Everyone going "Just move to IRC!!!" clearly has no understanding of *why* other things have been more popular than IRC for the last ~12 years, and why this won't happen.
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Everyone going "Just move to IRC!!!" clearly has no understanding of *why* other things have been more popular than IRC for the last ~12 years, and why this won't happen.
Before you reply with "lol IRC is great you don't get it": I say this as a die-hard IRC user who worked for an IRC client company and also ran a large organisation on IRC for the last decade (until we finally gave up and moved to Mattermost this year).
That said, I wish it was true. I want IRC to win.
But without people actually wanting the protocol to move forward, servers changing, and new clients being written to handle it, it ain't gonna happen.
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That said, I wish it was true. I want IRC to win.
But without people actually wanting the protocol to move forward, servers changing, and new clients being written to handle it, it ain't gonna happen.
@jonty it’s completely decentralized! Which is another way of saying “we can’t change anything”.
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That said, I wish it was true. I want IRC to win.
But without people actually wanting the protocol to move forward, servers changing, and new clients being written to handle it, it ain't gonna happen.
And to be clear, it's not like people haven't tried. They really, really, really have.
But have you ever tried convincing people to modify a protocol that is mostly unchanged since 1993, across a massive set of servers that are largely derived from the same codebase but warped in interesting ways, and run entirely by volunteers who go to war with each other every decade.
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@jonty it’s completely decentralized! Which is another way of saying “we can’t change anything”.
@tom EXACTLY
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And to be clear, it's not like people haven't tried. They really, really, really have.
But have you ever tried convincing people to modify a protocol that is mostly unchanged since 1993, across a massive set of servers that are largely derived from the same codebase but warped in interesting ways, and run entirely by volunteers who go to war with each other every decade.
@jonty I keep thinking that step 1 of modernising IRC is turning on the chat history extension and step 2 involves your IRC server disconnecting anyone who tries to login with emacs, irssi or basically any IRC client with a featureset stuck in 1993
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@jonty I keep thinking that step 1 of modernising IRC is turning on the chat history extension and step 2 involves your IRC server disconnecting anyone who tries to login with emacs, irssi or basically any IRC client with a featureset stuck in 1993
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And to be clear, it's not like people haven't tried. They really, really, really have.
But have you ever tried convincing people to modify a protocol that is mostly unchanged since 1993, across a massive set of servers that are largely derived from the same codebase but warped in interesting ways, and run entirely by volunteers who go to war with each other every decade.
Can't wait for someone to reply to this with "just use Matrix" because I have this whole bottle of rage I've been saving up
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@jonty I keep thinking that step 1 of modernising IRC is turning on the chat history extension and step 2 involves your IRC server disconnecting anyone who tries to login with emacs, irssi or basically any IRC client with a featureset stuck in 1993
@erincandescent @jonty don't make me bop you on the head next time we meet for the irssi remark (it actually handles history fine)
though I do plan to migrate off of it at some point
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Can't wait for someone to reply to this with "just use Matrix" because I have this whole bottle of rage I've been saving up
@jonty I should invite you to a pint and hear uour rant about matrix
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@jonty I keep thinking that step 1 of modernising IRC is turning on the chat history extension and step 2 involves your IRC server disconnecting anyone who tries to login with emacs, irssi or basically any IRC client with a featureset stuck in 1993
@erincandescent Part of the problem is server-side chat history storage being so controversial within the IRC community.
"Just run a bouncer", they say, like that is actually something most people are ever going to do.
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Everyone going "Just move to IRC!!!" clearly has no understanding of *why* other things have been more popular than IRC for the last ~12 years, and why this won't happen.
Before you reply with "lol IRC is great you don't get it": I say this as a die-hard IRC user who worked for an IRC client company and also ran a large organisation on IRC for the last decade (until we finally gave up and moved to Mattermost this year).
@jonty to paraphrase a post about twitter: "irc sucks, i use it constantly"
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Can't wait for someone to reply to this with "just use Matrix" because I have this whole bottle of rage I've been saving up
@jonty just use matrix… what is it?
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@erincandescent Part of the problem is server-side chat history storage being so controversial within the IRC community.
"Just run a bouncer", they say, like that is actually something most people are ever going to do.
@jonty @erincandescent Really depends how it will be implemented but opt in for channels to designate a archive thingy. Plenty of IRC channels have a public or semi public archive. So having a API to just fetch this in your history
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@erincandescent Part of the problem is server-side chat history storage being so controversial within the IRC community.
"Just run a bouncer", they say, like that is actually something most people are ever going to do.
@jonty and then so many channels have public logs anyway! and who knows who’s bouncer is running on a box last upgraded in 2015?
there are reasonable infrastructure reasons why networks don’t have message history as an option but that doesn’t mean the lack of message history is a good thing. even the good reasons are to a large extent accidents of history
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@jonty @erincandescent Really depends how it will be implemented but opt in for channels to designate a archive thingy. Plenty of IRC channels have a public or semi public archive. So having a API to just fetch this in your history
@evey @erincandescent You used the word "just" there
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Can't wait for someone to reply to this with "just use Matrix" because I have this whole bottle of rage I've been saving up
@jonty Email chain.
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@jonty Email chain.
@d The one true federated chat platform. It has history and everything.
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Everyone going "Just move to IRC!!!" clearly has no understanding of *why* other things have been more popular than IRC for the last ~12 years, and why this won't happen.
Before you reply with "lol IRC is great you don't get it": I say this as a die-hard IRC user who worked for an IRC client company and also ran a large organisation on IRC for the last decade (until we finally gave up and moved to Mattermost this year).
@jonty There's literally nothing I can recommend to anyone that:
- Features a server and subchannels style of interaction, along with voice channels and screen sharing all rolled into one unified interface.
- Has good clients/apps across iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, and Mac
- Is actively developed and will still be around and working in 5 years, i.e the developers are funded somehow
- Can be reasonably self-hosted (i.e not a Matrix homeserver)
When people point to "Discord alternatives", they're either just random crap (Stoat) or they don't understand the ways people use Discord (i.e recommending IRC and other non-starters), or even worse: judge people for wanting this feature set
The closest thing is Matrix and Matrix is far far far far from what anyone wants. And dear god, the clients. Oh. My. God. The Matrix clients suck in so many ways. So yeah, from what I can tell, there are no Discord alternatives. It's all bad.
I still use IRC every day but IRC is not good enough for even my small friend group that's on Discord. We like our channels, VC, etc. And we hate Discord, but what can be done, ya know.
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Can't wait for someone to reply to this with "just use Matrix" because I have this whole bottle of rage I've been saving up
@jonty honestly the cardinal sin of Matrix is sucking up all the energy in the room and then promising "just one more MSC will fix it" while consistently failing to deliver for what, 10 years?
both IRC and XMPP would be paragons of usability if as much engineering effort had been plowed into them as has been with Matrix
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That said, I wish it was true. I want IRC to win.
But without people actually wanting the protocol to move forward, servers changing, and new clients being written to handle it, it ain't gonna happen.
@jonty the fact that these people have never experienced real train wifi and yet are somehow still calling the shots on massive networks is always the most demotivating thing
