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Should we have an IRC network of our own?

Displaying poll results.
Yes. Be self-sufficient!
  30% 217 votes
No. Why re-invent the wheel? Use Freenode!
  31% 228 votes
Don't know or care enough to have an opinion.
  14% 103 votes
Only for idlerpg.
  1% 11 votes
I didn't even know we had an IRC network.
  3% 23 votes
I don't use IRC, you insensitive clod.
  14% 108 votes
One of the above answers.
  3% 27 votes
None of the above answers.
0% 6 votes
723 total votes.
[ Voting Booth | Other Polls | Back Home ]
  • Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
  • Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
  • This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 11 2014, @09:43PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday March 11 2014, @09:43PM (#14888) Homepage
    He asked with a wink ;-)
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @09:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @09:54PM (#14895)

      No link? For shame.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:56AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:56AM (#15113) Homepage
        What do you think I am, some kind of spammer?!??!
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:37AM (#15153)

          Full disclosure: I just soyled myself reading this thread, well done Sir! 2/2

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by CHALLNGEACCPTD on Tuesday March 11 2014, @09:48PM

    by CHALLNGEACCPTD (1974) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @09:48PM (#14892)

    So please stay independant

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tynin on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:47PM

      by tynin (2013) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:47PM (#14920) Journal

      I voted for go free with freenode, but after reading this, I'm sold with stay independant.

      Also, the fortigate at work is blocking pipedot.org, so I really need this site to keep working. I know you cannot help in that regard, but I figured casting this out into the ether will let the ghosts in the machine know my preference so I might damn them should they fail me.

      Really, anything to keep the SN message getting to workers who should be working, must be done at any cost.

      • (Score: 1) by bryan on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:07PM

        by bryan (29) <bryan@pipedot.org> on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:07PM (#14927) Homepage Journal

        Also, the fortigate at work is blocking pipedot.org

        Both sites are using Linode; odd that any access would be different. Maybe try HTTPS instead of HTTP?

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Jaruzel on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:00AM

          by Jaruzel (812) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:00AM (#15117) Homepage Journal

          Corporate proxys/firewalls such as Fortigate tend to block based on blacklists either provided by the supplier and/or maintained internally. As pipedot.org (and SN.org) is a tech news site, you should be able to ask your IT people to unblock it. It's possible that pipedot.org hasn't be classified yet, so is blocked by default (some places do that).

          -Jar

          --
          This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
          • (Score: 2, Informative) by francois on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:26PM

            by francois (3010) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:26PM (#15429)

            Having your own IRC service is absolutely not a guarantee that it won't be blocked by corporate filtering.

            Today, soylentnews.org is seen as Information Technology so will probably never be blocked by most filtering policies.
            The web chat (chat.sylnt.org) is uncategorized. Most companies (if not all, in some regions) tend to BLOCK when it's uncategorized.
            CISO feels safer, as users will not go to the uncategorized Internet. Support/admins cry, as they have to micro manage all the exceptions for the end users.

            Of course, asking your BOFH to open a site for you might not be a good idea so the best way to make sure it's not blocked is to ask to the vendors. Most of them allow this, either via a web page or through an email.
            Fortinet : http://docs-legacy.fortinet.com/cb/html/index.html #page/FOS_Cookbook/UTM/cb_utm_wf_url_check.html [fortinet.com]
            Websense : http://csi.websense.com/ [websense.com]
            ZScaler : http://zulu.zscaler.com/ [zscaler.com]
            Bluecoat : https://sitereview.bluecoat.com/sitereview.jsp [bluecoat.com]
            (etc...)

            HTH !

            --
            Francois.

            • (Score: 2) by Jaruzel on Thursday March 13 2014, @09:41AM

              by Jaruzel (812) on Thursday March 13 2014, @09:41AM (#15774) Homepage Journal

              Actually that does help me - thanks very much. It's quite hard digging up all those classification URLs for the different services, so I've bookmarked the above, Cheers.
              (I'm having a classification issue with one of my own domains).

              -Jar

              --
              This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
      • (Score: 2) by Open4D on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:44AM

        by Open4D (371) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:44AM (#15066) Journal

        I figured casting this out into the ether will let the ghosts in the machine know my preference so I might damn them should they fail me.

        lol

        One thing people might want to consider is http://www.herdict.org/ [herdict.org] for keeping track of "Web blockages" - including deliberate local blocking of sites you care about. It's a bit crappy, but better than nothing, and I believe all the submitted data are free/open.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:48PM (#15376)

      You can easily make an argument to unblock freenode as so many open source projects offer support there. If you cannot make an argument because your job has nothing to do with any of that, maybe you shouldn't waste the time, you're being paid for, on online chatting.

    • (Score: 1) by bah on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:32AM

      by bah (1610) on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:32AM (#15690)

      I recommend running an irc bouncer at home (I use znc with ssl enabled). I just connect to my home machine from work and have instance access to all the IRC networks and channels I'm logged in to. Also, since znc stays permanently connected to these channels it provides me with the backlog of conversation as soon as I connect to it showing everything I've missed since I was last connected.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by ancientt on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:00PM

    by ancientt (40) <ancientt@yahoo.com> on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:00PM (#14896) Homepage Journal

    Being able to write your own rules, log everything, manage your bots however you like, all that stuff is nice. Being able to turn the server off if there is something seriously bad (like a stolen credit card dump for example) is priceless.

    --
    This post brought to you by Database Barbie
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:28PM (#14916)

      I know the first thing I think of when I hear yet another batch of CC numbers or passwords are leaked is "Damn, I sure hope the chat network I frequent isn't still running!"

      • (Score: 1) by ancientt on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:23AM

        by ancientt (40) <ancientt@yahoo.com> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:23AM (#14954) Homepage Journal

        Huh. I guess I never thought of that. Here I was just thinking of the legal ramifications of having a bunch of potential legal problems with my channel and needing to be able to preserve data for the Feds. Good thing AC is here to point out the real dangers.

        --
        This post brought to you by Database Barbie
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:03AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:03AM (#14985)

          Legal ramifications of legal problems? That's a lot of legal. It is just...the luxury edition has so much more legal. It saddens me to think of you missing out.

          But anyway, you can still run a bot so you can hand over the logs to the feds, even on freenode. It's just that I don't see the connection between that and turning off the server when there's a data breach somewhere, which is what I was rejoining.

        • (Score: 1) by Taco Cowboy on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:41AM

          by Taco Cowboy (3489) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:41AM (#15190)

          AC was talking about using freenode (or equivalent service) and then that service got hacked and hackers got hold of our passwords and stuffs.

          That's a danger.

          Running our own IRC does not negate _that_ danger, though, as hackers who can hack freenode also can hack pipedot or any other domain name that we end up using, and if they are good enough, they may still get away with the paswords and stuffs.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:56PM (#15381)

      I'm regularly on Freenode, the second soylent moved to the private server I stopped paying attention. I will not use a 3rd party server for this, IRC was originally thought to be the *independent* safe harbor. Everyone can gather in Freenode from soylent, pipedot and whoever else. Being bound to the good will of the soylent staff kind of defeats the purpose of a fallback channel. In terms of IRC it's freenode or nothing.

      • (Score: 1) by Aighearach on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:17PM

        by Aighearach (2621) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:17PM (#15500)

        I totally agree. Like most nerds, I'm already on freenode. I'm not going to connect to another server just to join 1 channel. That is silly. And they're not going to do as good a job as freenode at managing the service...

        • (Score: 1) by NezSez on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:32AM

          by NezSez (961) on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:32AM (#15689) Journal

          Freenode itself was a group of ppl branching off the branches of http://www.efnet.org/ [efnet.org], which itself was a branch off the original IRC network
          ( not to be confused with http://www.ircnet.org/ [ircnet.org] ), which closed due to malicious server joins etc.
          Ironically, there is a front page notice of server hacking on the EFNet website as I write this.
          Security (nick collisions, netsplits, DOS floods, etc) were why freenode, undernet, and many others branched off to begin with (and due to many other reasons I'm sure).

          I'm just saying, it is possible that the SN IRC could become the beginnings of yet another improved IRC server codebase if some of the community felt strongly enough to pursue it.
          Maybe not, and that's fine too, but I don't want to be the one to hamstring a group of others who are motivated enough to try.

          There are certainly some very real security concerns when running an IRC server, even if segregated or stand-alone. I don't know what the costs would be for bandwidth usage if we joined it to the freenode, or any other IRC network, or how we would pay for those costs under our current organization/structure. It might, however, be worth the effort, in particular if part of our community decided they would want to dive into the code to improve things. They could of course just dive into the ircd-seven code of freenode too (I have no idea what codebase the SN IRC is based on).

          The more that things change, the more they stay the same.

          --
          No Sig to see here, move along, move along...
          • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Thursday March 13 2014, @07:02PM

            by xlefay (65) on Thursday March 13 2014, @07:02PM (#16040) Journal

            We're actually using Charybdis on which ircd-seven is based ;-)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:17AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:17AM (#15761)

          Exactly, nerds are the visitors we are shooting for anyway. It's easy to say go to channel X on freenode. When you tell them you can find the /. ripoff on that network/channel no one is going to join.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:12PM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:12PM (#14907) Journal

    The IRC channel seems to be a huge distraction that sucks attention away from well thought out posts on lots of stories, in exchange for a never ending stream of banalities about bacon.

    At any given time there are over a hundred people logged in on IRC, and our stories end up getting very thin discussion. I've seen stories scroll off the main page with no comments.

    IRC saps the website of content. Because people only have so much time. But for SN to have and promote a IRC channel, simply steals intellectual effort and mind share away from the site and pushes it to a back channel. I'm not sure it is healthy for the site.

    On the other hand, I realize that people are going to do what they want to do, they will find IRC somewhere if they want to. Judging from the content of the IRC channel, not much of it would be useful on the site. So having IRC for people to troll each other and vent may keep the site more cordial.

    So I'm ambivalent at best.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:16PM (#14912)

      Actually, it's soylent. Dogs don't know it's not bacon!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @11:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @11:09PM (#62223)

        jONvZn nfakmckkmhqw [nfakmckkmhqw.com], [url=http://hztnakjqcleb.com/]hztnakjqcleb[/url], [link=http://oszfamgyrxdk.com/]oszfamgyrxdk[/link], http://pxidivanoyjl.com/ [pxidivanoyjl.com]

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by goodie on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:39PM

      by goodie (1877) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:39PM (#14942) Journal

      Haha, as a bacon/brussel sprout poster on the IRC channel, I understand your pov. TBH I think that once a lot of the stuff concerning the future of the site is settled, a lot of us will move out of the irc to post insightful things on the site instead. But for now, it's good way to get to know each other, offer help. I mean there are important things discussed there (and no, bacon is not one of them, despite its karma points, I agree with you).
      There has also not been too many stories posted recently. I don't know if it's a matter of lack of submissions or lack of acceptable submissions but to me that was one of the reasons I came down to the IRC channel, there just wasn't too much happening on SN (plus it went down at some point).

      Either way, if it doesn't cost anything to run it, why not? At the very least it'll be useful for the admin and overload meets.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:50PM

        by frojack (1554) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @11:50PM (#14947) Journal

        Agreed, there is a cohesion aspect to IRC, (as long as it doesn't turn into a clique or cabal.)

        I think after the Drama ended, someone on IRC mentioned that what the site needs most is submissions, and today we see quite a few more, and the comments numbers are up as well.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:24AM

      by GungnirSniper (1671) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:24AM (#14955) Journal

      Where else are we going to get updates on Poutine's negative karma score?

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by gishzida on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:21AM

        by gishzida (2870) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:21AM (#14969) Journal

        GungnirSniper++

        yes where else can old geezer like me go to make a fool of myself?

        poutine--

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:59AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:59AM (#15115) Homepage
        I'll take that as a suggestion for a new slashbox - one that shows the current top-5 and bottom-5 karma scores!
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by akinliat on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:15AM

      by akinliat (1898) <{akinliat} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:15AM (#14967)

      Agreed. Unfortunately, there's yet another possible use for IRC -- coordinating site governance and management. The problem is, of course, that IRC is pretty much custom-designed for poor communication, as the current soap opera illustrates. So, not only are these issues being handled (somewhat) out of public view, but they're being handled badly and hurriedly, because IRC also generates a false sense of urgency.

      It's basically Twitter before there was Twitter.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:08AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:08AM (#15119) Homepage
        > IRC is pretty much custom-designed for poor communication, as the current soap opera illustrates.

        This is *absolute* nonsense. The IRC was *totally invaluable* for the resolution of that problem. Without it, resolving the issue would have taken an order of magnitude longer. Those who could contribute something were glued to the screens, those who knew they had nothing to offer at that precise moment *shut up*. Suggestions came thick and fast; confirmations, rebuttals, and "interesting - I'll go grep" likewise. I know of no other medium which would have been so effective.

        > issues being handled (somewhat) out of public view

        If you think we should be discussing things like settings from files in /etc/ *in public*, and logs in /var/log/ then you're *mad*.

        -1 Talking out of arse for parent, please.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:47AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:47AM (#15014)

      The IRC channel seems to be a huge distraction that sucks attention away from well thought out posts on lots of stories, in exchange for a never ending stream of banalities about bacon.

      I have no idea what you're talking about. Bacon is never banalities.

      bacon++ # Team Bacon FTW!

      • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:00PM

        by xlefay (65) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:00PM (#15417) Journal

        Amen!

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:19AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:19AM (#15093) Journal
      Completely agree. There are lots of IRC channels that are for serious conversations or random wibble. The point of a site like this is to have focussed, (ideally) thoughtful, conversations about news topics. Get rid of the IRC channel, focus on the comments. I've been avoiding the other place to give here a chance, but I find that I only check here once or twice a day because there are so few comments and it's hard to have an interesting conversation by yourself (well, it isn't, but I don't feel the need to use the Internet to do so...).
      --
      sudo mod me up
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:05AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:05AM (#15169) Homepage
        The non-staff side of the IRC system is certainly for random wibble.

        People like random wibble. People like random wibble with different groups of people. So having random wibble with soylentils should be available. I'd certainly like the idea of being able to chit-chat with some of the names on this list: http://slashdot.org/~fatphil/friends (when I have more time, which I don't presently).

        Oh, and FUCK BETA!

        (I was just repeatedly beta's as I tried to retrieve that list.)
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:37PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:37PM (#15466)

          There's tons of IRC channels for random wibble. Why do you need a SoylentNews one?

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:31PM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:31PM (#15510) Homepage
            Alternatively, next time you could read my post for comprehension before responding.
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Thursday March 13 2014, @07:08AM

          by crutchy (179) on Thursday March 13 2014, @07:08AM (#15749) Homepage Journal

          irc is a community inside a community... of course it is a good thing, particularly since nobody is forced to use it.

          it's like an online water cooler where people can take a load off, where there is no awkward silence that can't be broken with a simple "poutine--", "!stats", "bacon++" or "s/foo/bar" (resulting in a certain character being thrown at you by one our much loved automated friends).

          anyone that doesn't "get" #soylent obviously needs to do a lot less thinking, cos trying to understand anything that goes on there would drive anyone batty.

          • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:46PM

            by xlefay (65) on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:46PM (#16078) Journal

            * SedBot offers critchy a /

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @09:41AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @09:41AM (#15776)

        mod this up!

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by LaminatorX on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:12PM

    by LaminatorX (14) <laminatorxNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:12PM (#14909)

    There have been discussions about implementing single sign-on between the IRC server and the main site. That would be awesome, but we could never do it with Freenode.

    • (Score: 2) by Random2 on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:52PM

      by Random2 (669) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:52PM (#14921)

      So, let's say you're one of these 'youngsters' who have never heard of IRC, let alone used it.

      Are we talking something like a shoutbox? Would it be a separate page? Something else entirely?

      --
      If only I registered 3 users earlier....
      • (Score: 1) by drussell on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:55AM

        by drussell (2678) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:55AM (#14961) Journal

        If you really, honestly, don't know what IRC stands for in this context, perhaps...

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat [wikipedia.org]

        • (Score: 2) by Random2 on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:01AM

          by Random2 (669) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:01AM (#14984)

          That wasn't so much the point as this being a case of 'let's all use a service that's popular with a certain age group'.

          --
          If only I registered 3 users earlier....
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:54AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:54AM (#15163)

            That wasn't so much the point as this being a case of 'let's all use a service that's popular with a certain age group'.

            Fuck the certain age group. Now there I said it. I'm sure they love the dice beta anyways, so they're not bothering us here.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by lhsi on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:45PM

    by lhsi (711) on Tuesday March 11 2014, @10:45PM (#14918) Journal

    The site was down earlier, including the backup address. I went to pop on to the IRC server to see if there was any information there, but couldn't connect. Does running it yourself mean there will be a single point of failure for both?

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by xlefay on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:11AM

      by xlefay (65) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:11AM (#14987) Journal

      Actually, none of the IRC servers were done. Someone messed with the DNS.

      So yeah, the DNS was the real point of failure in this case.

      • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:13AM

        by xlefay (65) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:13AM (#15018) Journal

        s/done/down/

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:37PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:37PM (#15366) Homepage
        Next poll - should we host our own DNS... '-)
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:59PM (#15384)

      very good point! Having a private server bound to this service kind of defeats the purpose of having an independent back channel.

      • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:53PM

        by xlefay (65) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:53PM (#15412) Journal

        I'm not sure where you got the impression I was saying anything in that direction, at all.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:12AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:12AM (#15760)

          single point of failure because of dependent backchannel vs. independent backchannel...

          Yes yes, you implied exactly that.

          • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:15PM

            by xlefay (65) on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:15PM (#16070) Journal

            Correct. I misinterpreted what was being said.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:29AM (#14992)

    Are there any costs to run this? I mean resources people etc.? If it's just up front and we've already done that cool but it takes someone's time for not much benefit then maybe we should drop it. Personally i love the logs etc but i could see how it would be an unnecessary burden although it is great for admins.

    • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:45AM

      by xlefay (65) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:45AM (#14996) Journal

      As a member of the IRC staff, yeah there are resources and costs (I know, because currently I'm running both servers - which will be moved to SN _IF_ the vote goes through) but it's not that much really.

      There's quite a bit of work to be done but that's not an issue at all. We're volunteers, we do what we like. ;)

      • (Score: 2) by weeds on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:55PM

        by weeds (611) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:55PM (#15226) Journal

        "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"

        Ockam (attributed to him, but maybe he never said that version)

        We already use phpbb for our forum. There is a mod for that forum that is an excellent chat/shoutbox. mchat could easily be added to the forum and now you have an equivalent of IRC with very little extra effort.

        • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:05PM

          by xlefay (65) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:05PM (#15420) Journal

          I'm actually fairly certain the forums are being discontinued... maybe we should have a community vote about this as well ;)

  • (Score: 2) by unitron on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:59AM

    by unitron (70) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:59AM (#15086) Journal

    ...to hope for some kind of IRC client that wasn't so visually difficult to read?

    --
    something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
    • (Score: 1) by Jaruzel on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:08AM

      by Jaruzel (812) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:08AM (#15120) Homepage Journal

      This.

      It's all the bloke that wrote mIRCs fault y'know. He added support for 'color' codes in mIRC which wasn't (still isn't?) part of the RFC spec for IRC, and before you knew it, every channel and its topic had mad rainbow ANSI style l33t speak text that no-one could read. At which point the grown-ups left and moved to moderated forums or private IRCDs etc.

      Recently, I've been scouting around for a modern IRC client with accessibility features (good text-to-speech for example) but haven't had much luck of yet. I think it's mainly to do with IRC being seen as a 'legacy' technology, much like UseNet.

      -Jar

      --
      This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:40PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:40PM (#15371) Homepage
        ii (irc it) and even sic from suckless can both just be piped to a speech engine (that can be driven from the commandline).

        Next time I'm on admin duties, I shall be testing out such a setup.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 1) by NezSez on Thursday March 13 2014, @06:04AM

        by NezSez (961) on Thursday March 13 2014, @06:04AM (#15730) Journal

        IIRC the first use of ascii color codes I saw was in PhoEnix script (or however the caps thing was for it) shortly followed by a plethora of channel bots using them. There was some win32 client that was pretty much the only game in town (I can't remember the name), and then mIRC and Pirc came along.

        I saw your sig. I don't remember any ascii color codes being used for LambdaMoo until the win32 MUD clients came along!

        I don't suppose any of you remember #war by any chance?

        --
        No Sig to see here, move along, move along...
    • (Score: 1) by Marneus68 on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:17AM

      by Marneus68 (3572) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:17AM (#15125) Homepage

      Here [wikipedia.org], help yourself. Don't thank me.

      • (Score: 2) by unitron on Thursday March 13 2014, @06:02AM

        by unitron (70) on Thursday March 13 2014, @06:02AM (#15729) Journal

        Actually, I probably won't, because what I mean is taking whatever they use at http://chat.sylnt.us/ [sylnt.us] and making it easier to read.

        I've never really messed with IRC before, so it's all Greek to me, so to speak, so I'm not going to be able to be more specific than that.

        --
        something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
        • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Thursday March 13 2014, @11:24PM

          by xlefay (65) on Thursday March 13 2014, @11:24PM (#16118) Journal

          I'm going to talk to Style as soon as possible to address these concerns, let's see if we can come up with a nice fix ;)

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by gallondr00nk on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:12AM

    by gallondr00nk (392) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:12AM (#15145)

    The IRC network is a bit of fun, and it's an enjoyable place to lurk. There seems to be plenty of users, and since most/all of the meetings and major decision making is conducted through it, I'd personally be a little reluctant to move it to a third party. It'll use trivial amounts of bandwidth and resources anyway.

    There's also the issue of Freenode being blocked at many places of work.

    • (Score: 1) by CHALLNGEACCPTD on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:56PM

      by CHALLNGEACCPTD (1974) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:56PM (#15227)

      Hear, hear!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:50PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:50PM (#15379)

      You're reluctant to move it to a "third party" like freenode??

      In terms of IRC, freenode is trustworthy, anything private is NOT.

      • (Score: 2) by xlefay on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:57PM

        by xlefay (65) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:57PM (#15416) Journal

        I think (you'll have to ask Landon) our original intention was to be much like SlashNet, but better.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by bogibear on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:24PM

    by bogibear (475) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:24PM (#15318)

    Hosting your own IRC gives you control and gives some options that we might not have with something like FreeNode. The outage from yesterday demonstrates the need to distribute the resources so that if the web site should go down, there is some chance of keeping IRC available.

    FWIW, DNS and the site should be on at least two geo-redundant servers. IRC is probably not as mission critical, however if you have an active / standby instance in the same geo-redundant sites, you could switch over easily.

    --
    The world's cumulative IQ is a constant. The population is growing.
    • (Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:20PM

      by wjwlsn (171) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:20PM (#15396) Homepage Journal

      But IRC was available during the site outage... or am I missing something here?

      (As soon as I couldn't reach the site, I went to chat.sylnt.us and watched as user after user connected and asked "is the site down?", in between random statements about bacon, cows, and poutine's karma.)

      --
      I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by xlefay on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:45PM

        by xlefay (65) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:45PM (#15407) Journal

        Correct, _both_ IRC servers were still running.

      • (Score: 0) by crutchy on Thursday March 13 2014, @12:23PM

        by crutchy (179) on Thursday March 13 2014, @12:23PM (#15816) Homepage Journal

        That would have been funny. I'm just sorry i missed out on all the fun.

  • (Score: 2) by MrGuy on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:24PM

    by MrGuy (1007) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:24PM (#15504)

    So, you provided a choice for "Yeah, it's one of these, but I'm not telling you which one?" I'm so choosing that. Take that, The Man!

    Perhaps you meant "MORE THAN one of the above"? :)

  • (Score: 1) by GlennC on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:27PM

    by GlennC (3656) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:27PM (#15507)

    And at least I have the stones to admit it!

    --
    Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:02PM (#15572)

    "This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane."

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Khyber on Friday March 14 2014, @03:16AM

    by Khyber (54) on Friday March 14 2014, @03:16AM (#16164) Journal

    You censor worse than /. does. End of discussion.

    mattie_p can't prove otherwise, either. Looking back on the log, all I did was give a simple criticism. Others complain worse and you don't ban them from the IRC.

    Welcome to Soylent - where if you're not a profitable poster, you're just a hindrance, per mattie_p.

    --
    Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
    • (Score: 2) by mattie_p on Friday March 14 2014, @04:05AM

      by mattie_p (13) on Friday March 14 2014, @04:05AM (#16172) Journal

      Khyber, I asked you to settle down several times on IRC. You did not. Shoot me an email and we can talk. ~mattie_p @ soylentnews . org

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Khyber on Friday March 14 2014, @12:18PM

        by Khyber (54) on Friday March 14 2014, @12:18PM (#16301) Journal

        Nah, you censor, so there's nothing to talk about.

        Censorship is bad, thus you are bad.

        --
        Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @10:55AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @10:55AM (#16268)

      you seriously got a ban? Apparently I was right to stay away from the private server, no independence and even censorship... it really doesn't sound like spam

      • (Score: 2) by Khyber on Friday March 14 2014, @12:22PM

        by Khyber (54) on Friday March 14 2014, @12:22PM (#16305) Journal

        "you seriously got a ban? "

        Yep.

        "Apparently I was right to stay away from the private server"

        Yep. We should probably start leaving the site for another one, as well. The censorship and lacking independence is pretty much unacceptable from a 'community.'

        --
        Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by weeds on Friday March 14 2014, @02:24PM

          by weeds (611) on Friday March 14 2014, @02:24PM (#16389) Journal

          Do spend a few minutes to get the details before you make a judgement. You can read the chat transcript yourself http://logs.sylnt.us/%23soylent/2014-03-13.html#22 :33:39 [sylnt.us]

          • (Score: 1, Troll) by Khyber on Friday March 14 2014, @11:54PM

            by Khyber (54) on Friday March 14 2014, @11:54PM (#16690) Journal

            It's still plain and simple censorship, no matter which way you try to reason yourself out of it.

            --
            Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
            • (Score: 2) by weeds on Monday March 17 2014, @01:02PM

              by weeds (611) on Monday March 17 2014, @01:02PM (#17543) Journal

              The owners/operators of this site and IRC (and any other website that allows for commenting or IRC) have the right to control the commentary and participation. There is NO guarantee explicit or implied that any comments will be published or that anyone's participation will be guaranteed. This is not the US government or any other and therefor you do NOT have first amendment protection. If you don't like it, too bad, start your own website or IRC and exercise your childish ranting there.

              • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Khyber on Monday March 17 2014, @02:29PM

                by Khyber (54) on Monday March 17 2014, @02:29PM (#17606) Journal

                "The owners/operators of this site and IRC (and any other website that allows for commenting or IRC) have the right to control the commentary and participation."

                And I reserve the right to call them out for what they are. If your skin is that thin then this community will not last, that's pretty much guaranteed.

                And if you can't take drunk ranting, your skin is beyond thin and you should probably just get off of the internet.

                I notice the site mods and IRC mods have gone silent. Not a surprise. The truth hurts, doesn't it, boys?

                --
                Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
                • (Score: 3, Informative) by weeds on Monday March 17 2014, @03:00PM

                  by weeds (611) on Monday March 17 2014, @03:00PM (#17625) Journal

                  You, my friend, can take your drunk ranting any place you like. I personally am not interested. (also not protected free speech)

                  "I notice the site mods and IRC mods have gone silent. Not a surprise. The truth hurts, doesn't it, boys?"

                  I would suppose they don't believe it is worth their time to argue with a drunk ranter and I agree.

                  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Khyber on Wednesday March 19 2014, @02:41PM

                    by Khyber (54) on Wednesday March 19 2014, @02:41PM (#18561) Journal

                    Then I guess they don't need to find out about the nice vulnerabilities I've found while playing with the dev VM, since they don't want to talk to me.

                    Hint: Environment.pm

                    Whomever figures out the exploit like I have can just destroy the site.

                    Now to go find someone willing to pay for that information.

                    --
                    Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
                    • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday March 19 2014, @04:17PM

                      by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Wednesday March 19 2014, @04:17PM (#18600) Homepage

                      Khyber, you were kick/banned from IRC for being generally disruptive. I understand you were frustrated from being kicked, but you were warned repeatedly to calm down. This ban only lasted a few days or so and you can now log in. Your claims of censorship are wildly inaccurate (notice you can post to the site and moderate).

                      What is your goal here? You've spent time contributing to the site, clearly you think it has merit. Now all it seems you care to do is to bring it down, spread mis-information, and make threats. Is this all some sort of "revenge" because you were kicked out temporarily from an chatroom?

                      --
                      (Score:1^½, Radical)
                      • (Score: 2) by Khyber on Thursday March 20 2014, @01:31PM

                        by Khyber (54) on Thursday March 20 2014, @01:31PM (#18875) Journal

                        " This ban only lasted a few days or so and you can now log in. Your claims of censorship are wildly inaccurate (notice you can post to the site and moderate)."

                        My censorship complaint is only about IRC, not the site.

                        "What is your goal here?"

                        To point out how thin your skin is. Generally disruptive? There's an /ignore feature for that, you know. Did the entire chat forget about that, or do you just have itchy trigger fingers after all the drama with Barrabas still?

                        "You've spent time contributing to the site"

                        And that's not likely to happen ever again. You guys are showed your true colors. All it takes is a little push and you all go wide-open on the throttle.

                        "Now all it seems you care to do is to bring it down, spread mis-information, and make threats."

                        You guys showed very quickly and easily how readily you're willing to unequally treat others. Poutine just gets karma-- but I get banned, and Poutine's trolling ALL THE TIME. Way to set an example. I knew it was going to happen and you proved me right.

                        "spread mis-information"

                        Sorry, censorship is censorship is censorship. You can try to deflect from it, but the fact is, your unequal treatment amounts to exactly that. There's no mis-information here, at all.

                        "Is this all some sort of "revenge" because you were kicked out temporarily from an chatroom?"

                        No, this entire thing was a troll to get you to show your true colors and start putting cracks in the facade hiding your hypocrisy after the Barrabas incident.

                        And you've cracked admirably.

                        --
                        Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19 2014, @01:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19 2014, @01:30PM (#18527)

    URLs

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