pouët.net

As a far-from-seasoned IRC user, I have to respond to that with a definite "WTF?". If someone tells me "you really should go on #foobar on Astrolink", I first have to manually translate 'Astrolink' into a server name I can put into my IRC client. Googling for it typically turns up a ghastly 8 year old website with 8 year old maintenance announcements and nothing resembling a list of servers. When I finally do find a working server, it's all fine until I change my location - like, say, going to a demoparty - at which point I have to figure out whether to go through the whole process again, or if there's a dedicated party IRC relay or something. Dude, it's 2012. If some kid in a basement can invent Chatroulette, surely someone can come up with an IRC server that can handle a few hundred thousand connections without bitching about me being in the wrong IP range?

What am I missing here?

webchats.

Use /whois username username on IRCnet - you can see how long the person you try to reach is idle and if he properly set an away message you can also see that (/away DOING STUFF). HIGH TECH.
We use IRC for our complete group organization.


Yes and yes. The demoscene is quite present on IRCnet.

So, I tend to think of most instant messenger programs (well, ok, starting with talk or ICQ) as being a one-to-one sort of thing, it's what they're optimized for.

IRC is the kind of thing you use for group conversations, because that is what it is ideally set up for, in a way that chatrooms (I never frequented them, because well, there was IRC) are. And MUDs for that matter.

I've done group meetings on Skype and on AIM, but to be candid, it sucks, both from a bandwidth drop perspective and a getting crap to work perspective. With IRC everyone just gets their head around signing on, and it works. There isn't as much fiddling as with a MUD.

Here, this takes all the gueswork out of it! http://webchat.xs4all.nl/

Or get Chatzilla. It ain't complicated. There's infos online on commands that are nine billion years old and still around.

And I mean, you don't need a VAX. : D

And plus side, unlike ICQ, you aren't going to suddenly be unable to get into your old logs : P and unlike Skype have them maybe auto-delete on you.


[OT, aka Older than Thou: I shudder to think what folks nowadays would think of using "talk" as I did back in college . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_%28software%29
*gasp* UNIX software!

I almost miss that damned VAX, and PINE, and ^H^H^H^H. Actually I don't miss ^H^H^H^H, because it made me swear every time it happened. It was so funny when I saw someone else reference it recently, that it became a thing.]

IRC will still be around when $IM and $SOCIAL_NETWORK are long gone. I'll have to agree with gasman though - finding the damn server can sometimes be a pain, especially IRCNet - "wtf, I must connect to exactly irc.ludd.luth.se? bullshit!"

>screen & irssi - the real thing.
True that

The statistics at http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/04/24/irc-is-dead-long-live-irc/ indicate that although the number of users on traditional IRC networks (such as IRCnet and EFnet) is declining, the userbase of Freenode is growing.

I interpret this as: IRC is losing its casual users to the likes of Facebook, but it retains its status among technically savvy people who have projects to contribute to. I haven't heard about a single active demosceners who would have replaced IRC with anything else. It is still good enough for this stuff, and I'm sure that if someone came up with a superior alternative, technically savvy IRC users would be the first to know about it and start a hype around it. The last time I saw such a hype was more than ten years ago, when some folks were advocating SILC (which, I guess, remained a niche protocol and eventually died out).

That's why IRC clients come with a list of (sometimes outdated) IRC networks.

Jabber

E-mail, Skype, done.

tmux & weechat - better than the real thing.

Oh, and ConnectBot on Android.

because chatting in a browser is fucking awful!

because irc even runs on my nintendo ds (very handy while e.g. doing the dishes), and chatzilla allows me to program javascript bots

Gargaj: We've tried different methods, which resulted to:

email: clusterfuck
google docs: clusterfuck
etc :): IMs are essentially the same as irc for group chat, so irc it is :).



But you always know the order of who written what, so if someone says: "could you please test build xxx on the svn?", well, everyone that reads it will test and comment. So it works fine regardless of timezones :).



Personally I use irc (and IM clients thru bitlbee) as a one-stop centre to see if somebody left me a message, so... :)

@gloom: but... e-mail are not "realtime" (except if you're replying fast and hitting the "read mail" button fastly :D) and i doubt that you can set up a "channel" with more than 100 people with Skype, isn't it?

you know, IRC is like everyday-party time \:D/

Ho also people forgot why IRC is SUPERIOR:

You can leach 0DAY W*R*Z on DCC server \o/

I remember when I downloaded Gigs of Dreamcast stuff by queuing DCC sends :')

I don't see this as a disadvantage. I actually find IRC very annoying because of this.

and for the record, I don't think there's an upper limit for the amount of people in skype group chats if it's just text.

Irc is pretty terrible.. ultra old-style, hard to find stuff on and connect to (there's too many networks, and finding a server on a network is way too hard).

But.. i've just not seen anything better. Once IRC is set up it does the job better than all the IM networks, Skype etc. i've tried. And it has one massive advantage - you don't need an account. You don't even need to install anything if you can connect through a web client.

So why irc? Because it's better than anything else, despite being incredibly old and quite shitty :)

Finding the server can be a PITA, but it's worth it. As nearly everyone already noted, it's simple, quick and we don't need anything else. What are the advantages of other chat services? Smileys, avatars and animations? Plus, all you really have to do is download a client (or use a web-client like Iris or something), connect and you're live.

BTW, I recently found an interview with the inventor of IRC.

http://www.irc-junkie.org/2012-04-23/interview-with-jarkko-oikarinen-the-inventor-of-irc/

Finding the server can be a PITA, but done right, is done once.

I use Miranda IM as a client. It's installation is portable, and when chosen so, it saves its data in its own program folder. There go all plugins, account data, logs, file transfers, and so on. If I ever need to use another computer or reinstall, I zip the whole folder, unzip it in the new machine, create the shortcut and I'm done.

That's how I come into IRC. Last time I had to add an IRC server was over 8 years ago... that said, any complications in establishing connections, with what so ever protocol, is just a PEBKAC syndrome.

considering how oldskool many users are here - we really should all be on alt.demoscene.pouet.mittwoch or somesuch.
But since that ain't happening irc seems to bee the common ground - even tho when ever I search for a room with "demo" or "pouet" on different servers there seems to be fuck all going on.

Garg - I'm no IRC maven but how hard would it be to arrange a scene.org irc server? (Provided there isn't 1 already and I just made myself look like a chump!)

room=chan

Well guess what.

But Usenet is not easy to connect to anymore. IRC is as simple as downloading a client and connecting (and setting up a server, of course).