in short, discord in almost its entirety was BASED on IRC - from servers
I disagree, I would rather say that similarities of Discord and IRC are just superficial; and the underlying protocols themselves had nothing in common.
And it would be best to not continue peddling such disinformative use of the word "server" in connection to Discord. Theirs is just an allotment of control/authentication area, not actual discrete instance of server software.
(1) You do not own (nor control) a Discord "server"; but you do in IRC.
Another important point I which I wish it was explicitly stated in the article, is distinction between
platform and
protocol. Discord is a platform: when you say "Discord", you always mean specific network of chat server(s) owned and run by Discord Incorporated and their goons located in the Imperial States of Amerika; subjected to their whim, rules, including ones of
dear-leader T. (2); and you also must use platform-specific proprietary software/protocol to get on in such case.
IRC is not a platform, it doesn't refer to specific brand, network, nor corporate entity that run it. IRC is rather a protocol---
a published specification that any software could support
(3) and communicate over. Anyone with enough technical chops
(4) could spin up their own server under their control (and under their jurisdiction), and users could shop around for ones that they like.
Libera.Chat, OFTC, IRCnet, Undernet, Rizon, EFnet, etc., however, are chat
platforms (5); but in this case they are chat platforms that use IRC protocol. When positioning IRC as Discord alternative, you should also ideally emphasize that IRC has diversity of platforms, and each of them have their own focus, administrations, rules, regulations, and operate on different jurisdiction.
And in this point, is also important to note that IRC is
not federated which means while you can shop around multiple platforms or be online with more than one of them without having to change software,
you can only chat with people on the same platform(s) you're using. This is different from things like email and XMPP (more on this below) where you could actually use your single account to communicate with people on different platforms/providers.
(derail start)And lastly, IRC isn't the only libre-standard Internet-based instant messaging protocol available-- it is merely the original one, and also the one that consume least resource while supporting hundreds-thousands of participants without VC monies. Newer
(6) and also a relatively well-known instant messaging protocol with long track record is
XMPP (also known by its nickname Jabber), and this one actually supports federation.
^ You know, XMPP protocol was the one that Google Talk and Facebook Messenger used to use before they did the usual bait-and-switch (TM) + Embrace Extend Extinguish (R) tactic to lock users into their own brand of walled hellscape.
However, while both IRC and XMPP all support both chatrooms and 1-1 chats; I would say that IRC is leaning more toward chatrooms, while XMPP is leaning more toward 1-1 chats.
(derail end)i know that IRC never died (it's still very much alive, as i've seen and engaged with it these past few months!) but it seems like most of the world has forgotten that it existed
See also thread "
Do you remember IRC?" where I also described my experience as a new IRC user... in 2020 there.
there's still quite a few IRC networks on the planet
There maybe just a handful of major ones, sure; but there are lots, lots, of smaller ones.
Netsplit.de is a well-known site where
you could find many of these, as well as searching through channels description to
find channels of your interest across all of them.
And from the article itself...
to use irc, you don't just get a url to join it.
I don't think that's true. For example, to join #gnu channel on Libera.chat, the URL would be:
ircs://irc.libera.chat:6697/gnu
Also, the main difference between IRC's "/join" and Discord's so-called "join" is: under IRC, like you said, you normally need a client, but you often don't need account to chat
(7); you just make up your screen name and off you go.
Is there a way to see all of the channels available on an IRC network?
On pretty much all proper IRC clients, there is a `/list` command which lists all non-hidden channels whenever the server allow it. Some servers also allow wildcard search like `/list *retro*` too.
(1) I would recommend a term "area" for that use in Discord instead.
(2) I'm tempted to use the well-known German F-word you know which, in lieu of of "dear-leader" here; but I think
@Melooon might come in to kick me if I did.
(3) Thus you have many brands of IRC clients like HexChat, mIRC, RevolutionIRC, TheLounge, KiwiIRC, Irssi, WeeChat, IrcII; servers like Ergo, InspIRCd, Charybdis, UnrealIRCd, Solanum; server account systems like Anope, Atheme, Epona; and bouncers like ZNC and BNC that you can choose and mix+match.
(4) And have real publicly-routable IP address.
(5) When you use choose the way to communicate over computer (including handheld ones), ask about protocol and data format first, not platform. If the answer about protocol was "unknown", platform-specific, or anything else you can't find technical paper defining it or third-party program supporting it, that's red flag.
(6) Others newfangled ones are Delta.chat (weird!) and Matrix (resource-intensive); but let's not go into such rabbit holes at the moment.
(7) And definitely don't need handing over biometric data or while swath of highly-sensitive personal information. (Thus no possibility of them being leaked en-masse like they just did at Discord)
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