Chat widget on the chat guide

Summary:

Status: kiwiirc sucks

Chat widget on the chat guide

(account deleted) 03 Apr 2017 13:39

The KiwiIRC widget is bad.

Yes, it has a password field, and that is kind of neat. That's why I supported it. But it breaks so much that we end up explaining to quite a few people how to join from the 05 mibbit widget anyway.
The only other reason I recall people having was "mibbit looks like crap." If there's disagreement, please speak up.

It recycles hostmasks to the extent that it breaks bans and kicks people for being connected multiple times when they aren't. This last issue often ends in "try again" or "just join from 17" followed by a lesson in IRC commands.

I propose that we get rid of it and replace with something else. I would do this myself unilaterally because it sometimes breaks chat for users that badly but I'm not a mod, and the chat guide is locked.

The code to put it back to mibbit is below.

[[iframe http://embed.mibbit.com/?server=irc.synirc.net&channel=%23site19&nick= width="100%" height="600" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" ]]

If there are other, better, widgets, please speak up, because I'm aware that people dislike mibbit.

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

RJB_R 03 Apr 2017 13:46

This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but what do people think about transitioning from IRC to Discord? It would give us a much better module and more chat stability/functionality. The international sites have been using it with great success.

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Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

LilyFlower 03 Apr 2017 14:07

Personally I think that this is not a good idea as irc is far easier to use, has a much better interface, more accessable, has more history, and it'd take way too much effort to shift it all over. We've not had problems with the IRC in 8 and a half years, so there's really no reason to change imo.

EDIT: IRC also makes side channels and starting your own side channel easier, and moving all those over would be even worse

EDIT EDIT: 19 is also a lot bigger than the international sites so whilst it may work for them, it's not so simple for us.

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Last edited on 03 Apr 2017 14:18 by LilyFlower Show more

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

ProcyonLotor 03 Apr 2017 14:38

I could go on and on and on about my individual problems with Discord (they're legion but essentially add up to 'get off my damn lawn'), but I think the simpler point is that IRC has served us well since before all but the most hoary of us were even here, and continues to do so. There's no reason to fix what isn't broken.

Although yes, put it back to Mibbit. Getting real sick of troubleshooting Kiwi for folks.

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

SoullessSingularity 03 Apr 2017 14:46

Does Discord have all the functionality necessary, such as auto-logging folders, banlist access, control of who enters, smaller invite-only side chats, etc? How would customized bots like jarvis enter this? Is it possible to customize the logging system for individual users? How would side chats function? Also, how do I add all the channels necessary of staff on discord? I already have 12 servers on Discord and that's enough to fill the bar. If I add a further number of servers, how will channels work? etc.

I don't know. I'm unwilling to go to discord unless all the functionality and flexibility on IRC exists there. If it does, then sure?

Also, yes, please mibbit.

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Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

DrMagnus 03 Apr 2017 14:57

I'd like to weigh in on this from a technical standpoint, and from a logistical one in my role as JS technical(for which I got permission from my captain to post here). I have some personal feelings below, in collapsible, as they're not…strictly within my purview to express, and can be disregarded at will.

Technical Opinion

So kiwiIRC plugin is pretty unstable. Part of that has to do with Kiwi's set up, and part of that has to do with the default server being avarice.wa.us.synirc.net, which has been having tons of technical issues. This is bad. While I know people have argued against mibbit, frankly, if a newbie is connecting for the first time, a webclient that functions seems perfectly fine to me.

If they want more customization, they'll get IRCCloud, or mIRC, or weechat (if you're weird like me) or any of the zillion irc clients. I don't think providing a mibbit client is a bad idea, to solve the technical issues.

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Switching to discord

• Discord, primarily from my experience, is seen as a gaming/social platform. We use our IRC channels for that, to a degree, but we're primarily writing focused. This may just be me shaking canes, but I don't think Discord is really the right platform to use here.

• Discord, while it has a lot of the same chat features that we use as a whole, the big one that sticks out to me is bans. Discord bans by IP address, strictly at this point. This will potentially screw over people who connect through a shared IP (schools, workplaces if they allow it, libraries, etc). If I'm not mistaken, at this point we ban by name, hostmask, or ip as appropriate. I'm not a chat op so I'm not 100% on that. That gives a lot more granularity about who specifically we're banning from chat.

• We have a myriad of chat bots, which, while not completely unviable for discord, would require significant re-architect on the part of the developers. As none of the dev's are really compelled to do any work for us beyond what they want to, that's…a lot to ask. I don't really know how Anqxyr feels about doing that kind of effort, but having JUST gotten my own bot up and running for irc, I'd be a little peeved. Granted, that's a personal point, and not really necessary for the running of #site19, thats more dealing with jarvis.

• Discord, as a whole will be significantly harder to police with regards to discipline. For one, unless we specifically disable it, there's gonna be voice chat, and frankly, I don't even wanna think about the logistical headaches of trying to deal with voice chat. Are we going to implement a higher voice chat age limit?

• What about for side channels? Only people with certain permissions can create side chats. Beside that, there's a lot of hidden side chats that I'd rather not have to make public. For instance, I would rather not have to ask permission to create my invite only channel, and have it show up on the channel list. As a side note to that, I actually don't want anyone other than me admin'ing said channel. Even the site19 chat ops. I have users in some of my channels who are not welcome in Site19, and other places. I'd either have to create my own discord server with those channels, or keep them on irc and watch both. IRC lets me do this, and keep them in relatively unrelated space, while just sharing users. Discord muddies this up significantly.

• IRC is an incredibly mature, well established dinosaur of a technology. It's not going anywhere, and isn't really subject to the whims of a corporation. Synirc, technically could go bust, but that's unlikely. I have no idea the direction discord might go. That's…kind of a horizon argument, but at the end of the day, I have no idea the direction discord is going to take.

Personal notes.

Most of the time I spend on IRC, is at work. I leave it on a monitor, do my work, talk in Site19/side chats as I feel. If we switch to discord, which is 100% blocked by most IT departments, we're gonna lose a lot of work-time chatters. I'm not gonna make assumptions for everyone I know who chats at work, but that's not a small number, of a lot of the older, more steady members.

Secondly, if voice-chat isn't disabled, that's also going to lead to a separation, in my opinion, between people who are or aren't on voice chat. Personally, I think voice-chat is a terrible direction to start going down.

Again, personally I don't wanna deal with the headaches that come with it. There's a *lot* of ire for younger users on voice chat. Plus whatever legal implications having minors around voice chat brings.

While there's been some talk of switching to discord for a long time, the fact is, IRC is a dinosaur for a good reason. We've got a hell of a set up, and are one of the most active rooms on Synirc. I don't think we're gaining much if anything by switching.

Long and short, I know for a fact if we switch, I'm gonna be SoL for chatting during my active times.

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

Wogglebug 06 Apr 2017 06:43

One billion percent opposed. Wouldn't be bad if we wanted a voice chat for something, though.

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

Zyn 03 Apr 2017 20:21

Yes to mibbet (I use it a lot and have had essentially no problems with it) and no to Discord.

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

(account deleted) 04 Apr 2017 00:03

IRC sticks and has stuck forever because it works.

Discord is the new thing and has some issues with regards to many things, a lot of which Magnus has pointed out.

I do not want to switch to Discord.

Mibbit widget, please. Still open to later changes if someone has a nicer widget with no technical issues. That bit is important.

Soulless is both a site and chat admin, last I checked. Since he has no problems with it, could some friendly moderator please edit back in the mibbit widget with the code provided upthread?

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

AdminBright 04 Apr 2017 02:26

Mibbet sounds good.

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Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

Bouncl 04 Apr 2017 16:33

Yes to mibbit

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

Athenodora 04 Apr 2017 16:37

Given that I've taken to using mibbit to access chat on a regular basis for a while now already, count this as a yes vote for mibbit :P

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

EldritchCadence 04 Apr 2017 16:38

Going back to mibbit for the time being sounds good, I agree.

Re: Chat widget on the chat guide

RJB_R 04 Apr 2017 16:40

Adding the mibbit module back in, with a majority of ops in favor.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!