[HN Gopher] IRCv3 Spec round-up
___________________________________________________________________
IRCv3 Spec round-up
Author : buovjaga
Score : 171 points
Date : 2021-11-18 11:29 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ircv3.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (ircv3.net)
| rawoke083600 wrote:
| Man i miss my IRC Days ! Still have real life friends from that.
| Also got my fist MP3 'file-send' to me..Lol anyone remembers the
| wareZz-IRC-Bots/channels. Lol apart from competing in content
| they also competed in terms of colors/ascii graphics.
|
| Still thinks its miles better than slack/skype for inter-office
| communication(Notice i said communication not app/task-
| tracking/1001-Things our over-engineered 'chat-programs' provide
| today).
|
| XChat - Good times :)
|
| PS. Would love to see some benchmarking for a modern-irc-daemon
| written in say Go or something else with good concurrency
| primatives. Was quite a issue 'back in the day' the max clients
| per server.
| balabaster wrote:
| I don't miss the net splits though :D
|
| mIRC... those were the days. Good times, indeed!
| rawoke083600 wrote:
| Haha ja ! mIRC was a great client with excellent scripting
| capabilities !
| dopp0 wrote:
| I miss that a lot. it was one of my contacts with
| programming language, close to C. #pairc ftw
| zmix wrote:
| Bah, PeeZee! Nothing could ever beat AmIRC2[1] on Amiga!
|
| Especially when you were running "Kuang 11"[2], which
| developed from a client script into a shared library,
| written in some compiler language and offering, itself, a
| script API, in addition to the client's :-)
|
| I don't know how many times some idiots tried to take over
| a channel and Kuang 11 (or a sister project, it was, I
| think, which used the K11 API) reacted so fast, that our
| clients stood rock solid and could not be flooded, etc.
|
| [1]: https://www.amigaos.net/software/115/amirc [2]:
| http://de4.aminet.net/comm/irc/KuangEleven3Gm.readme
| intricatedetail wrote:
| No end to end encryption? It should be default at least for
| private messages.
| raspyberr wrote:
| What's the point of E2E in a public chatroom? If there's no
| restriction to enter anyone could just put a bot in that logs
| everything everyone says.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| You can have password protected rooms or host service on an
| untrusted platform. In a corporate environment lack of e2ee
| is a deal breaker.
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| > In a corporate environment lack of e2ee is a deal breaker
|
| Not in my experience. I would want a new hire to be able to
| search past history for context and to many businesses like
| to monitor the chats.
|
| Keep in mind, IRC would generally be hosted by the business
| themselves so they'd have full access to the data. Why
| would that business want to hide their employees messages
| from themselves?
| progval wrote:
| OTR <https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/> is the de-facto standard for
| encryption on IRC. It's also quite old, so it predates IRCv3.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yeah. Welp, you can still use OTR.
| trabant00 wrote:
| I'm really bummed about the negativity in the comments. I for one
| have high hopes for this as the current generation of web powered
| chats are huge pain for me. Maybe open protocols can take the
| lead again, at least for a while. It has happened before. Let
| other people work for our benefit with a bit of encouragement, it
| costs very little and an eventual failure will do you no harm.
| naikrovek wrote:
| There's no reason that a web-based chat cannot also have a
| "thick" client which works as IRC currently does.
|
| We can do both with a single service...
|
| the true problem here is that IRC is long-forgotten by many,
| completely unknown by most, and those that remain remain
| because they have a strong attachment to IRC. That strong
| attachment will make driving a standard forward very difficult,
| because no two true IRC fans are going to have the same
| opinions on what a new version should look like.
|
| It's the true fans of open source stuff that hold open source
| stuff back the most.
| ttybird wrote:
| The cost is that it is fragmenting the already fragmented scene
| of open protocols with an inferior solution. Now I will have to
| install a 5th chat client in order to talk with the few people
| that will move to it.
| jedberg wrote:
| The beauty of an open protocol is that you probably won't
| need a new client -- all the existing clients will just add
| it as another network to connect to.
|
| Remember back in the day when everything was an open
| protocol? We didn't use five chat clients -- we used Trillian
| to connect to all the different networks.
| ttybird wrote:
| All of the chat protocols that I use are open actually, yet
| neither I nor you use a client that supports matrix, irc,
| xmpp, etc at the same time. Clients that supported multiple
| protocols died for a reason. These were "jack of all traded
| but madter of none", extremely buggy and lacking in
| features.
| jedberg wrote:
| I do. It's called Beeper. Also, I didn't care that they
| were "master of none". I just wanted to talk to all my
| friends on all the networks without having to use a ton
| of memory running multiple apps, which was more important
| back then, when the cost of multiple apps was higher.
|
| > Clients that supported multiple protocols died for a
| reason.
|
| Yeah, because everyone moved to closed networks.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Out of curiosity are you self hosting Beeper or did you
| manage to get past the waitlist?
| jedberg wrote:
| I got through the waitlist.
| ttybird wrote:
| "Master of none" includes crashing every few minutes,
| dropping messages, lacking critical features, etc.
|
| As for beeper it seems to lack xmpp support (despite some
| of the services that they support using it internally).
| Although I will say that it looks cool.
|
| _" Yeah, because everyone moved to closed networks."_
|
| This is not how I remember it but let's agree to disagree
| :p
|
| The main question remains though, what does irc3 offers
| over xmpp and matrix?
| jedberg wrote:
| I don't remember Trillian having any of those problems. I
| remember loving it and using it constantly, but having to
| stop using it when my friends started moving to closed
| networks so I had to run a bunch of other clients.
|
| irc3 brings irc up to modern standards so that when _are_
| using a combo client, the features you have on the other
| networks work on IRC too.
| zamadatix wrote:
| > I remember loving it and using it constantly, but
| having to stop using it when my friends started moving to
| closed networks so I had to run a bunch of other clients.
|
| This seems backwards, didn't you use Trillian _because_
| your friends were using closed networks and you didn't
| want to run a bunch of clients? I don't really remember
| anyone rushing to Trillian because it was the best XMPP
| client it was because it could speak to multiple closed
| networks. It died because trying to keep up with reliably
| doing so was a pain, particularly when the normal user
| moved past only needing plain text IM to work reliably.
| jedberg wrote:
| I'm defining closed networks as ones like Facebook
| Messenger and iMessage and such. The "closed" networks
| that Trillian accessed still used open protocols. But my
| progression was AIM, then ICQ at the same time, then
| Trillian which could do both plus the few people on Yahoo
| messenger and GTalk and IRC, and then I had to drop it
| when too many people moved off of those networks onto the
| really closed networks.
| jeltz wrote:
| Neither Miranda nor Pidgin has those problems. What made
| me stop using Pidgin was only that everyone moved to
| networks not supported by Pidgin.
| [deleted]
| sneeeeeed wrote:
| Yikes, Pidgin was nothing like this in my experience.
| Rock solid for months at a time. Maybe you pushed the
| wrong button? What are the details of the platform you
| were trying to run it on?
| progval wrote:
| Note that IRCv3 is backward-compatible, so you don't need a
| new client. Any existing IRC client can connect to it just
| fine; including multi-protocol clients like Pidgin. And if
| you do want a client with all the new IRCv3 features, that
| client can still connect to old IRC servers.
| [deleted]
| ttybird wrote:
| I uninstalled irssi once my friends moved to newer and
| better protocols, so yeah, I will need to.
| yur3i__ wrote:
| I'm still not entirely sure on the point of IRCv3, it seems to me
| that the main draw of IRC in current times is the simplicity of
| the protocol, losing that by adding a whole bunch of new
| features, I don't see what niche IRC fills anymore.
| nicolaslem wrote:
| Almost everything in IRCv3 is opt-in. If you want to use netcat
| to access a modern IRC server you can still do it and it looks
| just the same as it looked in the 90s.
| progval wrote:
| Minimalist and full-featured implementations can coexist and
| talk to each other, as all specs are designed with graceful
| degradation in mind.
|
| Minimalist implementations can also cherry-pick newer features
| they want. For example, this IRC client explicitly says it in
| its "non-features" section:
| https://git.causal.agency/catgirl/about/
| Macha wrote:
| If you read the XMPP discussion from the other day, one of the
| points highlighted was that there's no common spec for modern
| features so it's really hard to know if a given client<->server
| combo supports newer features. IRCv3 is the same idea. Some of
| it is stuff that's been around for ages so clients just assume
| it's there like SASL and capability negotiation - these are
| much more specifying what servers/clients already do, IRCv3 is
| not adding to complexity here because the complexity already
| exists.
|
| The second is more green field projects, like the stuff to
| allow a more web client friendly protocol compared to IRC
| currently by defining how to use web sockets avoiding the need
| for stuff like IRCCloud or Mibbit proxying their user's
| connections. Or chathistory to make it more mobile/not
| permanently attached friendly.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Slack, Teams, and Discord are proof that there are serious
| demands to have a chat system. It's just IRC as it is, is
| clearly outdated for the current market.
|
| It's niche is as simple as it was way back when, you can create
| your own chat server for your community. Instead of having to
| use Discord, Slack, etc you can create your own and control it
| fully. While it's possible to do that to this day it's not to
| the same level it was back in the late 90s for example.
| path411 wrote:
| Damn, this makes me drool over an alternate universe where
| discord, slack, and teams are just competing irc clients.
| Unfortunately I can't imagine anything like that ever
| happening
| handrous wrote:
| Won't happen until grabbing everyone's data isn't a top
| priority for tech companies. They don't want you to be able
| to do stuff that they can't observe.
|
| IOW we're stuck with a decaying protocol ecosystem--for
| messaging, and everything else--until we outlaw
| surveillance capitalism, which we probably won't do. Email
| wouldn't be able to take off if it were invented today,
| because it lets you use it without one company seeing
| _everything_. The state of things is really bad. It 's a
| drag on productivity, with endless wheel-reinventing and
| deliberately-bad interoperability.
| beebeepka wrote:
| So,a basic standard web chat spec. I am good with that.
|
| Didn't see anything about WebRTC, so no multimedia? I'm fine with
| that, too. Basic is good.
|
| Now, I am not up to date with modern chat apps, but I'd imagine
| most of what is out there has everything in this draft and then
| some. So, why would anyone commit to the protocol besides
| nostalgia. Not saying it's bad, just wondering
| phoronixrly wrote:
| Does Andrew Lee of Freenode infamy have a say in the
| definition/ratification of the ircv3 specs?
| yur3i__ wrote:
| If you look at the "participating organizations" section at the
| bottom of the page, freenode is not listed
| austincheney wrote:
| Would that matter? This is an IETF working group which has a
| process to test and ratify updates.
|
| Edit: I found this helpful page on the site describing open
| participation. https://ircv3.net/participation
| vadfa wrote:
| I doubt he's interested in this kind of stuff at all.
|
| Myself I wanted to stay, but he kinda "closed" freenode - you
| need to register using a web form and access using SASL. Since
| he dropped the old nick database, you can't use your old nick
| anymore. I doubt there are many people online there at this
| point.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I was sad at the commotion in the community but at least he
| did it with so much passion that everyone left for Libera and
| the community wasn't split at all :) A few projects remained
| at first but when he wiped the database and they lost their
| op rights to random people (whoever happened to join back
| first) the last ones moved over.
|
| So now Libera is what Freenode used to be, nothing more
| nothing less, only with more well-defined management that
| learned their lessons about vetting contracts. They're doing
| a great job at continuing the Freenode spirit and everything
| is settled back to normal.
|
| Pretty much the best outcome possible from all this IMO.
|
| Ps the sign up form is so un-irc. The great thing about IRC
| is that you don't need any identity.
| account42 wrote:
| > everyone left for Libera and the community wasn't split
| at all
|
| Sadly Libera.Chat is only at about half the size [0] that
| Freenode was. Sure, a lot of those lost will not have been
| active participants anymore (just keeping their
| bouncer/client running) but all of them?
|
| [0] https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Yeah I have a strong feeling a lot of those are just
| bouncers that are running on some old VPS, totally
| forgotten.
|
| I also think this would have triggered people to think
| "do I actually still want to be on IRC"? Rather than just
| idling for years.
|
| However I didn't know it was still only half the size.
| That is much worse than I expected.
|
| I know some of them have moved to other networks, for
| example the alpine linux team went to OFTC. So part of it
| is explained by that. Still a split of the community but
| OFTC is a very similar type of community.
| vadfa wrote:
| You severely understimate the amount of idling going on
| on IRC.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > everyone left for Libera and the community wasn't split
| at all
|
| Judging from the statistics, it looks like a significant
| fraction decamped to OFTC (~10-15k) instead of Libera
| (~50k).
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| True, I forgot about that. Like alpine. Probably because
| I was always both on Freenode and OFTC so I didn't
| consider them 'lost'. But this is a personal thing, good
| point.
| nightbrawler wrote:
| Back in the 90s I spent a lot of time on EFnet. What's the go to
| network these days?
| icy wrote:
| Rizon. It isn't quite as active, but there are a few good chans
| to chill in.
| Minor49er wrote:
| I went from DALnet to EFnet / Undernet. They're still near the
| top of Netsplit's list of Top 100 IRC Networks
| https://netsplit.de/networks/top100.php
|
| EsperNet is on the list too. I remember spending a lot of time
| on there way back when.
| ranieuwe wrote:
| As an EFnet admin: EFnet ;-) IRCnet is still around too with
| some very active chat channels (e.g. #worldchat). The networks
| are much smaller nowadays though.
| nightbrawler wrote:
| nice, now I want to connect and check out the old channels I
| used to hang out in!
| foxfluff wrote:
| libera.chat is quite lively. IRCnet, efnet, quakenet, etc. are
| still there but maybe not as active as in the past.
| Seirdy wrote:
| Want to talk about a FLOSS project? Libera.Chat, OFTC, GIMPNet.
|
| Want to just chat? Snoonet, Slashnet, Quakenet.
|
| Want to just chat but want it to be technology focused?
| Darkscience, 2600net.
|
| This is a shortlist of public networks I can recommend to a
| new/returning user; there are many smaller networks out there
| that you might discover organically with time.
| nightbrawler wrote:
| awesome, thanks for that info!
| ttybird wrote:
| What does this solve that xmpp and matrix do not?
|
| And still no e2ee, after all these years.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| IRC is mostly used for public chatrooms, so what the purpose of
| E2EE would be anyway?
| ttybird wrote:
| If that was the case then \query would not exist.
|
| There are (were) many smaller groups that use private
| channels. It is also how me and my first bf and some of my
| friends ended up talking.
| progval wrote:
| OTR is a de-facto standard for e2ee on IRC, it predates Matrix
| by a decade.
| ttybird wrote:
| And yet almost nobody who uses irc uses it, unlike omemo
| (xmpp) and olm (matrix). Its encryption also predates matrix
| by a decade, its dh prime is only 1.5k bits big.
| progval wrote:
| True, people on IRC usually don't mind conversations being
| public. Check out OTRv4 though, they are working on
| modernizing the encryption: https://bugs.otr.im/otrv4/otrv4
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Is anyone using IRC for private conversations? I only see
| it being used for public chat rooms where every message is
| even getting recorded to a public archive; it's one of the
| rare cases of a messaging system where people have nearly
| zero concern for privacy. (I'm all for having the option of
| course, just pointing out a cultural reason why e2ee
| wouldn't have much uptake since nobody cares)
| ttybird wrote:
| I responded to that in another message but yes, many
| people do. Either via direct messages or small private
| channels.
|
| But even if they didn't, there would be no reason not to
| move their public conversations to the protocol that they
| use for direct messages.
| betterunix2 wrote:
| e2ee is a challenge for any system that did not have it built-
| in in the first place, and even more so when the system is open
| (in the sense of anyone being able to implement their own
| client/server, and server federation). At the end of the day we
| will probably not be able to do much better than using TLS to
| secure IRC, and will just have to trust the server. OTR is OK
| for those who choose to use it, but it is not universal and
| requires too much coordination with whoever you are trying to
| chat with (you have to answer challenges like, "I like my IRC
| client, I do not care that it doesn't support OTR, we are just
| chatting about TV shows so who cares?").
| ttybird wrote:
| Dunno about that. XMPP and Matrix seem to have solved this
| issue. Plus implementing TLS is much more difficult than
| implementing e2ee so I do not get the argument.
| betterunix2 wrote:
| TLS is widely supported with dozens of available
| implementations ready-to-use in many different programming
| languages and on many different platforms, and it basically
| comes free for any browser-based implementation. Those
| implementations also receive a lot of attention, and
| because of that library support it is much easier to update
| an application that uses TLS than some purpose-built chat
| protocol. For example, let's say a new EC attack is
| discovered and we have to move everyone to a different set
| of curves (e.g. maybe P256 is found to be insecure and we
| all have to switch to P521). An OpenSSL update will be
| pushed out a lot sooner, and will be used by far more
| client applications, than the updates to all of the
| hundreds of chat clients that need whatever chat-specific
| e2ee protocol updated.
|
| At the end of the day, even with all problems that exist in
| TLS implementations, I have a lot more faith in TLS than I
| do in some college student's hacked together web chat
| client's e2ee implementation. As for XMPP, just how widely
| available is OMEMO in XMPP client software? The last time I
| tried to deal with XMPP and e2ee I was constantly
| confronted with clients that did not support this or that
| protocol. I can't speak for Matrix, maybe it "solved" the
| problem, but as I said if e2ee was not part of the standard
| from the beginning it is going to be hard to push it out as
| an afterthought.
| ttybird wrote:
| Solution: use a library for the e2ee, multiple clients
| and even the group that makes the standard could
| contribute. This is what matrix did. On the other hand
| Dino (xmpp) uses vala bindings for the official
| "libsignal-protocol-c".
|
| Your favorite curve is suddenly vulnerable? Use a library
| like libsodium which has a solid track record and will be
| updated to replace the default algorithm if there is a
| need.
|
| I will take signal's "hacked together" e2ee
| implementation over openssl.
|
| As for clients without omemo support, I did not have any
| issue so far.
| d--b wrote:
| Ugh, they added "Typing notification". Thankfully it's only a
| protocol, we can ignore this if we want.
| [deleted]
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Is it mandated optional on the type-ers side? And opt-in?
| progval wrote:
| "Clients are recommended to provide appropriate privacy
| controls when enabling this feature."
| https://ircv3.net/specs/client-tags/typing#privacy-
| considera...
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| If I'm reading the spec right, it's up to the clients to
| offer the opt-out or opt-in. There is fortunately a section
| on privacy considerations.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I don't really think it matters what the spec says anyway.
| Who's going to enforce that? Like if it was required, would
| the server automatically reject messages if it didn't get a
| typing notification for an amount of time that's
| proportional to the length of the message?
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| Official motivation/anti-motivation: 'Conversations can have an
| increased sense of immediacy when participants are aware that
| others are in the process of replying.'
| https://ircv3.net/specs/client-tags/typing#motivation ... I
| need less 'sense of immediacy' in my life.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Yeah one of the best things about IRC is that immediate
| replies are not expected. It has little immediacy and I like
| that.
|
| Except for the noobs that plonk down a question and leave a
| minute later.
| jeltz wrote:
| Hm, I have the opposite experience of IRC. The thing I
| dislike about it is how urgent it feels. I prefer mediums
| with threaded conversations.
| Minor49er wrote:
| Don't your threads get lost by the channel's activity?
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I really like Discord's implementation of threads as ad-
| hoc lightweight temporary channels. Putting them in the
| sidebar is a great idea, at least for how we use them.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| They do but that's why people use highlights. Most good
| IRC clients have tickmarks in the scrollbar.
| kenniskrag wrote:
| Are you always connected? If not how do you receive the
| answer?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Yes, you just stay connected for a long time (idling). I
| run a bouncer (forward proxy for IRC, basically) on a
| server so I effectively stay connected 24/7 to all the
| channels I'm in, so asking a question, waiting a few
| minutes to see if someone answers immediately, and then
| leaving and coming back an hour or two later is totally
| normal (you could of course just keep your client
| connected, but my internet's not quite that reliable).
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I'm the parent and yes like the other reply here I do the
| same. I keep a bouncer (Quassel in my case) connected
| 24/7 on a VPS.
|
| Quassel is really nice, it's got infinite scrollback,
| multi-network, GUI configuration that is stored on the
| server, logs go into a database, and the desktop and
| mobile clients (QuasselDroid!) are really good. It brings
| IRC into this century without giving up what makes it so
| good. Unlike Matrix which is aiming more at the
| Whatsapp/Telegram/Discord community.
|
| I use both mind you, but I don't integrate IRC into
| Matrix for this reason. I use Matrix just for the
| individual and small group chats and Quassel for IRC.
| Matrix gets too messy when you're on tens of different
| group chats.
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| Same. I'm concerned that a leading IRC client that for its
| own growth reasons doesn't allow opting out of sending the
| beacon. Then you're left with an otherwise inferior client
| in order to participate. Or worse, a server that kicks you
| out if your client doesn't send the beacon.
| rawoke083600 wrote:
| Ahh yes... was like xmass every morning when you first
| looked at your irc client !
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| Hi cbm-vic-20
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| So far, how well are clients supporting the disabling of
| sending the typing beacon?
| nimbius wrote:
| "guys i just think emacs...i mean..."
|
| _thunderous storm of typing notifications blacks out the
| screen_
| moritonal wrote:
| I once implemented in a dead chat-app a "typing notification"
| by sending both the `isTyping` flag, along with the length of
| the unsent message. On the clients side it was displayed as a
| blurred lorem-ipsum of the correct length.
|
| It was the nicest form of instant conversation I've ever had.
| Watching the blurred text become a message was lovely and every
| conversation felt snapper rather than anxiety-inducing as you
| start at the "x is typing" message, instead you just watch the
| sentance grow, then materialise.
| fnord123 wrote:
| Yikes. The amount of times I type a message only to delete
| it, people I'm talking to will probably be horrified if they
| saw me give a wall of text to be replaced with "cool".
| garaetjjte wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1886/
| balabaster wrote:
| The amount of times I do the same, only to think that
| everything I've written sounds so self centred that it's
| not worth posting, so then I think to myself "there's my
| therapy on the subject, delete."
|
| Sometimes just the writing is cathartic enough that once
| you've gotten it off your chest, you don't really need to
| hit submit.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| "k"
| tehbeard wrote:
| While I applaud the technical implementation, as someone who
| needs to e to compose their thoughts and often drafts in the
| input box of chat apps, with the final messages usually
| winding up shorter.... That's a fucking terrifying feature.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Same here. This sounds far worse than just the normal
| typing notification. If I was using an application that did
| this preview, I would type up messages in a text editor and
| paste them in. There's so many times where I have a massive
| block of text that I'm not satisfied with as communicating
| my thoughts properly and I don't want to expand it out to
| an essay (no one will read that in a chat application), so
| I just delete it and replace it with an acknowledgement of
| the message I'm responding to. That would look ridiculous
| to other people in the chat!
| moritonal wrote:
| For what it's worth, it sounds like a pretty useful
| signal to others in the chat to know you have a lot to
| say on the matter, but have actively chosen to say
| little. The ledger would show a simple message, but
| ephemerally you and your colleagues would have gotten to
| know each other slightly more than the otherwise dead-
| air.
|
| I also had a limit over 52 chars with elipses to stop
| walls of text.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I'm of the view that pretty much everybody does this.
| epalm wrote:
| I endlessly revise outgoing messages, often rearranging
| parts of my sentences to ensure what I'm saying is clear
| (enough). After mistakenly hitting Send enough times,
| especially when there's an apostrophe in the text, if the
| message is at all important or complex enough, I drop into
| a text editor first, then paste and send. This also skips
| the "X is typing" problems you describe.
|
| I wonder how many other people do this.
| moritonal wrote:
| So I'm the complete same, but have you ever thought about
| how that might impact the way you communicate? I've found
| I've got worse at talking (verbally) compared to typing,
| because of how many cruxes I'd started relying on over the
| pandemic (along with other reasons of course).
| username91 wrote:
| This sounds really cool! What was the app's name?
| moritonal wrote:
| There is no reference to it on the internet, and I'm fairly
| sure no bit survives. Which is sad when I think I worked 6
| months on it, but someone paid me to do it, so that's nice.
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| I'm normally opposed to typing notifications, but I really
| like this idea for certain channels. How did you handle the
| case where many people are typing at once? >5 might get noisy
| if they all had their own lines.
| moritonal wrote:
| I think I had it so the first three typing would be shown
| sorted by whoever typed first, but then ellipsis the rest.
| The app was designed to be a more conversation-based app
| with things like a room being opened with an objective and
| closed then they were complete, so it favoured slower
| conversations.
| pferde wrote:
| "Bob is typing..."
|
| "Bob and Phil are typing..."
|
| "Bob, Phil and 3 others are typing..."
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| In the last case it doesn't really say anything.
|
| Though I suppose you could visualize it in the nickname
| somehow. But I hate the current retrieve trend of "and 3
| others". It didn't really tell you anything if one of the
| other participants is someone you want to know about.
| Because you still don't know if any of them is typing or
| not.
|
| If it's important, show it for everyone. Otherwise don't
| bother showing it at all. But showing it for some
| randomly picked users makes no sense.
| pferde wrote:
| You are correct. I've seen this kind of notification used
| together with small avatar pictures of users who are
| typing - I think it was in Element.
|
| Then again, in practice I found that if more than two or
| three people are typing at a given moment, it's probably
| a conversation that's lively enough already, and I'd
| usually just wait to see what the participants end up
| writing regardless of who it is. So the value of such a
| notification is about the same as if the all the typing
| users were named in it explicitly. :)
| rootlocus wrote:
| It tells you there's an increased interest in
| participating to the current topic, that multiple
| messages from different people will appear concurrently
| and split the topic. It's an indication you should
| probably stop typing, as your message will get lost in
| the noise.
| gpvos wrote:
| "Bob, Phil and 74 others are typing. It may be time to
| leave."
| xfitm3 wrote:
| one of slack's worst features
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| The innovation the author describes would look more like:
|
| Phil: I'm just walking down a fine wee snicket.
|
| Bob: What's the frequency Kenneth?
|
| Phil: #######
|
| Bob: ###
|
| 3 others typing...
| pferde wrote:
| Yes, it's certainly different from what you see on
| today's most popular platforms, and if done visually
| right (a big "if"), I think it could be very nice.
| marcodiego wrote:
| An old ICQ chat window had two text areas: one for each user.
| The text was updated as you type. IIRC you could change font,
| color and other text properties.
| knute wrote:
| There was a mode in ICQ long ago where the person you were
| messaging could see everything you typed, as you typed it. A
| friend of mine always wanted to use it and it was mildly
| terrifying.
| progval wrote:
| Google Wave did this too, but it was enabled by default. It
| sure takes a while to get used to it.
| hoytech wrote:
| Also unix talk(1):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software)
| Minor49er wrote:
| If I was using that application, I'd type a long message,
| then cut and paste a bunch of times really fast to mess with
| the recipient
| vadfa wrote:
| The entire spec is basically "ugh, they added thing-that-
| doesnt-really-belong-in-irc"
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I have to say IRC could do with some mod cons like
| server/bouncer based scrollback and multi client syncing.
|
| I get these now through quassel but it'd be nice to have them
| in the protocol.
|
| I have a feeling IRCv3 will never be finished though. The
| activity level is just too low.
| m_eiman wrote:
| The chathistory command is for you:
| https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory
| buovjaga wrote:
| There is plenty of implementation activity and I am
| summarising it in these types of posts: https://www.ilmaril
| auhakangas.fi/irc_technology_news_from_th...
| tester34 wrote:
| On the other hand what choices do they have?
| janvdberg wrote:
| If you really want to improve IRC, add threads. Most IRC channels
| I join it's impossible to follow discussions.
| ptman wrote:
| but not slack threads, but reddit/mailing threads, or trees
| nsv wrote:
| But then why not use a mailing list?
| xfitm3 wrote:
| threading is a slack-ism, I prefer one linear scrollback
| instead of having to click into conversations
| progval wrote:
| There is a draft specification to allow threading messages:
| https://ircv3.net/specs/client-tags/reply Not many clients are
| interested in implementing it, though.
| welterde wrote:
| For me it's the inverse, I am having a real hard time with
| threads on slack. But no issue following discussions on busy
| IRC channels. It's probably just a matter of getting used to it
| one way or the other.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Slack's implementation of threads is really weird, it almost
| feels like they're trying to hide them. If I get replied to
| in a thread I almost certainly lose it.
|
| On the other hand, Discord's UI treats threads as temporary
| channels, and that works _way better_ because you can
| actually see the thread as unread or not in the channel and
| server lists. I really wish Slack would steal this.
| welterde wrote:
| I haven't used Discord too much, but my main gripe (apart
| from calling communities "servers") was that most
| communities had way too many channels already, but haven't
| seen them in action, so maybe that strategy works better in
| practice.
| foxfluff wrote:
| YMMV, I've been checking out discord and I don't really
| like threads much. It feels like the discussion is
| stashed away semi-hidden in a corner which sort of
| discourages casual / intermittent participation and you
| easily miss the whole thread. It's like I have to go out
| of my way and butt into someone's discussion whereas the
| chatter on an IRC channel feels open to every
| participant.
| josteink wrote:
| I hate to say this, but even as an old IRC diehard, I have to
| admit I gave up a year ago or so.
|
| The new IRC is Matrix, or at least for now. For me at least, it
| fullfills the same needs:
|
| - deploy your choice of server-software on your preferred server.
|
| - use your preferred client to connect to your preferred server.
|
| - allow communities to manage themselves in a decentralized
| manner, without any San Fransisco-based big-tech company imposing
| their CoC, ToS or view of "diversity" upon them.
|
| And it does so in a way which is mobile-friendly and supports all
| the "modern" additions to IM which normal people have come to
| expect. I can't see how IRCv3, if it ever lands, can compete with
| this. It's years (decades?) behind at this point.
|
| And if it lands a spec which is equally capable as Matrix, how
| can it ever be compatible with "the old IRC"? Myself, I'm still
| running my IRC network and servers, but they are bridged to
| Matrix and I encourage the community to move there too. And thus
| ends my interest in IRCv3.
|
| All in all, this seems like a lot of spec-work going into a what
| is surely going to be a doomed venture.
| progval wrote:
| > - use your preferred client to connect to your preferred
| server.
|
| I want to like Matrix, but this is currently the most painful
| point, for me. There are very few mature clients, so they don't
| serve as many niches or specific tastes as IRC clients.
|
| > I can't see how IRCv3, if it ever lands, can compete with
| this. It's years (decades?) behind at this point.
|
| Not sure what you mean by "landing". Many specs are already
| implemented, deployed, and used in the wild.
|
| > And if it lands a spec which is equally capable as Matrix,
| how can it ever be compatible with "the old IRC"?
|
| Every IRCv3 spec is designed with backward compatibility in
| mind, so old clients are not left behind, they just don't
| benefit from the new features. The main mechanism for this is a
| capability negotiation when clients connect.
| hyperstar wrote:
| I tried Matrix a few months ago, but the clients were pretty
| horrible compared to irssi. The only functional one was the
| ugly GUI one with emojis and all that.
| coldpie wrote:
| Weechat-matrix-rs[1] is the fix for that, but it's not
| currently usable (I tried it yesterday, hard crashes trying
| to log in to a local homeserver). Maybe in a few more
| years.........
|
| [1] https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix-rs
| NoGravitas wrote:
| 'gomuks' is a pretty capable TUI client for Matrix.
| MayeulC wrote:
| I've tried a lot of very functional clients. I suppose you
| think of Element? There's also Cinny, Hydrogen (both web),
| Fluffychat, Nheko, gomuks. Maybe quaternion is more to your
| taste? Not sure if it supports E2EE.
| welterde wrote:
| I wonder if there is any impedance-mismatch between
| communicating on mobile and on desktop. On mobile it's kind of
| difficult to see more than the last few messages in a channel
| and quoting becomes somewhat more important to be able to
| follow the conversation. But on desktop it's completely
| irrelevant and only distracts by showing the same message
| multiple times (since I can usually still see the first
| message).
| Macha wrote:
| Quoting to me is for fast running rooms to avoid confusion
| about which conversation a message is in response to. Or for
| context when replying to something hours old in a smaller
| room. It's not really a mobile/desktop distinction.
| mikeycgto wrote:
| > - allow communities to manage themselves in a decentralized
| manner, without any San Fransisco-based big-tech company
| imposing their CoC, ToS or view of "diversity" upon them.
|
| Darn hippies with their inclusivity and community standards!
|
| People like you is why I long left this forum and IRC servers
| in general. You give the tech industry a bad name.
| oauea wrote:
| Right? Speaking of, you're violating this site's guidelines
| right now. You people give the tech industry a bad name.
| mikeycgto wrote:
| Please downvote me more so I can have my account removed
| from this awful site.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| can we not be looking for fights please? We are assuming a
| lot from a fragment of prose and I think would be better if
| we afforded one another the kindest interpretation of their
| prose that we can.
| epmatsw wrote:
| Hard to put a charitable interpretation on putting
| diversity in air quotes...
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| not everyone has a positive relationship with the HR
| department of their work place. Ergo one can be cynical
| of any practices or policies they put forward thus
| leading towards a mistrust of the term.
|
| You might be assuming everyone else has the same
| relationship with the words that you do and this could be
| a mistake.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| How people dare to have different worldviews. People in other
| countries love so much when a Californian lands from heaven
| to tell them how they should behave, communicate and be
| offended.
| sneedenheimer wrote:
| All those points apply to XMPP too, and it's way easier to set
| up Prosody on a server. Are there any specific reasons why you
| think Matrix is the next IRC and not XMPP?
| scrollaway wrote:
| Xmpp has had decades to try and hasn't succeeded. It's
| riddled with issues that make it unworkable.
|
| The question isn't "If this can work with Matrix why not
| XMPP?", the question is "Will Matrix have the same issues as
| XMPP?"
| zaik wrote:
| What's your definition of success? Google and Facebook
| federating?
| scrollaway wrote:
| Federating is one goal but is useless without mainstream
| adoption.
|
| Success is adoption. Enough users to break the network
| effect.
|
| Signal is currently a good example of roughly the amount
| of users you need to start breaking the effect. So that's
| what success looks like. A very low bar version of it.
| erinnh wrote:
| Speaking for just me, I thought that XMPP was already dead.
| donkarma wrote:
| >- allow communities to manage themselves in a decentralized
| manner, without any San Fransisco-based big-tech company
| imposing their CoC, ToS or view of "diversity" upon them.
|
| the main matrix homeserver blocks you from federating with them
| if you violate their CoC and kicks all matrix users from your
| room
| scarygliders wrote:
| > the main matrix homeserver blocks you from federating with
| them if you violate their CoC and kicks all matrix users from
| your room
|
| In my opinion that doesn't really matter. matrix.org is "just
| another homeserver" - it just happens to be one with a large
| amount of Spaces and rooms, and thankfully federation doesn't
| orbit around matrix.org nor does it depend on that.
|
| There are plenty of other homeservers which federate with
| each other quite happily. I've seen some rooms which have a
| policy of not allowing users with a matrix.org account,
| because they disagree with the matrix.org
| CoC/policies/actions, and that's also fine, because the
| nature of the matrix protocol allows that freedom. If a
| person wishes to stick with matrix.org, well, they have that
| choice. If a person has a homeserver which gets booted from
| federating with matrix.org, that's also fine - the problem
| will eventually be routed around by federating with plenty of
| other homeservers. This happens already.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| What is the user experience like when that happens?
|
| If you use the main Matrix homeserver and you're in a room
| hosted on another server when this happens, does your client
| show a helpful message like: "Sorry, you're not allowed to be
| in this room any more, because the people hosting the room
| committed the following thoughtcrime: $REASON"?
|
| I worry that it will instead just look like some generic
| network error message, with the remote server being tacitly
| deemed an un-place full of unpersons. Down the memoryhole it
| goes.
| DoItToMe81 wrote:
| It gives you a generic error message and doesn't describe
| the block. And it happens quite frequently, whoever
| administrates the Matrix main homeserver is very ban happy.
| Macha wrote:
| And so users can move to another homeserver with different
| standards, or run their own. This isn't possible if Discord
| or Skype or Telegram block your users.
| swiley wrote:
| The only thing IRC really needs if you want it to be more popular
| is a standard for communicating and using push gateways.
| progval wrote:
| There is a work in progress specification for push
| notifications:
| https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/471
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(page generated 2021-11-18 23:04 UTC)