Care to chat? ;)

[Alexander Turcic]

Hint: Have a look at our forum homepage (near the bottom)...

[igorsk]

That's a rather... basic implementation, if I may say so. Anyone interested in having a real IRC channel?

[UncleDuke]

cat chat? cool

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by igorsk

That's a rather... basic implementation, if I may say so.

Agreed I spent a lot of my college time on IRC (more than it could have done me any good). Alas, nowadays most people prefer to communicate via IM or social network communities. I am afraid most young folks online today haven't even heard about IRC yet.

Anyone interested in having a real IRC channel?

What's popular today? Efnet? Linknet? Unfortunately we cannot host an IRC bot ourselves or our ISP will shut us down.

[igorsk]

Freenode and OFTC are pretty popular with opensource and related projects. IRC in general is still used quite a lot by small groups which need to communicate with each other - opensource projects, gaming clans, fansub or scanlation groups etc...

[TadW]

I still do IRC from time to time but only to meet my chat buddies from the old days. Most of them are using some kind of IM nowadays.

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

What's popular today? Efnet? Linknet? Unfortunately we cannot host an IRC bot ourselves or our ISP will shut us down.

Best to stay away from what's popular and use a semi-private network. Usually a bit stricter controls to prevent all the script-kiddies from causing problems. Though it's definately a struggling protocol for anything but the more, ahem, lucrative topics .

sff.net does have an IRC setup, and for the more mainstream user that doesn't want to bother with a IRC client they have a Java based IRC frontend on their website.

Another option, though heavier on the backend as a result is a chat program called Flashchat which is surprisingly well made for a program that only costs $5. I've used it on several forums and other then IRC I think it's the best chat available. Integrates quite well with a variety of forum backends.

http://www.tufat.com/s_flash_chat_chatroom.htm

-MJ

[GeoffC]

I got bored , talking to myself was no fun - it sometimes took a week before I got an answer ..

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

I got bored , talking to myself was no fun - it sometimes took a week before I got an answer ..

Sorry, Geoff. Time dilation...FTL travel. Come with next time, yeah?

Cheers,
Marc

[igorsk]

I have registered #mobileread at irc.freenode.net. If you don't want to set up an IRC client, there is Mibbit.

[pshrynk]

Wow. All these words in English and not a single sentence I understand. I feel like I'm in my Comparative Religion class in college.

[Elsi]

I am a fan of IRC. For anything other than one-on-one chats, it seems to behave better than anything else I've tried, especially better than any of the "chat" functions I've used in various fora. A private IRC server is better than one of the public ones -- you're much less likely to receive unsavory invitations. (And anyone who *wants* those unsavory invitations is welcome to visit one of those servers if they wish; they don't need a #mobileread channel to intice them. )

I know someone who runs a private IRC server; he's a true geek and really into cool technology. (Know anyone else who has had multiple T1 circuits into his home?) I'm forwarding his contact information to the editorial team using the "Contact Us" form.

[Taylor514ce]

One problem is that I'm not often ON the "Forum Home Page". Login. UserCP. New Posts. User Profiles... my normal traverse through the forum doesn't often intersect the Forum Home Page.

[mjh215]

Taylor514ce; your normal traverse through the forum doesn't often intersect reality either

-MJ

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by mjh215

Taylor514ce; your normal traverse through the forum doesn't often intersect reality either

-MJ

Really? Alexander's installed a "Reality Option" in the forum? Where is it? Where? Do tell, pretty please!

Cheers,
Marc (who likes a good intersection every now and then)