The problem with IRC is that it now lacks some features that prevent its adoption from a wider userbase.
Outside of our tech circle, there's not many people who wouldn't be turned off by having to register an account by typing custom commands. Or chatting without avatar support.
It may seem silly, but I think many people are turned off by this.
Yeah, but that can easily be implemented in a client, have the client issue commands to nickserv. Same with avatars, just have a url in your VERSION to the avatar or something. All the features of eg. slack could be implemented client side on top of irc. I even run slack via their irc gateway. I handle file/image uploads with my tiny daemon running on http://paste.click and it's easier (for me) with keybindings than just dragging a file onto the screen, although it wouldn't be difficult to implement it.
And it's not silly at all, I understand it, I just wish it wasn't the case. I don't like it but I get it and I don't expect that irc will ever hit the mainstream. Maybe something similar will in the future.
That can indeed be done, although I fear that many clients and servers would implement these additional features differently, thus losing all the good that comes from IRC being an open standard.
I don't know if it's been attempted before... but I think it would be interesting to see something open and community-centered like IRC, but with all these little features people now expect.
It might well bee that the best idea going forward is actually to form up a couple of RFCs regarding nickserv and other bots (eg: channel loggers, nickname registration, what are they called, how do they work -- eg: /invite ChanLog -- /who #mychannel -> ChanLog in list -> indicate messages are archived for this channel -- that kind of thing), mandate TLs only connections -- and then have clients implement on top of that.
Perhaps some RFCs dealing with SRV-records (where is the web UI with channel logs?) -- or maybe even RFCs on how to mirror some functions (nickserv, logs) via REST-apis.
It's not critical at all, but it's something people have come to expect from an instant messaging program.
If our 'open' alternatives don't get those little details right, then it'll be harder for people to transition from whatever closed, proprietary service they're using to something that values their freedom.
> It's not critical at all, but it's something people have come to expect from an instant messaging program.
I still don't know what "it" is though.
> If our 'open' alternatives don't get those little details right, then it'll be harder for people to transition from whatever closed, proprietary service they're using to something that values their freedom.
I also doubt a feature-perfect clone would attract that many users. There needs to be some advantage to using the system, otherwise network effect prevail. (yes, that's a bit oversimplified, but I think it's valid none-the-less).
This is exactly why so many of us like IRC. It (mostly) separates the wheat from the chaff. Chances are you're not going to take the effort to get onto IRC to spend 30 seconds spouting a worthless opinion.
Outside of our tech circle, there's not many people who wouldn't be turned off by having to register an account by typing custom commands. Or chatting without avatar support.
It may seem silly, but I think many people are turned off by this.