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

13 points by twiedenbein ↗ HN
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?

22 comments

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

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.

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.

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.
zyklon
you just described facebook.
justinlilly
and every other social network ever. who cares?
Zev
What phone do you have? It might cost a dollar or two, but, chances are that there's an IRC client for it already.
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.
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.
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.
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

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)
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

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