Can people explain what they like about IRC? I've often found the idea of having a community chat around some topic quite intriguing, but in practice when I've tried briefly joining such communities, I simply don't last long, as it doesn't grab my attention. Rooms tend to have tens or a hundred people joined, but saying nothing, until someone has a problem they want to talk about or question they want to ask, which is either answered quickly, or devolves into seeing that no one can help them, eg. because what they are asking doesn't make sense or is too mbitious or whatnot. Then silence again. In other words I've never gotten a clear sense of "community", but rather a forum for random and often uninteresting questions, and therefore just naturally stop visiting. All in all it just kind of gets boring very fast, I find, so I am curious how people manage to get something out of it and what motivates them to stay joined in a channel.
I haven't tried newer systems like Matrix or Discord so I have no idea if these do any better, or if so, why, although I am consistently surprised by the number of requests posted to reddit to 'join our discord community'. (My reaction is always kind of, well, we're here in this reddit where there is already a community, so..)
My point is not to dis on IRC/chat rooms here, just explaining why I've never particularly found it engaging, and so I'm curious what others see in it, as I feel it's something I could learn to appreciate if I tried a bit harder.
I may not be the common case, but I didn’t join IRC looking for a community. I primarily used it (and still do today) for help and collaboration — open source work and ##javascript /##math questions, usually. By being in the channels frequently enough you begin to figure out the community. Many channels also have off-topic variants for, well, off-topic discussion. Those will tend to be more like communities and not have hundreds or thousands of users.
In terms of why IRC specifically, I enjoy the simplicity of the protocol and the open-source nature of it’s ecosystem
Some channels (right now I can specifically think of SourceHut's) refer to their off-topic channels as the watercooler, and I think that's an apt description. If the main channel is something you're interested in then you'll enjoy the off-topic too.
Getting a hang of irc does take time, imho. It's not something you actively look at and interact. Rather it's something I look at occasionally and interact with. I think this style of irc'ing has made it ideal for me. Once you get more used to specific servers/channels, you tend to have different types of engagement. In my experience, a lot of new users come in hoping for this type of more personal/involved discussion from the get go and get disappointed quite a bit.
There are also different types of channels. I only talk in technical channels like #ubuntu when I need help. No point introducing noise. But I might have a monologue about some petty stuff in ##math-offtopic, for example.
It's not engaging, because it's made for developers. It's a serious tool, and it's not corporate. Professionals want something that works, not something attractive.
For example there are two big c++ discord servers. You can't even search for discord servers, you can't favorite single channels. You quickly get overwhelmed with notifications. Not to mention the things you have to click when you join a server.
And it runs with electron.
It's about the people who will use the tool. Software developers would use irc, gamers would use discord.
This is an overly reductive summary that isn't backed by any of the stats--the number of IRC users has declined well below the number of professional developers. Dozens to hundreds of open source projects were already on Slack/Discord before the explosion of Freenode, dozens more switched when that happened. It's not as simple as "professionals use IRC, gamers use discord".
You could definitely argue that IRC appeals more to the kind of developer who spends their entire day in the terminal and Vim--but that's not the only kind of developer out there! Just like many developers prefer IntelliJ to Vim, many prefer Discord to IRC. Discord and Slack both offer real improvements for some workflows, and some people value those improvements.
As an example, persistent chat is hugely valuable in a help community--I often find I don't need to ask a question at all because I can just search in the history to find what I'm looking for. Even something as seemingly frivolous as reactions is quite useful--one person can answer a question and get a chorus of 'amens' without actually having a bunch of "what he said"s in the chat.
Yeah the notifications and other tricks to try and 'engage' you, so annoying about discord and the other glossy chat apps. "Did you try this channel? People are waiting for you!" bullshit. IRC is clean, fast and efficient.
A quick few thoughts based on using IRC for 13-ish years:
• I like IRC because it is clean and a light-weight text-only interface (well, you could use emojis, if you wish). I prefer text-based conversations when possible. I'm equally fine with video, but text is far more effective for technical conversations.
• It is also less stressful for me, as I can respond in a more asynchronous manner, without any implicit pressure to immediately respond (e.g. the "$person is typing ..." notification).
• IRC 'stuck' with me, because I largely use it for upstream projects that I participate in.
• To avoid "boring questions" it is useful to put an etiquette "hint" in the channel topic, and gently point new users to it. E.g. I've written this some 8 years ago for a channel I used to moderate: https://www.rdoproject.org/contribute/irc-etiquette/
• Lastly, I recognize IRC's pros and cons, so I'm not religiously attached to it, and I'm fine to use other chat tools. I just don't want to become that guy in the last pane of this XKCD comic ;-) — https://xkcd.com/1782/
I'd also add that IRC nowadays is very different from what it used to be. If you removed bouncers channels would be mostly empty. That's why you often see silence.
Back in the days IRC had very vibrant communities. I'd say it's turning into nostalgia now.
You're probably making the mistake of joining communities that have been embrace-extended-extinguished by slack and matrix bridges.
Users on the attacking service get full access to IRC but also additional channels. For who don't mind the insane web bloatware it's simply the least friction path to abandon irc to participate.
In my experience communities that banned these bridges have remained vibrant and active.
This is a thing, yeah, unfortunately. Some channels have really awful bridges like the #calyxos channel on Libera that bridges to matrix but doesn't puppet its users. So all messages seem to come from the same user and you lack nick colours etc.
And indeed, it really thins out the discussions because not all channels are bridged usually.
My point is not to dis on IRC/chat rooms here, just explaining why I've never particularly found it engaging, and so I'm curious what others see in it, as I feel it's something I could learn to appreciate if I tried a bit harder.
I have also always felt this way, trying to get into it and thinking I'll enjoy it but never really succeeding. Maybe all of the people trying to get into it need to create a channel on Libera and just start talking?
IRC and all internet communities that rely on real-time communication have this implicit hurdle where you have to be comfortable talking to people you have never and will never meet.
I personally have never felt especially interested in internet friends and so when I see a Slack channel for something I'm interested in, I just lurk. There is something about the real-time nature of it that is harder to get into compared to sites like HN or reddit, where you can post something and not be as actively holding up a conversation; It's more work. It's also less interesting than doing it in person.
The upside of lurking on platforms like Slack is that every now and then, when someone posts a link, a job posting, something else that I find interesting, I can click on it and easily search for it. Without an IRC bouncer and checking in at regular intervals, I see less interesting stuff over time. You have to "be there", it seems. That's aside from the slow, questions only discussions you're referencing. My guess is that people who can't get into chat rooms, IRC, etc are not willing to check into these online spaces in the same way they do physical ones.
> I have also always felt this way, trying to get into it and thinking I'll enjoy it but never really succeeding. Maybe all of the people trying to get into it need to create a channel on Libera and just start talking?
Tbh if you're on hacker news you're already halfway there. You clearly like high-density no-nonsense communication and aren't put off by the lack of a glossy consumer app.
Slack is kinda IRC just more glossy though. I have a lot of time for slack groups, especially the professional ones like MacAdmins. Don't forget slack also has actual search (at least in the groups that pay for it).
But lurking is normal. When there's 500 users in a channel you don't want to go "hey everyone how's your day" constantly because nobody has time to keep up with that if everyone does it. Though if you're into that, there's offtopic channels usually with people that do have time for it.
No in-line images. No animated GIFs. No reactions. No cutesy junk that wiggles and tells me jokes. Lack of those features keeps users who want those things away.
After using Slack, Discord and JS build tools that fill the terminal with emojis (half joking here), joining some IRC channels from a lightweight Linux client (looking at you, Electron) felt amazingly refreshing.
Plus it woke up some nostalgic feelings back from when I was first discovering the internet (circa 2000).
I share your observations, which apply to a lot of topic-focused channels.
I think they don't apply to the freewheeling chat channels.
In those, a totally different set of social norms apply, and one that may be counterintuitive is that, to get a conversation going, you shouldn't try to be _too_ provocative to get attention. Reason being that you may be dismissed as a troll not worthy of feeding. There's a balance to be struck, but it does exist.
Chat is also not for everyone. And IRC isn't even for every chatter. So it's entirely plausible and not really damning if IRC just isn't your vibe. But if the idea (of a 33-year-old protocol, of a mostly-decentralized infrastructure, of f/oss server and client software) intrigues you, then I'd encourage you to give it another try but with different goals.
Explore more channels. Pop into some of the social ones with 100 < n < 1000 users. Set up a persistent client like TheLounge or Convos on a pi in the closet, so you can catch what happens after you close your browser or sleep your laptop.
Discord seems more about gathering people around a community that someone is driving. For example users of a service, driven by the company. Or a book author running a programming language server. As such they are more successful but perhaps less discoverable. There is no big list of them. (Which might be a good thing from a spam perspective)
When I was in high school I was in different Linux related channels on IRC as I was getting into Linux. I ended up on Quakenet, not sure why, because I'm not a big gamer. Looking back it was mostly the community and meeting like-minded people. Instead of watching TV I'd fire up irrsi and hang out in the chats, talk a bit, answer some basic Linux questions and learn a bit myself. It was also a great place to get help as the expertise was bundled there and there weren't many online sources like these days. I was also in some C/C++ channels and the same goes for that. Some of them were basically a live version of Stackoverflow these days (I'm trying to do X, here's my pastebin of code...any suggestions).
I slowly faded away once I got more busy and forums/search engines provided quick answers for most questions.
I think it's inertia and age. I joined a few IRC channels when I was a teenager for topics I were interested (Tolkien and old Disney films) and poked around in a lot of other communities, but never really stuck with any in particular. Back then obviously I was looking for friends and chatting to random people. Eventually a small group moved from the Tolkien IRC channel I was on and created a small community of our own which over the years have dwindled to a handful of people, but some of us still stick around (and couldn't imagine going anywhere else). The only other IRC channel I'm on was built around a small message board for a group of highschool friends. The message board is still somewhat active, but the IRC channel is down to 2 members :)
I'm now past 40. My social circles stays fairly static. I have tried joining new communities on Discord (and IRC) and generally failed. I don't think it's specifically IRC (although I much prefer its simplicity to Slack and Discord).
> although I am consistently surprised by the number of requests posted to reddit to 'join our discord community'. (My reaction is always kind of, well, we're here in this reddit where there is already a community, so..
I feel the same way about IRC (and Matrix). I think a part of the problem is that the technical Q&A discussion that happens in most of the dev channels would be better served taking place on a forum. Lots of those chats aren't happening in real-time anyways. And if you're not there to receive the messages, the information is lost.
OTOH, certain activities do lend themselves better to real-time messaging. For example, the subreddit of your favorite sportsball team might have a Discord chat that is lots of fun during a live game. Another example; many video game subreddits will have all their LFG (looking for group) activity in a Discord server. Both of these scenarios are very "in the moment" interactions that don't really need to be preserved for the future.
> I feel the same way about IRC (and Matrix). I think a part of the problem is that the technical Q&A discussion that happens in most of the dev channels would be better served taking place on a forum. Lots of those chats aren't happening in real-time anyways. And if you're not there to receive the messages, the information is lost.
This is where a good bouncer comes in. I can search all the way back to the beginning of when I joined a channel in Quassel. It's not lost at all, and a forum is much less direct.
This is one thing where Matrix shines by the way, as when you join a channel you can even go back to things that were said before you joined. Though this is a bit of a double-edged sword. Sometimes when you say something it's good to be aware of who's there to read it and who isn't.
Appreciate your thoughts on this topic. What are some things that would help keep your interest in a topical chat app? Is it strictly that you're uninterested in the content and so the discussion is boring? Or is the asynchronous/disjointed conversation more of an issue?
> My reaction is always kind of, well, we're here in this reddit where there is already a community
I think that misses the different ways people seek to interact online. Reddit/HN style threaded comments have played a traditional role in social/aggregation sites, whereas live chat-based platforms are newer and facilitate a different kind of experience.
Both have value but they are different, and it could be that the latter is simply less interesting to some people.
> you're uninterested in the content and so the discussion is boring?
I would say that perhaps, at least from what I've seen, it's often not really a discussion at all, but more like a question answering forum. I suppose what I like about HN/reddit style forums more, is that there is a "post", with a clear topic or article, and then people actually have a full, long discussion about it. Sometimes of varying quality, but it's at least full of threads where people react, people react to those reactions, etc. Whereas what I've seen on IRC is mostly just "how do I do x", and then some random short-lived arguments about how to do X better, or why are you doing X, etc. It doesn't seem to be a discussion but more like a problem solving brainstorm with a bunch of people who aren't stakeholders in whatever the original poster is talking about.
So, I'm not sure, but maybe the way the discussion in a link aggregator is specifically oriented around a "post" and clear topic is what makes it more engaging for me, rather than just a nebulous promise that "this channel is to discuss X.." followed by people just sitting there with not much to say about X.
But, maybe my take is completely wrong, and that's why I asked the question, maybe I've missed the very interesting and dynamic back-and-forth discussions and funny moments that attract and keep people engaged in a chat room. Maybe it's just a matter of being there long enough.
One thing I've noticed is many conversations will start out on-topic but eventually the active participants will exhaust whatever they have to say and it will pivot to more casual conversation. It isn't necessarily bad, but it creates the problem where new/arriving users see a conversation that appears unconnected from the topic. I recently received a bunch of feedback to that affect.
Another factor that someone else already mentioned is simply that many people like to lurk and don't want to engage in live discussion. Also not a problem if the previous issue is solved.
Runs from command line (with a quake-like terminal) so it’s easier to access than alt tabbing. Text only. Most users have technical background or are hobbyists so the conversations tend to be different.
Normally you are going to want to go into the "offtopic" channels for general chatting. Normal support channels are often very focused and explicitly disallow non-support conversations, but it depends on the specific channel and the operators of the channel of course!
It's blazing fast, uses very little bandwidth and is not polluted by images and stupid stickers, shaking windows or chat bubbles. Of these only the images can be handy sometimes but you can use a weblink for that.
Also, it's anonymous, you can just make up whatever nickname you want, no need to register (ok for some channels/servers they can require it). Just make sure to use a VPS to hide your IP. No "create an account with us first, what's your date of birth and other stuff we have no actual reason to ask for". No terms & conditions crap.
The whole thing with the rooms with hundreds of people joined but not talking is exactly what I like. There is a huge powerful community but very little noise. People don't blab on about what they had for dinner (except in the offtopic channels). IRC is really to the point, though this is a cultural thing, not technical. If you go to #obscureapp you will see talk about this obscure app, and don't have to wade through cat pictures and other BS. Because none of the regulars want to sift through this shit every day so such distractions are quickly moderated.
What you need is a bouncer. I use Quassel myself because it has a GUI client which makes it easy to control multiple connections to networks (with other bouncers this can be complicated). And it has a great Android client QuasselDroid. With Quassel you can just visit it once a day and scroll back to see what you've missed.
In IRC time is also very fluid, you can just reply to a question someone asked much later. If you saw an unanswered question, you probably didn't wait long enough. In fact it is super annoying when people plonk down a question on IRC and then leave 1 minute later. This is not how it works when people are on tens of channels at the same time!
If you're on there regularly and keep a bouncer running 24/7 you will get to know the 'usual suspects' in each channel and you will see a very strong sense of community.
I hate Discord, I like Matrix but matrix becomes difficult to manage if you join 50 public channels. The UI of its clients are focused on being a whatsapp/telegram replacement, not an IRC replacement.
As one actual specific example of what I like about IRC, I had an issue once with a FOSS package on FreeBSD. I mentioned this on the right channel, and it turned out the maintainer was there as well. He confirmed he saw the same issue, found a fix, gave me a workaround and published the final fix 10 minutes later. This is what makes IRC (and Libera in particular) so great. This kind of support is amazing. And this wasn't even a small package at all.
In comparison: I work for a multinational and we pay millions to the usual big tech suspects for "premium" support with agents that don't know more than it says in the kbase which I have already read, not to mention all the jumping through dark pattern hoops I have to go through just to get a ticket in the system. When it gets through I have to reiterate everything I have already said in the ticket, then they will tell me I'm doing it wrong because according to the docs it should work. Yeah, I read the docs, I'm contacting you because it doesn't. Then follows the "troubleshooting" which involves turning unrelated things on/off in the vague hope that it might work because they can't tell me they have no clue as to what the problem is. Fast forward a week or 2 or sometimes a month and if we bug our account manager enough they might grant us the extraordinary privilege of sending our request to someone who is actually slightly involved in development. Only at this point the issue is fixed though we usually have to wait for ages for it to make its way into production. And we pay really big bucks for this crap.
This is where IRC shines. And a lot of the things I mention are not even technical. You could do this thing on any platform, really. But it's part of the culture of IRC. I think what also helps is that the only people who are still sticking with IRC are quite technical so it bypasses the whole "expecting you're a moron that doesn't read the docs" stuff. Bonus points for those that have a registered + cloaked nick and haven't logged in 2 seconds ago :)
I haven't tried newer systems like Matrix or Discord so I have no idea if these do any better, or if so, why, although I am consistently surprised by the number of requests posted to reddit to 'join our discord community'. (My reaction is always kind of, well, we're here in this reddit where there is already a community, so..)
My point is not to dis on IRC/chat rooms here, just explaining why I've never particularly found it engaging, and so I'm curious what others see in it, as I feel it's something I could learn to appreciate if I tried a bit harder.