4 ms·

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 m

by _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  By "dead" I meant the tech is outdated.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.

by _8j50 3y ago

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.