> A conservative approach to adding features so that they can be at least implemented well and understood?
Well, sure. But while IRC slowly proposes and implements relatively basic features of modern clients, the world will go on without it. That's already happening.
Not that this is a problem for existing IRC users, evidently. But if this is the case, and it's accepted, then it would be great if some HN users would stop trying to pretend that IRC has everything that people want — if that were the case, we'd not have all these alternatives.
> * inline media (clients, not protocol, should implement this)
Which is why part of what I said, and I know you didn't specifically reply to it but I must restate it, is some sort of minimal specification for graphical clients to present the user-facing features that people expect of a modern chat client, voluntarily entered into but with the potential as a great feature to advertise the modernity of a client.
My thinking is that otherwise someone will just make their own Slack knock-off IRC client, bundle it with their own IRCd, and we'll re-enter the IRC wars again. Proprietary IRC with a proprietary client — not that much different from any other proprietary solution other than IRC users reaping none of the benefits.
Going on to the main benefits of Slack, I can't really speak to Slack. However, I'm a Discord user, and I know Discord is inspired of Slack. What I'd like from Discord is:
- persistent session without needing a bouncer, or a simulation of such (e.g. when I connect, show me the last few messages on the server; when I scroll up, keep showing me more)
- an easily customisable role-based permission system rather than the relatively simplistic op/hop/voice, with customisable symbols (as opposed to colours)
- channel categories
- consistent and predictable text formatting, including a subset of Markdown — if I show a code block, I want everybody to see it as a code block (even if all that means is forcing a fixed-width font for a given block of text)
- separating a user's identity from their username, allowing multiple users to use the same nick differentiated by a discriminator
- avatars!
- push notifications!
It's all the little things that add up to a pleasant experience with things like Slack and Discord. I'm sure many will see many of those things as quite separate from an IRC, but these are the things to which people are now accustomed.
Well, sure. But while IRC slowly proposes and implements relatively basic features of modern clients, the world will go on without it. That's already happening.
Not that this is a problem for existing IRC users, evidently. But if this is the case, and it's accepted, then it would be great if some HN users would stop trying to pretend that IRC has everything that people want — if that were the case, we'd not have all these alternatives.
> * inline media (clients, not protocol, should implement this)
Which is why part of what I said, and I know you didn't specifically reply to it but I must restate it, is some sort of minimal specification for graphical clients to present the user-facing features that people expect of a modern chat client, voluntarily entered into but with the potential as a great feature to advertise the modernity of a client.
My thinking is that otherwise someone will just make their own Slack knock-off IRC client, bundle it with their own IRCd, and we'll re-enter the IRC wars again. Proprietary IRC with a proprietary client — not that much different from any other proprietary solution other than IRC users reaping none of the benefits.
Going on to the main benefits of Slack, I can't really speak to Slack. However, I'm a Discord user, and I know Discord is inspired of Slack. What I'd like from Discord is:
- persistent session without needing a bouncer, or a simulation of such (e.g. when I connect, show me the last few messages on the server; when I scroll up, keep showing me more)
- an easily customisable role-based permission system rather than the relatively simplistic op/hop/voice, with customisable symbols (as opposed to colours)
- channel categories
- consistent and predictable text formatting, including a subset of Markdown — if I show a code block, I want everybody to see it as a code block (even if all that means is forcing a fixed-width font for a given block of text)
- separating a user's identity from their username, allowing multiple users to use the same nick differentiated by a discriminator
- avatars!
- push notifications!
It's all the little things that add up to a pleasant experience with things like Slack and Discord. I'm sure many will see many of those things as quite separate from an IRC, but these are the things to which people are now accustomed.