IRC: why did it fail? (96)

1 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-04-06 01:14 ID:6ppXr5qs This thread was merged from the former /net/ board. You can view the archive here.

It's widely banned for its tendency to be a DDoS lightningrod, and only slightly less infamous for its impenetrable cliques of time-wasting losers. Was IRC just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or is the protocol responsible for its own failure? And how could we do better?

Discuss!

47 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-11 01:22 ID:vlola8Kv

>>42
How the hell could you talk to 100 people at once? Take turns? That's a messageboard if I've ever heard of one. Anonymous messageboards win again in that department, along with >>36's "anonymity = credibility on basis of material."

48 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E : 2006-05-11 05:46 ID:Heaven

>>47
You might want to read >>38, the post >>42 is replying to.

BTW, what are you referring to when you say "anonymous"? No nicks? No IP? Or...?

49 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-21 02:33 ID:Y03qZ9sq

Quite simply, without IRC fansubbing wouldn't even BE, so halt the discussion already!

50 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-21 15:31 ID:Heaven

Uh-huh. Because nobody fansubbed before IRC, right?

Counterpoint: IRC warez culture is largely responsible for the sad decline of fansubbing culture into egowhoring and 0-day warez pimping.

51 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E : 2006-05-23 05:39 ID:Heaven

I can tell you the scanlation community benefitted hugely from IRC. I don't know of any significant group that doesn't have an active IRC channel.

In fact, now that torrents are becoming the norm, quite a few of us are leaving the scene altogether. Chat channels that consist of bots alone are bloody boring.

52 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E : 2006-05-23 05:43 ID:Heaven

Come to think of it, >>51,51 may be related. If all the casual chatters, who are there also to leech, no longer come due to torrents, what's left? Nothing but bots.

Nothing wrong with torrents thought. Convenience is a wonderful thing.

53 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-23 12:12 ID:Heaven

>>52

If torrents are becoming the norm, why do you have bots at all? Point being: If people viewed IRC as a distribution medium with chat on the side, they won't come when there's a more convenient distribution medium. But the problem isn't the torrents, is that IRC is seen as a distribution medium instead of as a place to talk in the first place. You should be advertising the IRC channel as a place to come and talk to the crew instead.

This won't work for a lot of translation groups unless they drop the idiotic superior attitude, though.

54 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E : 2006-05-24 01:51 ID:Heaven

> You should be advertising the IRC channel as a place to come and talk to the crew instead.

Doesn't work. Most of the groups I've been in have tried, to no avail.

People need incentive to lure them in, and chat isn't enough to convince them to install an IRC client and learn how to use it.

55 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-24 08:25 ID:Heaven

> chat isn't enough to convince them to install an IRC client and learn how to use it.

That's ok; you didn't want those people in your channel anyway.

56 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E : 2006-05-24 11:42 ID:Heaven

Touché.

57 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-24 23:51 ID:Heaven

>>56
It's a good thing you posted that with a tripcode. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known to expect such an insightful comment, and I might have passed it over!

58 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-25 00:43 ID:Da87sH05

I have to poo.

59 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E : 2006-05-25 01:20 ID:Heaven

>>57
Wrong thread, wrong website.

60 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-25 06:33 ID:RGHQ5qfW

>>59
your mom is a whore

61 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-05-25 09:36 ID:Heaven

>>60
your whore is your mum. gtfo.

62 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-06 20:09 ID:ThZjBuGq

>>55
But if the people are there and see someone talking, they might start chatting, too, or stick around even. The chance may be small, but its there. This chance is not given if they just go and download the torrents.

Also, what happend? Is net now dqn or something?

63 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-07 18:32 ID:OSaHMP6g

>>That's ok; you didn't want those people in your channel anyway.

I don't see where this attitude is coming from. It doesn't do much to dissuade people from believing that IRC-users are elitist.

64 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-08 09:34 ID:Heaven

>>63

That was hardly elitist. If the point here is to get people into the channel to chat, there's no use enticing people who wouldn't come for the chat -- because if they do come, they won't be there for the chat, they'll be there for whatever else you were offering; and they'll leave when they're done, and probably won't chat much, if at all, while they're there. Defeating the purpose of getting them in there to begin with.

65 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-09 07:56 ID:Heaven

>>64 But yet, in practice, most channels are either dead silent or are tighter than a twelve year old and therefore inpenetrable to your average new visitor.

66 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-13 01:10 ID:4JVcuuI5

I am an average new visitor, in fact I just recently started using IRC. I only use it to download scanlations, as most groups insist on IRC being their sole distribution method. Unfortunately my 30-day free mIRC trial is running out, so I was wondering if there is a way to get around paying the registration fee. Sorry for being so cluless btw.

67 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc : 2006-06-13 02:54 ID:cvXb4BX3

You could not use it. mIRC isn't the only IRC client on Earth, you know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_IRC_clients

(It drives me nuts when people refer to IRC as a whole as mIRC. "I was talking to some friends on mIRC the other day…" KILL KILL KILL)

68 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-13 02:58 ID:aK2l1RAC

>>66 finding cracks for mirc is EXACTLY the kind of thing google was made for.

See you on mirc!

69 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-13 21:28 ID:ROQ7NCye

mIRC locks you out now? I thought it just kept nagging you.

70 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-14 22:04 ID:Heaven

All I remember about mIRC is khaled's squeaky nose.

71 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-15 07:32 ID:Heaven

>>67
I do that sometimes. And it sort of makes sense if they're actually using the Mirc client.

Like people say "I was taking on AIM"... but they probably wouldn't say that if they were using, say, Trillian.

People can also talk on the phone, but if they were talking on the phone through Skype, they would probably say they're talking on Skype.

72 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-15 08:48 ID:Heaven

I wouldn't. I have no idea how to pronounce "Skype".

73 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-15 23:53 ID:Heaven

>>72
I pronounce it so that it rhymes with "hype."

74 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-06-16 07:54 ID:Heaven

Appropriate.

75 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-07-03 05:29 ID:mrCuIrKq

If you have a group of ppl (geeks or not), IRC is still the fastest method to get them talking.
TeamSpeak and similar programs come next if you don't want to type.
Their strength lies in the ability to put up your channel (or even server) in no time and not having to go through stoopid registration process.
In many IRC web sites all the n00b must do is click on a button to load the IRC applet.

That said, most of the public channels on IRC are total crap. Apart from the fact that nowadays it's so difficult finding a chan with a conversation going, the most annoying thing is that in some fields (like, say, the Linux channels), it's almost impossibile for a normal homo sapiens to start a conversation or befriend the patrons without being bullied, ridicolized then ignored and eventually banned if he keeps trying to communicate. And this holds true equally for n00bs or skilled individuals.

I think the main difference with the corporation-backed networks is that while in those you find ppl who go there to actually CHAT (and if they don't want to chat they log off), in most IRC chans ppl simply "stay" to show off that they are there.
I agree that lots of damage in IRC has been done by the warez scene tradition which has been the cradle for some of the worst moronic attitudes seen in history imho, many of their holier-than-thou attitudes have been passed in some form to other tech communities.

76 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-07-03 22:44 ID:Heaven

It is also the fastest method to get them to start typing things like "ppl".

77 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-07-09 11:15 ID:zvAx9HO4

Maybe it's the fact you're getting older, so the people you used to talk to on irc are moving on and doing other things. Neither myself nor anyone I used to associate with on it use it anymore, because we're too busy doing whatever (finishing university, working etc). Things like LJ or forums cater to our 'needs' better, since we're rarely online at the same time.

I dunno what the youngins are doing nowadays. Myspace is too hideous to look at for more than a few seconds, so I'm not really interested in it.

78 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-07-10 19:29 ID:7BrNb8/u

>>77
i think they are just chatting with whatever methods supplied by their isp

>>76
you correct grammar ppl can go to hell

79 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E : 2006-07-11 01:09 ID:Heaven

Language is used to communicate. Making it harder for others to understand you is a hindrance to that end.

The presentation says something about the writer as well.

80 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-07-12 21:26 ID:q9HSmGEU

irc isn't dead, a lot of people still use it. I'll admit though, most of the people who use it are either
1) tech geeks
2) "underground" internet users

or combinations of the both

81 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-07-18 06:22 ID:Heaven

I find IRC a wonderful way to keep up with my online contacts, as the room I run usually has 10-15 people in it at a time and discussion is almost always going. Better than using a one-on-one IM client, at least to me.

82 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-07-23 22:53 ID:jB521VL/

Maybe we are asking the wrong questions. How about this:

  • Why does IRC work excellent for some groups and not at all for others?
  • For what kind of groups/people does IRC work well?

83 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-07-24 18:45 ID:0YfvBqCH

It works for the kind of people who have the free time to while away hours idling on a channel between chats.

84 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-08-03 01:22 ID:KrfVYX5L

>>82
1)because some people want interaction from their social activities while irc users are content to just idle.

2)antisocial nerds on powertrips

85 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2006-10-02 20:49 ID:Heaven

/join #4chan on rizon and then tell me that IRC is dead

86 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2017-05-29 21:00 ID:uUqB+RZ9

>>85
IRC is dead, sorry man.

87 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2017-05-30 04:54 ID:7MljuVQr

>>86
It's not.

88 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2017-05-30 13:16 ID:fEJUKcNu

>>85
it is a horrible clique.

89 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2017-06-30 04:55 ID:Heaven

>>88
I was going to say, if that's what "live IRC" looks like, I want no part of it.

90 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2018-09-17 22:40 ID:Heaven

Remember when people complained about IRC instead of Discord?

sips monster

91 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2019-02-04 00:54 ID:kyNhT+mO

>>90

>sips monster

Will you be my ana buddy?

92 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2019-02-10 03:50 ID:SPr6mqpz

IRC failed because nobody remembers how to read anymore. Books are dead too.
I am going to see if IRC works over i2p now.

93 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2019-03-06 23:36 ID:LiTfwJi7

IRC let lives, IRC always lives.

94 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2019-03-14 23:39 ID:6WCTbVUs

>>92

Books ain't dead. ebooks may be digital but they still are books.

95 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2019-08-19 06:40 ID:HcRIxCr8

A major part of is it that the original IRC protocol doesn't do well in a world where most connections are ephemeral (smartphones, laptops). No one wants to run a persistent bouncer session just to view past messages. Other lesser things are that the original protocol doesn't handle rich media formats gracefully, so things such as images require nonstandard extensions.

There's also a concerted efforts by companies to favor their own walled-garden platforms over open interconnects (slack used to supprot irc but no longer, google used to support xmpp/gchat interconnect but no longer) so development on irc is practically frozen as no one's going to bother fleshing out and implementing the ircv3 standard.

The closest thing to a modern irc is the matrix protocol, but last time I tried it was really janky compared to irc. Plus development on that is spearheaded almost entirely by one company and I'm not sure there are even any alternate server implementations.

96 Name: 404 - Name Not Found : 2019-09-07 16:53 ID:/PcUNUqE

deltachat but for IRC when.

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