see historical chat (no need for a znc). But the question I ask is how does it compare with alternatives like discord or matrix? Also, you are right about finding a lot of smart people on IRC, I had the same experience but I can't even find many of the people I use to chat with in there anymore. Slack, discord, social media have taken over. The nice thing about matrix was you can bridge all these places, but as you can with this post, IRC folks cause drama over matrix all the time because they can't adapt to new stuff. I would have expected the opposite where libera would run a matrix home server! These are just tools and tech, don't we all care more about the people and conversations we can have more than all this? I wouldn't even touch discord had so many not migrated to it already. And many of these communities had other spaces like on twitter and reddit and now they are fragmented all over the internet. I have no problem rallying around whatever the masses pick so long is it is actually good enough.
_8j50 3y ago
I don't care about tech philosophy. The software needs to work well. Show me an IRC network operated with the same ease of use and security as discord and I will use it provided others are on it as well. You people like your lemmy, mastodon, peertube,etc... and it's not like I disagree with the idea but ideals are only good for academic discussions. They need to work well IRL, there is no replacement for that, period! I will give you a good example: firefox! It's not just ideas, it works just as well as Chrome! And you know what, back in the day when you could trust or be apathetic to server ops IRC was great. But not having e2ee encryption and server operators being anti-privacy like with libera means we have no modern day options. You can downvote me all you want but these bullshit dramas have destroyed communities I liked and that is not f*cking ok! Downvote me a million times but I have not had unexpected disruptions on discord or crazy memory/performance issues. I would love to use ircv3 that is full e2ee with no opportunistic crap or matrix with a decent well maintained lightweight web client and simple/good UX. But don't tell my the problems don't exist because youe ideology is nice and shiny. Yeah, discord can be bought by some crappy company and they can start banning for bad reasons but guess what? So can matrix.org and it already happened with freenode (and reddit in a related manner). But today, discord is best. I hold on to the hope of a better alternative as I point out the flaws in what exist today. It needs to work well first and foremost.
- Karrot_Kream 3y ago
  Talking about this in a nuanced way on HN these days is useless. Threads about IRC, Mastodon, Lemmy, etc don't attract pragmatists. They attract zealots that really want to pretend like their chosen ethical technology is the best and won all the wars and changed everything, and shhh you sheeple for suggesting otherwise let me downvote you. I will say while Element (the flagship Matrix client) isn't as polished as I'd like it to be, it's good enough that Discord users can use it without thinking twice on any of the non-huge rooms and spaces out there. It's quite close and worth running in parallel to Discord and I'm hopeful that the teams at Element and Matrix will close the gap to get sufficiently close.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    Except element does choke my browser/system (32g ram, many cores) even with rooms that aren't all that big. Slack does the same, discord doesn't even with large rooms and 100+ rooms open.

by Syonyk 3y ago

jeltz 3y ago

I agree with the first part but IRC in no way just works. Maybe after all seers and clients support IRCv3, but right now it does not just work.

Syonyk 3y ago
The majority of my life spent on IRC argues "It works just fine, the way it is." I use a znc bouncer these days because my home ISP is less than reliable some months (I consider "cybering" a channel to be quite rude and try to avoid it at all costs), but I've run that on free tier VM instances before with no trouble, and if you don't have one, it's no big deal for the most part. I'm connected to about half a dozen servers, some major, some "a dozen user backwaters servers," and it's easily the bulk of my "not with people I know directly" communications, just as it's been for literally the past few decades of my life.
- _8j50 3y ago
  I am with you with IRC experience, but the definition of "works well" is dynamic. These days it means secure and easily accesible from a browser and no "trust me bro" irc server ops lol. I love IRC, the mess that exists today is a result of e2ee being implemented at the application layer instead of transport or session. But much like email, you have to let go of nostalgia. If the horse been dead for 20 years, dismount! I had the same opinion as you but for better or worse I find myself changing my opinion as a result of new experiences. I have a million things i need to do, fighting with a chat client for security or privacy or basic features isn't one of them. Anecdotally, I have been burned by irc operators and clients in several ways over the years. Be wary when trusting strangers!
  - Syonyk 3y ago
    > But much like email, you have to let go of nostalgia. If the horse been dead for 20 years, dismount! It's not nostalgia. It's quite literally the best way I've found to get deep, weird, technical details on the deep weeds I play in, because IRC has a lot of other people who are similarly skilled in the arts of wizarding at and below the kernel. I simply assume everything said on IRC is public, and act accordingly. I'll move sensitive conversations over to other platforms if needed, but it's not been a regular issue. And, yeah, I ran an IRC server, I'm familiar with the power of the admins. I'm also familiar with the power of large tech companies, and don't find them more trustworthy. ... my Thunderbird client says "Email isn't dead either."
    - _8j50 3y ago
      By "dead" I meant the tech is outdated. You can run and enjoy IRC and email and plenty of people will join you but that does not mean it's a good solution. Even SSL was not a thing when those techs came out and security was an afterthought. It's not just transport security but also your machine/network getting compromised. IRCv3 sounds promising since you can finally see historical chat (no need for a znc). But the question I ask is how does it compare with alternatives like discord or matrix? Also, you are right about finding a lot of smart people on IRC, I had the same experience but I can't even find many of the people I use to chat with in there anymore. Slack, discord, social media have taken over. The nice thing about matrix was you can bridge all these places, but as you can with this post, IRC folks cause drama over matrix all the time because they can't adapt to new stuff. I would have expected the opposite where libera would run a matrix home server! These are just tools and tech, don't we all care more about the people and conversations we can have more than all this? I wouldn't even touch discord had so many not migrated to it already. And many of these communities had other spaces like on twitter and reddit and now they are fragmented all over the internet. I have no problem rallying around whatever the masses pick so long is it is actually good enough.

_8j50 3y ago

I don't care about tech philosophy. The software needs to work well. Show me an IRC network operated with the same ease of use and security as discord and I will use it provided others are on it as well. You people like your lemmy, mastodon, peertube,etc... and it's not like I disagree with the idea but ideals are only good for academic discussions. They need to work well IRL, there is no replacement for that, period! I will give you a good example: firefox! It's not just ideas, it works just as well as Chrome! And you know what, back in the day when you could trust or be apathetic to server ops IRC was great. But not having e2ee encryption and server operators being anti-privacy like with libera means we have no modern day options. You can downvote me all you want but these bullshit dramas have destroyed communities I liked and that is not f*cking ok! Downvote me a million times but I have not had unexpected disruptions on discord or crazy memory/performance issues. I would love to use ircv3 that is full e2ee with no opportunistic crap or matrix with a decent well maintained lightweight web client and simple/good UX. But don't tell my the problems don't exist because youe ideology is nice and shiny. Yeah, discord can be bought by some crappy company and they can start banning for bad reasons but guess what? So can matrix.org and it already happened with freenode (and reddit in a related manner). But today, discord is best. I hold on to the hope of a better alternative as I point out the flaws in what exist today. It needs to work well first and foremost.

Karrot_Kream 3y ago
Talking about this in a nuanced way on HN these days is useless. Threads about IRC, Mastodon, Lemmy, etc don't attract pragmatists. They attract zealots that really want to pretend like their chosen ethical technology is the best and won all the wars and changed everything, and shhh you sheeple for suggesting otherwise let me downvote you. I will say while Element (the flagship Matrix client) isn't as polished as I'd like it to be, it's good enough that Discord users can use it without thinking twice on any of the non-huge rooms and spaces out there. It's quite close and worth running in parallel to Discord and I'm hopeful that the teams at Element and Matrix will close the gap to get sufficiently close.
- _8j50 3y ago
  Except element does choke my browser/system (32g ram, many cores) even with rooms that aren't all that big. Slack does the same, discord doesn't even with large rooms and 100+ rooms open.