The internet was around prior to 1988. IRC does not predate it. The internet was originally a military-only internet from somewhere around 1982. It then became open to all and was mostly used by libraries and colleges using Gopher and similar methods to access and share information. At that time, it was basically text-only, other than downloading of images/etc. Later, it became what we see today.
I agree that silencing it is not necessary and wasn't really what I wanted to see happen. However, there are a LOT of long threads about this issue and it would make a LOT more sense to read through those and see what people said before starting a new thread on the issue. There really isn't a need for everyone here to restate what they said numerous times in the past... especially with topics that come up as frequently as this one does. I would much rather see someone who took time to read the older threads (or at least a couple of them) before posting and then have them make a post that references those and discusses what he/she thinks about what was said previously.
I personally don't like having to restate the same thing over and over and over. With threads that are continually started over and over again, I end up feeling like saving my response to a text file and just copy/paste it in everytime I see the thread again. That's not really helpful for the discussion, though. It's really better to reference the older discussions.
As for the topic itself, is it worth putting in a lot of time and effort adding this to the program rather than working on bugs and other, more important, features. I mean, you may like seeing and hearing people, but is it really important? Or are there things that really have more importance and value to the program itself than just a personal preference to see people? And, considering you can script this if you know what you are doing (you may need DLLs to help with some of it), and I believe I've heard of one that worked okay, would it be just as easy to use the script if you want to see/hear people? Obviously, everyone wanting to see/hear people would need to get the script, rather than everyone having it built-in by default. So what? If people really care about it, then taking the time to get the script isn't an issue. If they don't want to take the time to get the script, then they don't really care about it, do they?
Just a couple thoughts on the issue. I've given more comments in previous threads and anyone who cares to find out what they were can look them up. In the end, I could care less if it is added or not. I wouldn't use it, just as I don't use it in IM. I just pointed out a couple things to ask yourself and have stated the other things in the past. I probably won't go any further in this thread as I consider it dead until/if the original poster takes time to look into the older threads and then build off of those discussions rather than just starting a new thread for a new discussion about an old topic.
