Okay, what's the best #Discord alternative for a #chat platform, I want one for my #streamer / #vtuber community, currently using Discord but want to Own It and such. For real this time.

Is #element / #matrix still the biggest one? I guess there's #IRC, I want whatever I can get the largest non-zero number of people using. And voice chat ideally, video not necessary.

we have a #traveller chat room on #irc, which you could access via web under

https://talk.campaignwiki.org/#/connect?join=traveller

(it's effectively the #traveller chat from Undernet/Communiti (formerly Otherworlders)

just saying.

Created in 1988 by Jarkko Oikarinen in Finland, IRC was designed to enable real-time, text-based communication over the internet. Inspired by the multi-user talk programs on UNIX systems, Oikarinen wanted a system that was more flexible and scalable.

IRC quickly became the backbone of online communities in the 90s and early 2000s, hosting discussions ranging from programming and hacking to gaming and general socializing. Unlike modern chat services, IRC was entirely decentralized—anyone could set up a server, create channels, and communicate without corporate control.

Though its popularity has declined with the rise of modern platforms, IRC still thrives among enthusiasts, open-source communities, and privacy advocates who prefer its lightweight, no-nonsense approach to online chat.

We are LIVE!!

Theme this year is MUSIC!

https://blog.ircpuzzles.org/2025/04/2025-april-fools-live/

Coucou.

J'ai un souci.
Voici mon setup :

J'ai weechat sur mon VPS sous debian.

Sur mon windows du taf, je me connecte via hexchat sur mon weechat. Tout va bien.

Mais j'aimerais utiliser halloy, un client IRC aussi. Et là j'obtiens une erreur au niveau du TLS.

connection to server failed (a TLS error occured: io error: invalid peer certificate: Expired)

J'ai cherché un peu, et j'ai tapé cette commande dans weechat :

/relay tlscertkey

Mais rien n'y fait, tjrs impossible de se connecter via halloy.

Une idée ?

How on earth is this ok? When will #Europe, esp. #Deutschland wake up and stop excusing and stop arming #Israel ??

"Israel killed 15 Palestinian #paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says #UN. Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in #massgrave in southern #Gaza, says humanitarian office

#Execution #IDF #StopIsraelWarCrimes #StopArmingIsrael #IRC #HumanitarianCrisisInGaza

@palestine
@EUCommission

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/israel-killed-15-palestinian-paramedics-and-rescue-workers-one-by-one-says-un

If you are still hanging out on #irc, where do you hang your virtual hat?

Looking for some nice servers.

https://babbagefiles.xyz/no-one-can-be-told-what-irc-is-you-have-to-logon-for-yourself/

Visions and Implementations of a smooth #IRC (including @ircv3 things) experience, with focus on IRC bouncers and using them with #Emacs and on #mobile / #Android .

[updated with a bunch of screenshots of Goguma, Gamja, ERC in action]

(With bonus material on Korean/Japanese/Chinese #etymology)

I'm getting back on #irc. Where's the good shit these days?

I think the reason #irc is so incompatible with some younger folks is that it's Slow Chat.

Like, we all work and have lives, we log onto the chat, answer some questions, chat some, maybe ask one of our own, and then wander away again.

I feel like easily 99% of the traffic on most Libera channels I see is like:

n00b: HEY HOW DO I DO $THING?

If you're gonna rock onto IRC, and PLEASE do, welcome! You've got to be willing to hang for a bit :) Treat it like an exercise in zen or something :) You'll be glad you did.

Dear Abby, I never thought it would happen to me...

But I honestly just configured my #IRC clients in a way that I prefer to other chat clients, and it does involve tmux (as byobu) and both irssi and weechat...

...and also bitlbee, znc, and ngircd.

It feels a bit weird, but I just put a limnoria bot on our #irc server and am thinking about bridging our #traveller channel with the one on #undernet

What year was it again?

So the Rblind.com #IRC server is extremely busy! So busy, in fact, that it was down for four months and nobody noticed. Anyway, it's back now; irc.rblind.com if you want that. #blind #a11y

#opensource projects adopting #discord as their go-to platform for communication is such a terrible trend.
You'd expect more from developers, you'd expect they understand what's wrong with these centralized services, which are in fact not accessible for a very large number of people, and that they, instead would embrace open/distributed solutions. But I guess #discord is great for control freaks with all the rules that one can configure just for people to be able to hello! (I miss #irc)

Was reading old discussions about why did Slack win out over IRC (for some definition of win?)

https://tedium.co/2017/10/17/irc-vs-slack-chat-history/

Found these quotes interesting.

"Why is it, out of all the prominent internet protocols in use during the early ’90s, only two of them—email and the World Wide Web—have managed to hold on in a way where most people use them on a regular basis" -- Ernie Smith 2017

"Why did slack win?
Because whenever somebody asked for:
* 24/7 presence, the reply was "you can do that with a bouncer"
* backlog, the reply was "you can do that with a bouncer"
* full text search, the reply was "that's up to the client implementation"
* file sharing, the reply was "it's already possible with XDCC"

and so on and so forth.

Basically, it's not that Slack is great, it's because IRC as a whole just refused to adapt to what users actually wanted/needed." -- em6m 2020

Not saying I agree exactly, just interesting.