Thoughts on IRC

So today, several members including myself had a brief discussion about the idea of dropping AIM. I know this seems kind of extreme, but when you think about it, it isn't really that crazy. As many know, URPG used to be on Yahoo! boards, but then the client pretty much dried up so we transitioned to AIM, where we've been ever since. Sort of. I don't know how many of you remember, but when we first expanded to BMG, AIM was still in the mode of private group chats. These group chats were used for battles/FFAs/auctions. However, there was actually a person limit, which our numbers at the time expanded. And so, we moved over to IRC for some of the "bigger" events. Now, this was a long time ago and AIM and the URPG are both pretty different from that time, but I just wanted to show that the precedent has been set.

Now back to the current time. Aim is kinda dying. The average internet user don't really use it anymore. URPG is pretty much the only reason to go on AIM for many of our members. So the utility of using a program that newer members would already have has kind of been lost. Sure it's reputable still, but it's not really a great client. This is where IRC comes in. A lot of sites already use IRC chat for general chat amongst there members (smogon, a lot of reddit subreddits have IRC chats, the smashbros community, even bmg! Look up it's right there on their forum guide bar, etc.). The benefits are really great, in my opinion. It's all browser based, which means members wouldn't have to download anything (Something I know has scared new members in the past). Similar to what AIM used to be, it's a pretty common and familiar system to a lot of people. I'm not totally familiar with the process, but Monbrey has told me that a rolling function can be implemented, which would give us reffing. Also, the chat system is pretty similar to the way AIM works now, with open chats that you can join (for things like battles, ffas, etc.)

One of the more glaring drawbacks is that because IRC is all text based, the User Interface can be a little daunting to users who are unfamiliar with the client. However, I feel like this is only a minor problem, and as long as we have a clear guide that members can be referred to, I don't think this is an unsurmountable problem.

I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this. I think it would be a good move for the URPG, but obviously there may be contrasting opinions.

 

I'm not sure if I'd support a complete move at this stage, since we've had problems with use of IRC in the past, but I'm curious to know more about it.

-You mentioned IRC being similar to AIM, so would we be able to make chats/a URPG chat for specific things so we don't always flood the same chat?
-Can members be muted/kicked from these?
-We used to have connection problems in that people couldn't access IRC except through things like Meebo--is that not an issue anymore?

On one had it would be good for advertising if non-URPGers saw it. On the other hand, if it's hard to isolate certain chats and its just one big cesspool, I can see other people also possibly getting annoyed. Have people been using it lately? That's what I would recommend first. Before anything is really done, it should be tested out.

These days, I'm sort of biased against "limiting" people to just one mode. I like that we have AIM, Skype, and forum stuff. If IRC is another thing available to us, we should definitely be using it, but I'm not sure we should restrict that to our main mode.

 

I'm not 100% sure on IRC stuff, but I believe the answer to Winter's first two questions is yes. Also I think it is worth mentioning that AIM requires a phone number to sign up now, which has scared some people off of making one.

Perhaps more on this later.

 

I agree with everything said here except the last part. I believe that having multiple clients is actually detrimental as it spreads our activity too thinly. Even with just AIM and Skype, there are some people that don't have a way of communicating on the other client, and who are subsequently left out of events occurring on that client (let's be honest this only happens for people on Skype.)

While I don't think we should rid ourselves of Skype, I'm not sure how adding a 3rd client on top of all this would affect activity. We would either have to go all or nothing imo. I feel like this opinion won't be very popular, but I can say with certainty that people who stick to one client will be missing out on events in other clients, and it will make it even harder to find refs/opponents. It's not impossible, but there would need to be a full transition which would be gradual and stretch activity. Furthermore, switching between the three is a hassle (especially from mobile) and not a practical option.

 

IRC is absolutely capable of muting and banning members from chats. The (+v) mode is "voice", which authorises someone to speak in chat. It also has multiple levels of moderation (+o to make someone an owner, +m for moderator), or you can write your own script to handle moderation either automatically or based on commands given by authorised members - IRC scripts like these are how I first learnt programming about 12 years ago. I would love to try and find them again, if only I knew where they were.

Individual group chats are also easy to make. We'd need a URPG channel, and then as many rooms as you like within that.

 

I always found IRC really boring? The text just sort of sacks and doesn't feel like communicating like any other client like aim or skype. Tbh IRC would almost be holing us in in a similar way to aim is (communities don't evolve to, they evolve from, IRC). Like lots of the programs that could access IRC shut down last I checked and it just feels very lame and old fashioned. The real way forward would be skype honestly I think since almost everyone has it anyway and it's easy to get/interactive/video and voice enabled/etc. Maybe we just have to change our mentality to skype. IRC could still work probably, it's just more a personal dislike for it.

 

My issue with Skype is that it's really not built for what we would use it for. It's intended for small groups with audio and video communication of up to maybe three or four people.

Large texts chats really aren't very good in Skype, mainly because of the way in which is stores and distributes the messages client side.

 

Skype blows chunks in regards to URPG. I know lots of people who have trouble using Skype in general now because the URPG chats drain resources like crazy.

IRC is very mutable and like Monbrey said, lots can be done with it. As far as I'm concerned, any communication system that three people can meet up on is legitimately usable for URPG battles. Need we bring up the one that happened over Xbox LIVE?

 

I haven't been on this website... Could someone be awesome and link me to it please?

 

It's not a website of its own, if you go to the top of any bmgf page it should say "ICR Chat" to the far left of the Search Bar. There is a URPG IRC Chat that already exists, I think, but I don't have that link.

 

+h is moderator/half-op, +o is basically super moderator/op, & +a is admin, to correct Monbrey's earlier post. +q is owner. At least from my experience.

The BMG IRC chat is here if anyone wants to try it before giving an opinion, in case one didn't feel like scrolling up & looking at the top bar themselves or just couldn't find it; the group that's usually there is pretty cool imo & has a tendency to get a little... inappropriate, so this is your fair warning. For some of you, that likely won't be an issue, but fair warning nevertheless. I'm an op there as well, & I'm on IRC pretty much whenever I'm on my computer, so yeah. .-. [The activity & actions of the BMG IRC chat really should not affect our decision in any way, I just wanted to give those that may want to try it out a fair warning of what could happen if anyone wanted to see what exactly IRC was before giving a full on opinion.]

AIM is definitely really old and kinda obsolete. It was a huge thing when I was in late elementary school/middle school, & then it sorta died out. Apparently it was big when URPG came to BMGf, but it's definitely not that big as it used to be. I think I actually ended up redownloading AIM because of URPG or something, I don't even really remember, but URPG is pretty much the main reason why I've used AIM in the past 3 years, or however long I've been in URPG.

Skype would be okay if there wasn't a gap in between sending a message & others receiving it sometimes. This has definitely been an issue with FFAs that people have cross hosted between AIM and Skype. I actually sent messages in a chat this morning & it took an hour for them to actually go through and not be pending. It's not really a thing for larger group chats, and I don't forsee Skype fixing that any time soon. Good for one on one & small group stuff, not so much for large stuff like URPG.

IRC is probably our best option tbh. Sure, it's hella old, but it works. It doesn't have half the issues AIM and Skype have, and it's easily accessible. No download required, though getting your own client is optional; I personally recommend a client, but like I said, it's optional. There's apps for IRC stuff that works on mobile as well for anyone that would need that. As has already been said, we can kick/ban/mute people from the chat(s) with no problems. I'm in full support of moving to IRC just because of how much easier for us to use & it'd also be less intimidating for newer members that don't want to download AIM or Skype; I think it also might help get more people out of forum battles & into the community that is URPG, therefore making things more active & more fun for all, since it's more easily accessible than AIM or Skype. Everyone would be able to see dice rolls too, and that's always a plus. The only real issue I can see besides maybe intimidation of a new thing at first would be netsplits, when a portion of a server basically disconnects and then everyone on that bit of the server disconnects too & can't reconnect for a little while on the bit of server that disconnected, but those happen few and far between, so I can't see them being too much of an issue. (They can also be loopholed in that you can just find a different bit that works & get back on that way. )

In regards to a guide, I've actually typed one up in the past that explains how to do basic stuff in IRC that'll work for our purposes. There's probably more that can go into it and whatnot, but I'm willing to edit it for URPG purposes so that we can have something.

 

Like I said, it was about 12 years ago

 

I'm completely against a switch from AIM to IRC for a number of reasons.

First off, AIM has some issues, but I don't think it's quite dead yet. I think it has served us well and continues to be a reliable system. It's too early to predict it's demise and plan an escape.

We've also tried IRC before, as some of the others have mentioned, and it failed terribly. People used it at first, then it fell off and nobody used it after that. It simply does not have the simple intuitiveness as AIM or Skype.

As Syn mentioned, IRC is a bit lacking as a chat service. It's an old system that somehow has still managed to survive all these years. It's reliable, sure, but I think lacks a lot of features we've come to expect from instant messengers.

While I agree with Winter that we should be open to URPG activity on many platforms, I think Swift is correct that it might prove to be difficult to coordinate activity over three messengers. We've started using Skype more because that's what people are using today and what new members are likely to have. I honestly think that, before we consider another system, we need to better link our Skype and AIM chats so as to be more inclusive in terms of URPG events.

I feel a lot of people think Skype is worse than it actually is. I haven't seen too many issues with it and it works well enough. I think that's the future IM system because that's where people are going now and we should do our best to cater to new members. We transitioned from using YIM to AIM because that's what the new members used. We might have to transition from AIM to Skype for that same reason.

 

Spoiler

[2/6/15, 10:02:16 PM] Ash K.: Anyone want to battle or anything?
[2/8/15, 1:05:09 AM] Heavenly Dash: i didnt get your message till today ash
[2/8/15, 1:05:14 AM] Heavenly Dash: and you sent it a day ago
[2/8/15, 1:05:16 AM] Heavenly Dash: heh
[2/8/15, 1:05:24 AM] Ash K.: Which one?
[2/8/15, 1:17:08 AM] Heavenly Dash: the battle one
[2/8/15, 1:23:40 AM] Ash K.: Oh, from over two days ago in this chat. Yeah, thanks Skype...

It's not usually quite that bad, but just to show that Skype does indeed have problems. From main chat a few days ago. I don't think that the addition of a ton more people if it became the main chat service would help the situation at all. Also I am good at timestamps, that was 1 day and 3 hours, not two days like I thought at the time

As for the other points, I'm not sure what's best. Everything has faults. I think AIM's biggest fault right now is asking for a phone number, which it seems can no longer be avoided on new accounts. On the other hand, we're also probably more likely to get more old members to return if we're still on the same IM program (at least some people to talk to) as when they left. I don't really know enough about IRC to comment on it, but it also doesn't seem like it's much more "plain" than AIM (we are speaking to each other through plain text, after all). My only complaint (looking at the BMG one) is that it doesn't have popup notifications, but I hear that's fixable if we made our own. I'm not sure what would be best. I'm not sure what to suggest. I figured I'd throw in my take on some of the options though.

 

Btw Skype stores messages in users and not in chats. So whoever was online when something was said, at least one of them has to be online when whoever's to read it wants to see. Maybe you can solve that with a fake account that's always on. Not sure if that'll work though.

 

Regardless of what Skype says the problem is, there have been many times where someone is online when something is said (sometimes even whole conversations between several other users) and still doesn't get it until hours later. I don't even understand it anymore.

 

I'm not sure what features IRC lacks that we expect in other messengers... and actually need.

 

I would like to note that I said something in our URPG staff Skype chat yesterday and the messages were pending for an hour. Pretty sure it was nothing on my end because everything else worked fine, so this is definitely a Skype issue. I definitely foresee messages popping up to days later being an issue for Skype unless they fix it, and I'm definitely not supporting Skype for URPG, I'm sorry. I can live with AIM if we decide to continue to use that, but I can't support Skype for us until this issue is resolved.

IRC pretty much does everything AIM does that we actually need to use, like Monbrey said.

 

Well, I guess an IRC Chat could be useful for those who have problems with AIM, but wiping out URPG AIM.... I can name 100 things bad with this. AIM is the URPG most common, but not exclusive, IM Messaging Service. The URPG has always been on an IM service, and often a popular one, the most players already had prior before joining the URPG.

However, an IRC Chat would be an interesting idea. This forum has an IRC Chat. and just like you said, Smogon has one in Pokemon Showdown. I guess we can create a website with a IRC Chat? It can be an extension to Monbrey's website: monbrey.com.au (the website with the UltraDex and all the craziness).

Though if this IRC Chat is implemented, it won't mean the other URPG IM Services, like Yahoo! or AIM, would be discarded