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IRC's UI is horrible. (Like email.) No wonder people don't want to join it. (Saying that as someome who has his own bouncer.)
by aboardRat4 4mo ago
IRC's UI is horrible. (Like email.)
No wonder people don't want to join it.
(Saying that as someome who has his own bouncer.)
- ekianjo 4mo agoUI? Its a protocol.
- setopt 4mo agoThey probably meant UX, which is arguably similar between implementations.
- 47282847 4mo agoLike “the UX of HTTP is horrible”? Still doesn’t make any sense. Discord could well run on top of IRC the protocol and be open to federation without any change of UX.
- luke5441 4mo agoIRC doesn't have offline messages and standardized user accounts. Just looked it up and there is IRCv3 to fix this, but idk what the state of that is.
- FireBeyond 4mo ago"... not great". IRCv3 was already late to the party and when I saw that the Working Group's mailing list was composed of lots of debates on formats for server daemon configuration files, it was clear many couldn't see the forest for the trees.
- coldtea 4mo ago>Like “the UX of HTTP is horrible”? Still doesn’t make any sense Sure it does, when all browsers have more or less the same, and the context makes clear we're not talking about the mere programmatic consumption of HTTP (like through some REST api). "But it's a protocol and not a client" is pedantically irrelevant, given that the clients for that protocol all follow the same conventions. The parent already said they meant the UX of it "which is arguably similar between implementations". Besides, protocols impose some concepts and models of interaction and consumption, which informs any UX created on top of them. So it's not like that client sameness is merely accidental and unrelated to the protocol either.
- oriolid 4mo agoNetsplits, missed messages and bot wars over channel and nick ownership were an integral part of IRC UX, and they were direct consequences the IRC protocol. If Discord was run on top of IRC protocol, it would have the same. Discord would probably be its own network and the people who prefer IRCnet, EFnet or QuakeNet would never touch it.
- progval 4mo ago> Netsplits It's not inherent to the protocol. https://ergo.chat/ https://ergo.chat/ does not have netsplits (from having a single server) and https://github.com/Libera-Chat/sable https://github.com/Libera-Chat/sable replaces the server-to-server protocol to eliminate netsplits as well. And even when not eliminated entirely, they are infrequent and barely visible on well-managed networks like Libera.Chat. Many chat platforms have more (and longer) outages than Libera has netsplits. > missed messages Solved by most server implementations using https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory > bot wars over channel and nick ownership Solved decades ago thanks to NickServ and ChanServ (though I'll admit they are ad-hoc additions on top of the protocol). And ~15 years ago we got native support for authentication (https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/sasl-3.1 https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/sasl-3.1)
- oriolid 4mo agoSo... Usually it's claimed that one of the advantages of IRC is that it doesn't depend on a single server, so using a single server feels a bit like cheating. Replacing the server-to-server protocol sounds a lot like it's not really IRC protocol any more. The chathistory link says "This specification may change at any time and we do not recommend implementing it in a production environment." right on top. And yes, NickServ and ChanServ exist on some networks and IIRC they were one of the major points in debates over which network is the best and which ones to not touch with a ten feet pole. A hypothetical IRC-based Discord-like service could have it.
- progval 4mo ago> Replacing the server-to-server protocol sounds a lot like it's not really IRC protocol any more There hasn't been a standard server-to-server protocol in like three decades. Even RFC 2813 only specifies one of the protocols in use at the time (IRCnet's). Each implementation has its own (some of them forked from the original) > The chathistory link says "This specification may change at any time and we do not recommend implementing it in a production environment." True. Ratification of the final spec is stuck on some details, unfortunately.
- code_biologist 4mo agoWhat? I just want to share cat pics, video clips, and memes with my friends and respond to their stuff with not-inline emojis.
- ciroduran 4mo agoIt hasn't been the same since Comic Chat was discontinued
- joeypickles 4mo agoI wish there was an article on the oral history of comic chat.
- tjoff 4mo agoIt's not like you couldn't create an IRC-client with better UI than discord. Not as many features, but whatever strength discord has it is not UI. Email really could have been great, but html and bad actors have made it so much worse than it needs to be.
- pmontra 4mo agoEmail is OK. The point is that most conversations moved to other media (mainly chats) and so 90% of my mail is notifications, 9% is newsletters, 1% are real messages. They used to be 99%.
- roenxi 4mo agoI'd guess the important feature for Discord is it is easier for the administrators to get hosted and online, but "you could create a client with a better UI than discord" is a terrible line of argument. People could do lots of things in the OSS world and they don't. I can't recall any IRC client that I have found as easy to use as the Discord client except - ironically given the topic - ChatZilla which died off years ago because Mozilla decided that extensions were more of a 2000s technology than something they wanted to support.
- crote 4mo agoIn practice "better UI" would mean things like being able to trivially share files and images, or quote/link a specific message, or even making it easier to distinguish between users with similar nicks via their profile pictures. And those UI improvements are actually features which are integral to its protocol, so they can't easily be bolted on by a custom IRC client in a backwards-compatible way. Literally every single modern chat platform has support for stuff like that, and for a reason. Discord became popular because it combined those modern chat features with the ability for every community to create its own private little "server" - while at the same time making it trivial to participate in multiple "servers" at once.
- AlienRobot 4mo agoIt's been a while since I last used IRC, but afaik one of the issues with it was that servers revealed the IP address of users to every other user by default. Since the IP is geographic that's one piece of information you could use to doxx someone.
- netsharc 4mo agoIt'd be trivial (TM) for someone to make a web interface, and the connections would say "Connecting from some-data-center.aws-cloud.bl"...
- dollylambda 4mo agoThere are many ways to mask your "real" ip address, VPN being an easy start.
- crote 4mo agoThe fact that this is needed at all is a serious problem. Making people who aren't aware of some obscure details accidentally doxx themselves is incredibly user-hostile.
- bitbasher 4mo agoLibera gives all registered users a cloak to hide their ip.
- gordonfish 4mo agoIP addresses aren't linked to a complete street address, and many times don't even show the right town, especially those on CG-NAT or a plain ol' direct public dynamic address. I have seen some IPs, like on AT&T and Comcast home Internet, showing a different state. So in many cases, you don't need a VPN to prevent revealing your actual geographic location.
- esseph 4mo agoAnd some IPs stick to users for over a decade, and over time the data pieces add up and connect the dots.
- gsich 4mo agoIt's a skill check.
- crote 4mo agoIt's gatekeeping. Don't be surprised when your pet project slowly dies because potential new contributors choose to join less hostile communities instead.
- gsich 4mo agoGatekeeping is not always bad.
- aboardRat4 4mo agoGatekeeping is only good when there are no easier options. When IRC is the only instant messaging system, and it has an entry barrier, clever people will pass this barrier, and stupid people will not. But when there are easier alternatives, clever people won't bother.
- qweqwe14 4mo ago[flagged]
- loloquwowndueo 4mo agoDunno man, it’s miles better than discord which bombards me with ads every single time I log in.
- Gud 4mo agoWhat’s wrong with IRCs UI?
- prmoustache 4mo agoI am puzzled by this comment. IRC is a protocol, it is not a software and doesn't have an UI. IRC clients do, and they aren't all the same.
- aboardRat4 4mo agoLol. You must be from the "wayland is just a protocol" bunch. UI(IRC) = MIN_{c \in clients : #user(c) > 100 } UI(c) But even if you take "max" and not "min", it's still horrible.
- yason 4mo ago> IRC's UI is horrible. (Like email.) No wonder people don't want to join it. I consider it a feature that acts as a filter.
- bachmeier 4mo agoThe entire reason Mozilla came into being is to do things like improve the user experience for IRC so we can keep the internet open. There has never been any other reason for Mozilla as an organization to exist.