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posted by mattie_p on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the idk-about-you-but-irc-irks-me dept.

Landon writes:

"The (evil?) IRC overlord and crew are wondering what you think about our new IRC network. What can we do better? What do you want to see happen with our new network? Heck, should we even have a new network?

See more in Landon's journal"

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by SGT CAPSLOCK on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:54AM

    by SGT CAPSLOCK (118) on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:54AM (#3236) Journal

    I can't say it's a _terrible_ idea, but I also won't say that it's a great idea.

    My main complaint is that I already use Quakenet and Freenode - adding a third connection seems a bit much to me since it's essentially replacing "a channel" with "a new network" in this case.

    Have you noticed if it's affected the count of users in the channels since you've switched over to a new network? I visited, but I haven't come back since.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ticho on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:41AM

    by ticho (89) on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:41AM (#3251) Homepage Journal

    I too am under impression that a separate irc network is an overkill. SN.org is simply not important enough to warrant yet another TCP connection from users. I know I won't be joining there anytime soon.
    If you'd rather expend all that effort into fixing the bugs on site itself - there's enough work there for truckload of developers for a good while...

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:27AM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:27AM (#3263) Journal

      The whole concept is overkill.

      Soon the discussion will leave the site, and all the action will find its way to IRC.
      People won't post, because they have said all they have to say long before the story hits the site.
      The site gets stale, people disappear.
      Soon the IRC devolves into a back channel conspiracy of mock and stalk. (like every IRC eventual does) or it becomes dominated by petty tyrants ruling the world from their mom's basement).

      Id say focus on the task at hand, or it will fail.
      Walk before you try to Run.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @12:49AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @12:49AM (#3921)

        Disagree. I think the IRC will always be secondary, however providing a webchat interface without setup problems and username integration will mean it is very easy for someone who has never used IRC before to discover it. Also the ability for live interviews with important personalities on IRC via the webchat would add a useful dimension to the website's functionality.

        People who already use IRC will always be using it. Most other people don't and are in any case too time poor to spend too much time on it. The website is for news and discussion and it is a much more efficient forum for proper debate. I don't think IRC can or ever will replace it, otherwise the whole internet would be full of IRC and no news sites.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday February 21 2014, @01:30AM

          by frojack (1554) on Friday February 21 2014, @01:30AM (#3953) Journal

          Your "Time Poor" assessment of IRC is pretty spot on.

          Any employed person, or anyone with an actual life really can't be logged on and watching scrolling threads non-stop to avoid missing the debate. And the sheer banality found in logs makes reading those unpalatable as well.

          With a website like SoylentNews, you can attend as you have time. There is no real good way to do that on IRC or any "scrolling media".

          So it ends up being the tool of teenagers, flunking students, and the unemployed.
          (I kid of course, but only partially).

          I've had an IRC client running on my Linux box for months to attend a software project I participate in.

          I'd have to say on average, I can get a better response and better feedback by posing a question on a mailing list. I've been in a room with 250 people, posted a question and not a single response (or any other traffic) for an hour or more.

          People compose email, or even postings here on SN. They revise, the manage the tone, to either not sound like an ass, or intentionally sound like an ass, and most at least run with a spell checker on. On IRC, not so much, what ever bubbles up from the brain flows directly to the keyboard, asshatishness and douchebaggery and all.

          I just don't see the entire concept of a side channel as being all that useful, either web based, or via IRC.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @01:39AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @01:39AM (#3959)

            It is being useful for development teams that negotiate on the fly and are working simultaneously on a project such as code development and testing a live environment. It's also going to be useful for moderated live chat with, say, some kind of developer or someone that SN wants to present as an event. It is also a good place for people to chill and chat. So it's not a complete waste of time.

      • (Score: 1) by Geotti on Friday February 21 2014, @03:33AM

        by Geotti (1146) on Friday February 21 2014, @03:33AM (#4046) Journal

        Id say focus on the task at hand, or it will fail.
        Walk before you try to Run.

        Agreed.
        Why not add a newsgroup server, while you're at it?
        What's wrong with (a) channel(s) on the existing networks? What's wrong with slashnet, for example? It ain't run by Dice.

        This sounds like a procrastination effort to me. It's cool that we've all got the 'leet skillz to set up an IRCd, but should we do that just because we can?
        We're not forking freenet, 'cause they ignored the community, we're forking /..

        Don't spread our momentum too thin, focus on what brought us here instead.

        • (Score: 1) by Geotti on Friday February 21 2014, @03:39AM

          by Geotti (1146) on Friday February 21 2014, @03:39AM (#4047) Journal

          Oh, and about that voice thing: get the bots to give out voice during moderated discussions according to user karma and integrate better with the site.

          We don't need a network for that and might make some friends on the existing networks for driving extra traffic to them.

          Just my couple cents.

    • (Score: 2) by DarkMorph on Thursday February 20 2014, @02:32PM

      by DarkMorph (674) on Thursday February 20 2014, @02:32PM (#3455)
      Can someone please explain to me why exactly is it such a problem to have one more TCP/IP connection established on your system for one more IRC server? You could still be using a 486 with 56K and it shouldn't be that big of a deal, to illustrate the point that it isn't a bandwidth or other resources consumption issue. Many clients like Hexchat or Pidgin in particular help abstract such details and make it almost transparent which protocol, or how many, you are using. Even with classic clients such as irssi, surely it isn't really hampering your usage to connect to another server.

      I'm seeing expressed fears of (D)DoS against the SN IRC server, now that I do understand as being a concern, but it would be equally as valid to express the same concern for the website itself as well.
      • (Score: 1) by Landon on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:20PM

        by Landon (45) on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:20PM (#3490) Journal

        I agree, it's generally just one more line in your configuration to add a new server. Heck, we even have SSL!

      • (Score: 2) by ticho on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:57PM

        by ticho (89) on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:57PM (#3634) Homepage Journal

        Same reason Google Plus did not catch on next to Facebook. Why get involved in yet another thing which is the same as the thing I am involved in already? It's one more thing to setup, and to keep in mind, for little or no benefit.

        Different strokes, I guess.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @12:55AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @12:55AM (#3929)

          We are not trying to be another IRC network, but to have an IRC network that we can manage our own way for purposes that are not typical of IRC.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by engblom on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:47AM

    by engblom (556) on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:47AM (#3269)

    I fully agree. Those people liking IRC are already on Freenode or any other big network and are not caring to add another one. I am also reluctant to add one network more.

    Personally, I would not care to join if it is on another network.

  • (Score: 1) by Pav on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:45PM

    by Pav (114) on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:45PM (#3390)

    Not to mention susceptibility to DDOS etc... SoylentNews and its IRC server could go down quite easily to such an attack. The FreeNode guys have experienced many such attacks before - it's somewhat of a regular event, and even if it rattles the network enough to cause major splits at least the community can eventually find its way to a single server. I think creating your own IRC server is a bit NIH, although perhaps it would be nice to join the FreeNode network.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Landon on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:26PM

      by Landon (45) on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:26PM (#3496) Journal

      That is a concern, but the server is here to stay at this point unless it does anything absolutely naughty (posting everyone's SoylentNews/Facebook/Google passwords in plaintext, etc). I should probably get word out there that ##AltSlashdot on freenode is our backup in case of DDoS.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by joshuajon on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:28PM

    by joshuajon (807) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:28PM (#3581)

    Agreed. Until it's back on an established network I won't be /join ing. No great loss IMHO, but there would definitely be wider participation if you bring it back to where the users are at instead of asking them to come to you.