Server An IRC server

[Deauthorized]

Bit of an out there idea, but I was discussing in voice having an IRC server for totalfreedom as an alternative to discord using UnrealIRCD and Anope. Would this be a popular idea or not?

 

[zrfv]

I have suggested this before on OG TF, the general response was “meeeh it's not going to be popular because people are not going to bother setting up an IRC client + discord is easier anyway”. We could try doing that, but as mentioned before, I doubt that it will be popular or that anyone will ever use it.

 

[Deauthorized]

meeeh it's not going to be popular because people are not going to bother setting up an IRC client + discord is easier anyway

I don't think people realize how easy IRC is to set up. You can connect to an IRC server via telnet if you wanted to. Or via the web browser. Discord is only easier due to the principal of "you probably already have a discord account". Even if it's just as a backup to the regular discord server if it gets terminated due to some keyboard monkey being socially engineered (this happens all the time) it would be appreciated.

 

[zrfv]

I don't think people realize how easy IRC is to set up. You can connect to an IRC server via telnet if you wanted to. Or via the web browser.

mann das what I was saying..

Discord is only easier due to the principal of "you probably already have a discord account".

...which I pretty much hate to be honest, but then again, all you have to do is make a username, give them your birthdate, a phone number (DEFINITELY not forcefully, not under my watch!!!), and then you can make a community (a “server”, which is actually a “guild”)
and then that's why I returned to discord — because I was refused tech support on Divolt (take a billion guesses what kind of tech support) and then they told me to come over to discord… MAN WHAT WAS DIVOLT MADE FOR THEN?!

though it would be cool to use an ""old"" protocol such as IRC, would vouch if this was a suggestion

 

[gamingto12]

honestly i'm down for this, i personally have only used irc like once and it was a while ago (don't ask cause i don't remember).

 

[videogamesm12]

Discord was created to replace platforms like Skype, Teamspeak, and IRC, and all it did was become yet another Skype. It hogs resources, its management refuses to listen to complaints by its users, and its moderation is terrible. One wrong move and your Discord account of 6+ years is disabled because you said a number and they thought you were talking about your age.

I believe the scope of this suggestion should be extended to the concept of using alternative chat services like Matrix and not just IRC. While IRC is great, it's fairly outdated.

 

[Taah]

object, we dont need more platforms

 

[shdwo]

Discord is one of the most popular instant messaging/VoIP platforms, it's used because it was intuitive at the time and it is easy to setup. As you've stated, most of the users that want to join our discord community most likely already have a discord account. They shouldn't have to then make another account on a completely different site to connect to another community that won't be nearly as popular as the discord is.

This seems incredibly pointless, let's stick with what works. Object

 

[videogamesm12]

let's stick with what works

That's the problem, Discord doesn't really work. Here's why:

• Their server moderation system is utter shit
  Moderating Discord servers tends to be a pain in the ass because bans are vague, punishments are easily bypassed, and security levels go from 1 to 100 rapidly. We have had to deal with occasions where we revoke the ban for a user and yet they still can't join the server because something was tripping Discord's system against ban bypassing and we had no idea which ban entry was causing it. Attempts to contact Discord's support team to help resolve the issue often resulted in a baffling and downright unhelpful response that boils down to "just unban everyone lol".
  
  
  
  Discord doesn't have an adequate long-term way of logging bans aside from the Audit Log which gets purged after a few months, so unless you have a photographic memory or a third-party bot that does all the logging for you (thus adding another vector for potential security issues, mind you) you won't be able to easily figure out useful information about a ban like who issued it or when it was issued because the ban entry only includes the reason.
  
  
• Posting a number can get you banned from Discord itself, requiring you to dox yourself to get your account back
  You read that right. A common exploit to get someone banned from Discord is to find a message by them where they simply say a number and report them for being underage, flagging their account to be automatically banned. The only way to get your account back after this happens to you is to send their staff team a picture of your photo ID alongside your Discord username, essentially holding your account hostage until you dox yourself to them. Not only are you putting your personal privacy at the mercy of the support team by doing this, you're also doing so hoping that they haven't had their shit breached or otherwise compromised. This is exactly what happened last year when a support agent was compromised with information exactly as described above being exposed to the attacker. This exploit is so prolific that users have had to change their habits when it comes to posting numbers and server owners have had to discontinue certain gimmick channels out of fear that malicious actors would abuse it.
  
  
• Their clients are an inefficient, memory-leaking piece of shit even on high-end computers and smartphones
  Because Discord's clients are essentially an unholy concoction of an embedded version of Google Chrome (which is also coincidentally the cardinal sin of software engineering) and a stack of poorly-optimized JavaScript, the client lags horrifically even on a high-end CPU and GPU, to the point where any fucking dialogue box or click stutters the entire client. As a result, if you are dealing with a case where a user is spamming messages really quickly, it becomes a game of catch-up for the client as it stutters opening the delete dialogue box or processing that you clicked the delete option and it often leads to messages being spammed faster than you can delete them. If you attempt to use an alternative client that is actually well optimized and isn't a steaming pile of shit (like how I was forced to in order to combat raids in 2022), then Discord may decide to terminate your account because using any form of third party client is against their terms of service.
  
  
• They push unnecessary changes onto people despite them absolutely fucking hating it
  Do you remember when they rebranded the app and alienated their core audience as they began having an identity crisis, then pushed it onto everybody even though nobody liked it? How about when they decided that the long-standing username + discriminator system that existed since 2015 was too unique and they needed to be just another generic messaging platform by forcing a generic username system down everyone's throat knowing that they wouldn't like it, which was widely rejected? How about when they decided that the perfectly usable and functional user interface on mobile wasn't good enough so they decided to reinvent the wheel which nobody liked, then doubled-down when people complained and reverted back to the original UI, and finally tripled-down by forcing everyone to use it with a server-side change? They were multiple major changes they did that received heavy amounts of criticism because they were absolute shit.

 

[Deauthorized]

Their server moderation system is utter shit

So is their user moderation. I've had to deal with *several* long term abusers before I retired from managing discord servers. Every report with evidence of the matter occurring was met with a vague "we'll investigate what's happening" followed by nothing being done. Every other platform (reddit, twitter before it was cucked, instagram) has no issues with telling you if your report was actioned or not, but apparently for privacy concerns (or just pure stubbornness) discord can't do that.

I hate having to rely on centralized platforms ran by people who couldn't use a toilet without falling into it. I honestly believe a community like this shouldn't be relying on Discord as much as it does (I was literally told by the execs once that discord was apparently the best platform for communicating with them, which at that point why even have the forums available if you're going to default to discord for everything). Especially with what video describes regarding the monkeys who throw bans at users and servers with no mercy.

I've seen methods where people get a bunch of accounts and spam discord account tokens in a server, and then report the server for having discord account tokens in it. These are not people you want to rely on.

 

[Deauthorized]

let's stick with what works

Also wanted to add onto this. It's like saying let's stick to what works with driving without a seatbelt. It works until it doesn't.

 

[Telesphoreo]

Honestly I object. Discord isn't great but we still have the forums if Discord decides to do some stupid shit. I think it would just be another dead platform and if we were to outright move to IRC, we would basically kill our playerbase because who's going to log into IRC just for TF?