IRC - dead for chatting? reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cycode · 2020-06-19 19:47 soo.. when i was still a teenager (14-16 years old) i often used irc to chat with random people about random topics.. i really liked that because with irc you could easy find people to chat with. when you joined a channel with lots of people, you usually had a lot of conversation going on.. even at night. i then didn't used irc for a long time and now installed a irc client again to find again random people to chat with & cool conversations. but.. on every server i joined.. people just idle'd their life away. there are channels with 200-400 people on them.. and they all.. idle. every channel i tried.. silence. like there would not a single user online. why is that? the ONLY active channel i found was a channel where people searched for ebooks.. is IRC "dead" for chatting now and everyone is just afk / not there? i feel lonely on servers.. even with 100 of people in every channel. it feels weird to see that there are tons of users but no one is chatting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- phate408 · 2020-06-19 19:52 That's been my experience as well. We ended up shutting down our network a bit over a year ago, as all of our active channels had moved to Discord, and all that was left was just idle presence. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- s0berage · 2020-06-19 20:34 Rizon and ircsyn have a big chatting presence. Rizons where the 4chan crowd are. Quakenet and efnet are good for chatting too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cycode · 2020-06-19 20:39 tried quakenet but there where like 0 conversations. i found in freenode a few now.. but it's really hard to find a channel where people respond & chat. feels sad that it is now like this. loved to chat as a teenager on quakenet, freenode etc. :/ edit: thanks for the tip with Rizon.. finally not idle users! :) seems to be pretty alive there.. thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- stillfun · 2020-06-19 20:39 You are just joining the wrong channels. Try for example #worldchat on IRCnet, there are also a lot of active channels on EFnet and Freenode. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cycode · 2020-06-19 20:43 i sorted the channels based on most users in channels, and joined the ones with the most users. tried worldchat, but when i was in there it was maybe to late (03am in the morning, germany timezone) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lovestick · 2020-06-19 20:44 Discord has become the new irc when it brought in new features. The clients for IRC have always existed that would support what these users wanted. The only thing I dislike is it is THEIR servers. I'd rather see different(freedom) "discord" clients/servers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jimb0z_ · 2020-06-19 20:44 What network are you on? EFnet and a few others are diminished but still very much alive ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cycode · 2020-06-19 20:47 networks i tried: freenode, IRCNet, QuakeNet, UnderNet on freenode i found a few conversations in #space after i started them, in IRCNet the only channel i found that had a few written chats was #worldchat (and maybe channels in a different language than english). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jimb0z_ · 2020-06-19 20:51 If you ever on efnet I’m around #videogames #football and #basketball. All strong communities that date back 20+ years and still going strong. But more active in the evenings ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unixbeard · 2020-06-19 21:50 A lot of channels are +s which means they won't show up in /list. I don't know what you're in to, but if you're a tech geek then #lobsters and #cat-v on freenode are pretty active. If you're into sports, there's #soccer #hockey #football #baseball #boxing #bball etc. on EFnet which are all quite active during games/fights. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- s0berage · 2020-06-19 21:54 Abjects is lively too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eggbean · 2020-06-19 22:19 Very different. I remember when you would find lots of normal, non- geeky non-technical people on IRC, including many women from Eastern Europe and Argentina who would private message you with pictures of their cooking, but now it's just tech talk and actually a lot more useful, lol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eggbean · 2020-06-19 22:24 Efnet is nothing like it used to be like. Freenode is the only network that is actually good, but only for tech. If it wasn't for Freenode I would not be using IRC anymore (started in 1993). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2020-06-19 22:41 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- syfydesigns · 2020-06-19 23:10 I guess a plug, follow @ekym on Twitter. I'm hosting a weekly 90 min chat/youtube movie watch thing. My own attempt to solve this issue. 9PM Saturday night's. Less then a dozen people so far. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GDZippN · 2020-06-19 23:22 Freenode's Linux channel is pretty active, over 1k people. Where I like to go when I wanna kill some time ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EncryptedHacker · 2020-06-20 07:33 yeah, in #ubuntu-offtopic me and some other people talk there daily. feel free to join us! :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2020-06-20 13:17 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- l0de · 2020-06-20 13:50 You're right, EFnet is much, much better than it used to be. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- l0de · 2020-06-20 13:51 IRC is fine, you just need to put more effort in to find people you like instead of bitching about it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eggbean · 2020-06-20 13:54 No, they were real people. Still in contact with one of them, although on Facebook, 20+ years later. Private messages starting with 'asl?' were once very common, as anyone would know if they were on IRC in the '90s. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eggbean · 2020-06-20 14:08 Depends on what you mean. If you like ghost towns, you'd be right. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- stillfun · 2020-06-20 14:18 There is also https://snoonet.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- l0de · 2020-06-20 14:31 I run a 300 user channel on efnet that has constant conversation going on 24-7. Your problem is you're hanging out in dead channels. In last year's nests, there are no birds this year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wobzy · 2020-06-20 15:34 You mean you still sending money to a dude who still giving you stories about why he can't come visit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eggbean · 2020-06-20 16:15 This what you are are so cynically immediately making assumptions about - I saw it slowly arrive. These were when there was only IRC, ICQ, Usenet and stuff like that. Even before MSN Messenger. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eggbean · 2020-06-20 16:26 If only this graph extended another 8 years before and after, but it still expresses what I mean.. http://royal.pingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/irc.002.jpg ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GDZippN · 2020-06-20 16:36 Considering almost every PC I have runs Ubuntu, I might check it out ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chickennroll · 2020-06-20 16:50 Freenode ##chat is good, and snoonet #music is amazing. It’s got the most useful bot. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- l0de · 2020-06-20 17:06 The decline in overall userbase is due to casual users going to platforms like facebook \\ discord. It's vastly improved the overall quality of chat. IRC functions much better as a gathering of specialized, technical people. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eggbean · 2020-06-20 17:09 Yes, I completely agree with that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cycode · 2020-06-20 19:39 i did put effort in by spending 4 hours searching for a good channel and by asking on reddit about the topic to know if it's still worth it. I didn't "bitched" about it - just asked a question to find out how the situation is on the year 2020. in 2005 - 2011 you could join any random network and channel and people chatted there.. even at nighttime. now it's not like this anymore. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- l0de · 2020-06-20 20:17 It can take weeks of time to find a community where you fit in, more so if you're a whiny dingus such as yourself. Try manning up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cycode · 2020-06-20 20:20 so instead of ignoring my post or just giving a good advice like the other users did here, you choose to whine about me being a whiny dingus. nice. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- l0de · 2020-06-20 20:52 I'm trying to shoo you away if I can, I would like to have less people like you on IRC. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cycode · 2020-06-20 20:56 there is just one problem with that - you can't shoo me away. if you don't like people like me on IRC, make your own little private irc network for you & all of your friends who can't handle strangers like you seem to do. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2020-06-21 23:11 [removed] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2020-06-23 19:10 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- yubijam · 2020-06-27 00:54 No. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mtnz0r · 2020-06-27 15:44 freenode & quakenet bests ---------------------------------------------------------------------- yuemer9 · 2020-06-28 20:56 Keep in mind that IRC is popular outside of the English speaking world. If you happen to speak any other languages you can find other networks with very active channels in them. I joined 2 Spanish speaking servers I was invited too and there is constantly people having conversations. My Spanish is not the best but I can get by reading it and understanding it. Also spread it around. The only way we keep IRC alive is by helping others get started in using it. Lots of people are intimidated by it because it looks "technical" but if you help a friend set it up the right way its a good way to spread it around and help grow the community as a whole. AndroIRC is awesome btw, tell people they can also get it on their phones as well. Hopefully that will add more users. Cheers! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DataSecs · 2020-07-14 20:39 Are those Spanish servers you joined private or do you mind sharing them? I'm half Spanish and would love to join some Spanish communities ☺️ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- quavered · 2020-07-22 10:30 Whatever happened to IRCQnet? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Techsan47 · 2020-08-11 17:56 Here's the problem with IRC, too many douchebags like this. A bunch of angry shut-ins with no social skills, mad at the world