Forums General Discussion Activity?

Why does this place seem so dead lately?

I check this place every few days or so, when I remember. This place seems as active as it's been for quite a while that I've been regularly checking.

simply put: mIRC scripting is not nearly as popular as it once was, and many of the older members who were responsible for the cohesion of this community have moved on and left. this subforum, for example, used to be teeming with off-topic banter, discussion about current affairs, etc. now it appears that we don't want to have anything to do with each other nah, there are just other more fitting places to turn to for that sort of thing. just like the client itself: people used to use mIRC for a variety of things that it isn't really suitable for, but fun nonetheless. now this happens less and less, which isn't necessarily a bad thing ;P

One word: Facebook.

I heed jaytea's say. IRC chat is not as popular as before. The only people I've seen that continue using IRC or commenting on IRC related topics are those we call enthusiasts or nostalgic fans who refuse to give up on IRC and stick with it this long.

No one knows what's going to happen, say, 5 to 10 years from now. It's hard to say of the actual fate of IRC communities, as nowadays people move on to adapt their online communication, as hixxy pinpoints, to facebook, messengers, tweeter, myspace, just to name a few...

Now you've come to mIRC's forum and made a comment with your concern as to why it seems "dead" lately; that tells me you're still quite fond of mIRC, aren't you? You're one of the people that make this place possible.

Personally, I think it's a number of things:

1) People not having the time for IRC anymore
2) people getting tired of the crap that seems to go from one channel to another on the same network
3) people not wanting to move to other networks
4) other forms of communication, be it social network sites like facebook or IMing
5) as has been pointed out to me many times by my job, those who are happy never say anything
6) IRL

and there's tons of other reasons I'm sure. For me, I dont use mirc at all, tho keep updating so IF I go back, I'm all up to date. My real only social medium is Facebook (and possibly google+ if I care to start a profile there)

I think some of the assumptions that IRC is no longer popular are a little misleading. Not that they're not true, IRC is less popular today for the mainstream demographic, and there are fewer users on IRC than a few years ago, however:

1. There are (way) more users on IRC than there were in 1998. [netsplit.de stats]
2. The mainstream demographic that left IRC was never the main demographic for IRC in the first place. IRC has always been something of a "fringe" mode of communication, especially since it is text only, decentralized and has a fairly limited protocol. Basically, the people who left were young users who grew up and moved on. They would likely have moved on anyway-- the only difference is that there is less influx of new young users thanks to better chat mediums like Facebook. Again, I refer to #1 to explain why this is not necessarily a bad thing.
3. Activity on the mIRC forums has its own cycle. Yes, it has been deader than it used to be 3-4 years ago, however, if you look back just prior to the 7.x betas, the forums were even more dead than they are now (1 bug report / suggestion every week at most.. today we get a couple a day). In general, activity tends to be closely linked to the amount of development on the client. Whenever Khaled goes into "release mode" (today known as beta mode), activity tends to be pretty high on the forums, rivaling the activity of a few years ago. Basically, the forums are dead lately because we are in the middle of a "cooling off" period. Khaled will eventually start work on the next version (unless he already has), in which case the forums will pick up again with suggestions, reports, and other.
4. Finally, this is not about the activity, but more about the size of the scripting community. Yes, I will agree that scripting communities have died down. There might be a few reasons for this, but I don't think it's the decline of users (again, see point #1). I think it's more to do with the fact that there are enough scripts written for mIRC that almost everything has been implemented by now. This, coupled with the fact that there is also less demand-- not because there are less users on IRC, but because there is less of a special kind of user on IRC. The same demographic that grew out of IRC was the same demographic that happened to be the largest script users. As users grow up, however, ASCII scripts, popups, hangman games, etc., all become a little dated. Since there are less new young users on IRC, there is less demand for these scripts. These scripts were the easiest to create, and therefore were the "bread and butter" of the scripting community.

It's also important to note that scripting experience tends to have a very steep dropoff curve. There are far fewer advanced scripters than new ones, and my guess is that users won't invest enough time into mIRC scripting to gain "advanced" experience. This is either because they don't care enough about IRC in general, or because mIRC is a domain specific language that has little value outside of IRC. That makes it a tough sell to convince someone to learn the ins and outs of the language. Because of this, only a handful of users are able to create the truly advanced scripts, and because the "easy" scripts (ASCII scripts, games, etc.) are in less demand right now, there are simply less people to produce the scripts that people might want (there are also hundreds of available scripts to choose from, which is also a reason for smaller supply). For instance, I've seen a few requests on the forums and other venues for Twitter/MSN clients or "to IRC" bridge servers, but this is a fairly complex feat. Therefore, there are less people who can make the things that people want, because people want more complex scripts, and therefore mIRC has reached some kind of usefulness versus difficulty impasse. This is not necessarily mIRC's fault, and this doesn't mean we need to make it easier to script X, Y or Z. It simply means that there is little payoff to devote enormous resources for an IRC script, since the complexity level needs to be higher-- often too high to justify the effort.

That said, I have to reiterate that there are plenty of good quality working scripts out there for (almost) every imaginable task. Would it be nice to have a thriving community of scripters? Sure. Do we still need it? I wouldn't say we need it; there are already enough scripts to satisfy most mIRC users.

There are (way) more users on IRC than there were in 1998.

A lot more. Though in proportion to the number of people that have Internet access these days the market share enjoyed by IRC networks has nosedived considerably.

Six or seven years ago instant message software became popular and in more recent times, Spaces, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook took over. Google's now entering the fray. Me? I don't use any of the above and remain loyal to IRC, along with a few mates, we run a small and pretty much trouble-free network.

Over time, some of the larger IRC networks had trouble dealing with uncontrollable attacks from morons. Whilst most variations of IRC server software comes with tools to deal with attacks on a small scale it was never designed to defeat large scale attacks and probably never will be. Attacks large and small can be extremely disruptive and if it lasts long enough, people get tired of it and do something else.

Whether it be good or bad, websites provide people with something that is seldom given out on IRC - control, and all you need to gain access is a web browser, which you will already have on your computer when you buy it. Users control who they let into their little window on sites like Facebook. On IRC users have some control over their chatrooms but none of it is point and click and you need extra software (such as mIRC) unless the network provides webchat.

I think IRC would have done a lot better if it caught up with the times a bit and more people got along with others. I have lost count of the number of IRC networks I know of that have become fragmented or even closed down due to petty squabbles and personality clashes.

It depends what market you're talking about. IRC was never in the "instant messaging" market, IMO. If anything, it's closer to a forum/mailing list than it is IM. As far as "forums" go, IRC is a pretty strong competitor, and always has been.

IRC has always been a niche market (just like forums / mailing lists). You can't judge niche markets by market penetration, because that isn't their goal. It was never IRC's purpose to solve mass market issues like IM, email, geo-social-interaction, etc.

For what it is, IRC has grown. For what it isn't, sure, it's done poorly, but that's because it's not meant to do well in those sectors. I suppose this part is subjective. Some think IRC is meant to evolve to become the next FB chat; I think IRC is fine where it is.



As far as personal issues goes, this isn't specific to IRC. Many a-forum have gone down for the same reason, and same with mailing lists. Politics are much more disruptive for smaller communities, in general. Same with DDoS'es. Note that I am agreeing that this can be disruptive, and sure, if we got along better that would be a solution-- the reality, however, is that even on larger sites, there are politics wars, DDoSing and other disruptive behaviours. The difference is that there is less of an impact when you're dealing with tens of millions of users versus tens of thousands. You don't think twitter has a spam problem? You don't think FB get's DoS'd? You don't think there is infighting in some of those new social startups? I beg to differ. They just are able to hide it a little better. Niche markets are usually much more vulnerable to that kind of a thing, but it doesn't mean there are *more* assholes on IRC per capita.

Nope, I think that's becoming the standard for the world as a whole, with a few exceptions.

Anyhow, I haven't used IRC since the beginning, but I have used it for a decade. The population numbers vary, but anything I could find or do 10 years ago, I can find or do today. It's just as useful for those who want/need that use as it was then.

I don't really think it needs to change. I don't mind improvements being added, but it doesn't need to become another IM.