Talk:Internet Relay Chat

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Archives /Archive 1

Contents 1 Packetnews 2 Caps 3 Double forward slash... 4 XDCC search engines 5 IM? 6 File sharing association? 7 Networks and URLs 8 Bouncers!? 9 Piracy 10 plaintext!? 11 Missing or misdocumented Information? / Lack of IRC related wiki info? 12 Discussion of less savory IRC characters. 13 history? 14 Trimmed See also list

[edit] Packetnews

This appears to be a malicious website. It tried to send several dozen spy cookies to my computer and launched several popups that bypassed the IE blocker. One of them played an audio advertisement, and something caused my computer to run out of memory and almost shut down--the first time I have ever had such a thing happen. Thus, I have removed it. It appears not to be very useful, anyway.--HQCentral 23:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Full of copyvios too. -Barry- 00:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caps

Should this article be "Internet relay chat"? Isopropyl 11:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Nope. --Ifrit 12:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Double forward slash...

This is perhaps client specific. In mIRC, arguably the most popular client, this simply executes any identifiers inside the line following the command. Example //say $calc(1+2) will execute /say 3. //quit will just /quit. - BalthCat 01:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] XDCC search engines

Should links to XDCC search engines such as IRCspy and Packetnews be in this article? I saw another objection to Packetnews but that was due to invasive advertising/spyware. Is it valid to exclude XDCC search engines because they could be used to locate copyright infringing materials, or not? I mean, one *could* use Google or an ftp search engine to locate such materials, as well. Such uses of XDCC search engines are probably more common than noninfringing uses, but xdcc offer scripts can share any kind of files, whether legal or illegal, I guess. Thoughts?

Guns can be used to kill people, and we still include information about them. So no, I don't see how it's valid to exclude them based on the legality or illegality of their use. Much like VCRs, XDCC searches are not, by definition, piracy, anyway. - BalthCat 13:36, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IM?

Isn't IM differentiated from chatrooms by the one-to-one focus of instant messengers (with, generally, their multi-party chats added second) versus the primarily channel based format for IRC? - BalthCat 00:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd say that's accurate. madewokherd 21:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm considering changing the opening paragraphy to read this way:

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of realtime internet chat. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via instant message.

- BalthCat 23:10, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Good. It is important to understand that IM is technically a subset problem of group communication. IRC specifically addresses the problem of distributing group communication efficiently using multicast, which none of the IM technologies do. On the other hand it also delivers one-to-one messages along the network tree, instead of unicasting directly (which then DCC provides). This can be a disadvantage as it creates bottlenecks, but it can also allow you to communicate around network failures. Then again IM technologies do not unicast directly (P2P) either, they always go through a server. Thus using IRC with DCC is in the lead here, too. Too bad IRC has a whole different set of problems where the advantages of better routing are often not enough to compensate. -- SymlynX 11:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

While "IM is technically a subset problem of group communication" may be true in some strict sense, IM as the term is used today primerally implies messaging based arround a contact list. IRC is terriblly bad at this providing weak (or even nonexistant) enforcement of a users identity and forcing a client to poll for state changes in thier contacts (and worse poll each user individually if more than very basic information is desired). Plugwash 20:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You're passing a value judgement on the requirement that I have an IM style contact list, and easy access to a person's profile information. I don't want or need it on IRC. And a /notify list is available in the IRC clients I've tried, on three platforms. IRC's lack of identity enforcement is notable, but I'm not sure it belongs in the header, and definitely not using "proper" and "poor". It's just different. NickServ and Notify are alternate methods of achieving similar things as contact lists and identity confirmation. - BalthCat 04:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

These days it's also a question on how much you enhance your IRC network with extra technologies: In many networks NickServ really enforces identity and some extended *Serv tools even provide for serverside buddy lists etc. Now the question is, will the client developers follow up on this and integrate these new interfaces? How many clients already present IRC contacts in a buddy list style? I know at least two. And of course there is also the question of how many IRCers reject the buddy list user interface and still de facto do instant messaging every day? By the way, you may be interested that the IRC network brasnet has recently started providing a PSYC/XMPP federation extension where every IRCer has a Jabber ID that goes nick@brasnet.org and is even looking into providing IM transports for their IRC users. --SymlynX 00:11, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

i haven't seen any networks where nickserv properly enforces identity, the norm is either not to enforce at all or to kick users off after a delay (allowing a short period in which impersonation or accidental reception of information intended for someone else are possible). Feel free to point out any major ones that do.

Its also not possible for a client to implement a decent buddylist (showing only people who are actually logged in, showing away status etc) with a decent update rate without either using network specific extentions (which client vendors are reluctant to do especially as the network with such features tend to be quite small) or exceeding the standard irc rate limiting (one message to the server every 2 seconds with blocks of up to 5 messages together). Plugwash 12:05, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Alright, the auth time hole remains a classic IRC problem - however with the umode +r (registered user) you can for instance inhibit unauthed nicks to send/receive PRIVMSG at all. Don't know if any network is sufficiently consequent. Concerning PRESENCE etc of course new standards are necessary. Everyone doing it his own way is no solution. CTCP PRESENCE is a possible approach, as it doesn't have to be done in the server. But the general problem of getting all parties back to the table persists, those days seem to be long gone. I'm working on new stuff myself, actually.. --SymlynX 21:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] File sharing association?

That might be the case in certain places, but certainly not in Bulgaria. I don't think even most who use it here are aware it can be used for file sharing.88.80.99.27 15:10, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Networks and URLs

I'd recommend removing the list of "Some other IRC networks" from that section. Every single network with twelve users is adding themselves in there as a self-promotion -- and this is getting silly. The purpose of this article is not to list networks. We could keep just the big four and other networks can be added to Category:IRC networks. Or we could do a list of IRC networks if anyone feels like it is needed. DLX 19:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

As there are no complaints, I am going to remove that portion. Please discuss this here if you want to restore it. DLX 07:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bouncers!?

Why did 24.200.103.9 remove the paragraph on Bouncer (IRC)? They are a relevant phenomenon of IRC since IRC doesn't provide identity protection. They are considered uncool because they raise the overall load on the network, but that too is an IRC specific problem caused by its distributed real-time database, which is generally a bad design thing. So being against bouncers (and bots) is beside the point. --lynX 14:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Considering it was deleted by an anon with no edit summary i'm assuming it was vandalism (or a newbie not understanding our interface) and reverting it as such. Plugwash 01:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Cuz for some reason vandalism always happens!!

[edit] Piracy

Itsnot a con of IRC, its a pro, thats why they made P2P, its harder for FBI etc. to interfere. SOftware prices are too high, so why blame people for file sharing!! Realg187 17:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] plaintext!?

User EuroCave added this passage

IRC was originally a plain text, although later extended[1] protocol ...

I wouldn't say the extensions take it away from being a plain text protocol. Even though the inofficial CTCP extension uses some 0x01 bytes, it is not necessary to support them to have a conversation over IRC. I'd even argue IRC is more plain text than most other protocols as it still doesn't support internationalization in form of character sets. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SymlynX (talk • contribs) 09:36, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Missing or misdocumented Information? / Lack of IRC related wiki info?

For instance, I noticed several instances of the wiki IRC channels explicitly prohibiting this 'public logging' term which doesn't appear to exist (in wiki word searches). I think it matters, maybe this matter is more complex than is required for a wikipedia? PS I'm staying away from editing until my edits stop being undone for whatever reason. -Kristan Wifler —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.112.51.232 (talk) 10:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Discussion of less savory IRC characters.

I think a section needs to be added about the servers fight, expecially mainsteam ones like DAlNET and Undernet, against less savory types, such as Child Pornographers and Pedophiles. It seems like DalNET had a problem with these types back in the late 90s, and is worth a mention.

- Tiger. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.114.139.37 (talk) 05:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] history?

The history/evolution section of this article is terrible. A list of protocol versions with unexplained numerical referencing doesn't make a history. Could someone who knows about the early days of IRC please add something useful? How did the use of it evolve after its creation? Thanks.--Ibis3 14:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I have collected a few documents at http://about.psyc.eu/IRC#Historic_Documents (oops I mentioned that link before.. nevermind) but it would take some time to sit down and make something truly encyclopedic out of it. Technical evolution did indeed have quite an impact on life on IRC - like the introduction of channel operatorships, it made the until then easy-going socially almost flat chat a hierarchical one, and attitudes became rougher and channel operatorships became reason enough to attack servers. And before that I remember when we didn't have alphanumeric channels yet, but does anybody really want to know? --lynX 22:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trimmed See also list

I attempted to trim the "See also" list to something more relevant. The change was reverted. I believe as a style choice the see also list should be contain directly relevant links and should be small as to be more useful. The external links policy has some application here.

For example there is a list to IRC services then a list to individual services. A list to the services categories is sufficient. Same thing with games. What do you think? Daniel.Cardenas 19:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the differences, then there are no external links among those that you removed (diff). There are some, that definitely do not belong there - such as "Alternatives" section (for some reason XDCC was there...), some of the services needed to go (LoveServ??!), but overall, the links that you removed were to good wikiarticles that had highly relevant and useful information about IRC. You even removed link to mIRC, which is by far most common IRC client! I do not understand what was the basis for your classification to relevant/irrelevant, as you removed mostly IRC-related links and kept not related links.

I recommend that we'll revert the list to what it was before and discuss what needs to be removed and what kept here before doing drastic changes. DLX 19:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a page about IRC not IRC clients. There is a link or two to IRC clients if someone wants to know more about clients. That is why mIRC or anyones else's favorite IRC client was removed. Do you have objections about anything else that was removed? Daniel.Cardenas 19:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

DLX: I wasn't able to edit below your edits. You may want to try/investigate. I suggest you go ahead and make your recommended changes. On second thought maybe it was just a preview problem. Daniel.Cardenas 02:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend this:

(moved list to the article)

(unordered - ordering and perhaps additional structure might be needed) DLX 06:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• There's still a number of unnecessary links there IMO:

- Comparison of instant messaging clients - Not necessary? The ones which support IRC are listed in the "comparison of IRC clients" anyway

- Comparison of IRC services - Is a direct link to this relevant? Surely it's enough to link "IRC Services"?

- mIRC - One specific IRC client shouldn't be linked. Already indirectly linked twice via comparison/list of irc clients plus a direct link in the article itself

- OmenServe - One specific script of one specific client definitely shouldn't be here

- Serving channel - Relevant/notable enough to be linked here? Doesn't seem so to me...

- XDCC - 50/50 on this since it's derivative of DCC which is also listed. Why list this one but not SDCC?

I'd rather see those links removed and the alternatives brought back with a proper "Alternative protocols" sub-header.

ExNihilo 21:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I must disagree rather strongly with you. While "Comparison of instant messaging clients" may be not needed, all others are (edit: maybe XDCC and OmenServe, too). This is a "portal" or a "start" page, ie. people come here, read about IRC and want/need to have links to pages that are relevant to IRC. Instead of trimming this list further, I would recommend that we'd try to find more information about history of IRC (for some reason, it is now called Evolution??!) and technical data. In the future, a separate articles may be needed for them. DLX 13:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)