

Ask HN: What would you like to see from an IRC network? - twiedenbein

We're trying to develop features for our fledgling IRC network that have the capability to draw people to it. We've got all the standard stuff - an Atheme services package with an InspIRCd backend and dedicated staff and developers, but we just don't know what we can do to get people to stop by and visit. If you had a pie-in-the-sky idea, what would it be?
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ax0n
The fact that you're trying to perpetuate IRC in a time after the nineteen-
hundreds is admirable, but the protocol itself is somewhat broken. I mean,
it'd be great if a network offered Public Key Infrastructure for
authentication (non-spoofability), Encrypted communication, and non-
repudiation... but then you're talking about SILC (which, by the way, I think
is vastly superior to traditional IRC)

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davidw
Lots of "high quality" people already using it:-) That's the most important
thing.

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neilk
It would be interesting if one could attach a karma system to an IRC network.
The #perl channels have long had infobots hanging out in channel recording
karma informally. (You simply say [username]++ to increment karma).

Before you object, yes I know everything is gameable. I'm just throwing it out
there. We have karma systems for async discussion, and they work at least
somewhat well. Why not synchronous too?

There is no such thing as sorting messages by karma for synchronous chat but
perhaps other analogues could be found. Maybe in the same way that Slashdot
has "browsing at +2" you can choose to receive all messages or just messages
from higher karma people.

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ax0n
I know it's ingrained into the culture of HN and other sites, but karma is
dumb.

In response to the bury, let me clarify. On HN, upvotes and downvotes allow a
comment to stand on its own merit. Using amassed karma to determine the
quality of an individual is dumb. Since IRC's nature is instant and ephemeral
communication (yes, often logged, etc), it makes little sense to use a karma
system for IRC. Individual comments can't be filtered or buried (they're
instant!) so the only other option would be to filter people individually by
karma. We call that a popularity contest, and THAT is dumb.

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mikemol
I run a website that gets occasional buzz in programming channels. As a
result, I'm in a dozen or so IRC channels, with hilight rules set up to ping
me when someone's talking about the site--that way I can dive in and address
misconceptions or problems, or just generally interact with an interested
community.

I had an idea for a bot that would allow temporary, rule-based bridging of
conversations in participating channels. I never got around to coding, but I
did blog the concept in more detail:
<http://mmol-6453.livejournal.com/213900.html>

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nodata
You want to make an IRC network, but don't have the killer features yet.

Is this idea the right way round?

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justinlilly
Web frontend. Persistant users, where you can leave messages for people.
Notification of interesting channels also on the network. Let me get it on my
phone.

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zyklon
you just described facebook.

~~~
justinlilly
and every other social network ever. who cares?

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scg
I honestly can't think of any good reason to start an IRC network in 2010. Can
somebody please help me out?

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rcfox
I'm not sure how feasible this is, but if you could somehow detect that a user
has submitted several lines very quickly (ie: they've just pasted something
into the channel), automatically dump it to some Pastebin variant, and then
show the link to that instead.

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jessor
Perhaps an inspiring idea: [http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/01/14/robot9000-and-
xkcd-signal-at...](http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/01/14/robot9000-and-xkcd-signal-
attacking-noise-in-chat/)

~~~
Zev
I was a moderator in #xkcd-signal (the original channel ROBOT9000 was run on)
for awhile. In the past 12 hours, #xkcd-signal had 55 messages. #xkcd had over
4,000. Its a fun attraction, but not much more. And not something people stay
around for.

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zackola
Room chat history! I am an IRC novice so I'm not sure if that exists as part
of a server already somewhere. I haven't been able to find it, but I haven't
looked very hard.

~~~
rcfox
Logging is usually up to the users. Also, it's generally assumed (unless
otherwise stated) that the logs will not be explicitly made public.

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rcfox
In addition to the standard IRC ports, also make it accessible from port 80 or
443 to avoid being blocked by corporate firewalls.

~~~
ax0n
Most "corporate firewalls" are egress filters with a proxy server, and proxy
servers won't just barf IRC packets to a box on port 80. Some will barf random
non-SSL traffic to port 443, though.

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jyf1987
need to transfer small file via irc server from account to account

so if you can break the message length limits , that would be better

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petervandijck
Web frontend and high quality content.

