2015-10-9.txt

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[8:43 AM] <marcusmoore> [07:55:15] chiper i saw you made a comment on twitter about building something on top of irc? anything you want to share about it? sounds interesting
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[8:44 AM] <chiper> marcusmoore:  I'm trying to create the slack equivalent for freenode that solves the main issues people have with using IRC for OSS
[8:44 AM] <chiper> to whit, approachability, discoverability, searchability, and chat user experience.
[8:46 AM] <chiper> I'm _almost_ done with the underlying architecture for communicating with freenode.  it needs probably another 10-20 hours of development
[8:46 AM] <chiper> but I'm trying to make something much more than just a web based irc client
[8:54 AM] <marcusmoore> those are definitely hurdles when it comes to irc. OSS communities would appreciate that. 
[8:59 AM] <chiper> my goal is to make it as easy to get into a channel as possible.  direct link to a channel, it opens with history (if the system is tracking it), and immediately starts showing new activity.  User can then choose to login to join that channel via several oauth providers
[8:59 AM] <chiper> no signup needed to just view the channel
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[9:00 AM] <chiper> I hate that the slack bot systems force you to login just to see if you're interested
[9:01 AM] <marcusmoore> When I got going with IRC a bit ago that was the most difficult part. The whole time I was thinking "wtf" is going on? Why can't I just sign into a channel with a normal login? What is this bot I'm talking to authenticate? It's really confusing for new users. Your goal helps that a ton.
[9:02 AM] <chiper> I'm restricting it to just freenode to make data aggregation easier, remove ambiguity about where a channel is, and to eliminate the need to specify a server.
[9:04 AM] <chiper> I crossed my first milestone last month, got the system able to actively track channels and store their activity in elasticsearch, and then pulled that activity back out and displayed it on a webpage, updating in realtime
[9:04 AM] <chiper> once I get the orchestration finished I hope to have something public viewable, if only one-way
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[9:09 AM] <marcusmoore> that's awesome. i'm looking forward to seeing what happens. sounds fun
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[12:00 PM] <Druid_> woah
[12:00 PM] <Druid_> that sounds interesting chiper
[12:00 PM] <chiper> :)
[12:00 PM] <Druid_> my communitys chat is also based on irc
[12:00 PM] <Druid_> but there aren't ANY real good webclients out there
[12:00 PM] <Druid_> currently i'm using kiwi
[12:01 PM] <chiper> irccloud is probably the best, but it's still a low bar
[12:01 PM] <Druid_> maybe irc isn't just done for it
[12:01 PM] <Druid_> but i like using existing proven protocols
[12:01 PM] <Druid_> same with xmpp
[12:01 PM] <chiper> the problem is that they're all written for existing irc users
[12:02 PM] <Druid_> what you mean?
[12:03 PM] <chiper> 1) they all expect you know how irc works.  2) they're all designed by the kind of engineers that have been using irc for a long time.
[12:03 PM] <Druid_> people who are used to irc?
[12:03 PM] <chiper> so the UX is almost always awful
[12:03 PM] <Druid_> yep. would love a slack clone, using irc as transport
[12:04 PM] <Druid_> with custom users
[12:04 PM] <Druid_> your own
[12:04 PM] <Druid_> know what i mean?
[12:04 PM] <chiper> yeah
[12:05 PM] <Druid_> got a git rep for that?
[12:05 PM] <Druid_> or twitter?
[12:05 PM] <Druid_> would love to follow up on that
[12:05 PM] <chiper> I'm facing something of a dilema with the chat UI.  slack has nearly perfected that design, it's almost impossible to come up with something that works well that doesn't look exactly like slack
[12:06 PM] <chiper> I'm keeping the repo private, as I plan to have premium features that I'll charge for.  you can bet I'll be mentioning it in here
[12:06 PM] <Druid_> ah saas?
[12:06 PM] <chiper> yeah
[12:06 PM] <chiper> basic chat will always be free
[12:07 PM] <Druid_> but hosted?
[12:07 PM] <Druid_> e.g. i got my own irc and want to host the chat on my site
[12:07 PM] <chiper> no plans for that, as I said I'm coding it exclusively for freenode
[12:08 PM] <Druid_> ahh okay
[12:08 PM] <chiper> I'm not going after slack's actual market, paid teams.
[12:08 PM] <Druid_> wouldn't do that either
[12:08 PM] <Druid_> talking about community chats
[12:08 PM] <Druid_> e.g. i got 200k users
[12:08 PM] <chiper> only the co-opting of slack that's been done by public communities by hacking against the slack api
[12:08 PM] <Druid_> but chat isn't widely used, because of that
[12:08 PM] <ibiwan> chiper: steal UI details from slack, hipchat, and gitter
[12:08 PM] <chiper> (and slack doesn't want those users either)
[12:08 PM] <Druid_> so basically there's no good ux for web irc clients
[12:08 PM] <ibiwan> mix and match and no one of them can complain :)
[12:09 PM] <chiper> ibiwan:  sure they can.
[12:09 PM] <chiper> I remember a few weeks ago there were tweets going around about how some gaming chat thing looked too much like slack
[12:09 PM] <ibiwan> "what are you talking about?  I just used google's material guidelines to implement normal irc features"
[12:09 PM] <chiper> haha
[12:09 PM] <chiper> I doubt there's a material design for chat output
[12:10 PM] <ibiwan> if it looks like you cut it out of construction paper, even windows 8 can't complain
[12:10 PM] ibiwan hates flat design, btw
[12:10 PM] <chiper> I want people to like the UI :P
[12:10 PM] <ibiwan> oh I operate under the assumption that everyone else loves it
[12:10 PM] <ibiwan> like walking into Dudley's bakery.  the worse it smells for me, the better I know it smells for everyone else
[12:11 PM] <PFY> Just call it the Material Theme
[12:11 PM] <PFY> everyone seems to love that nowdays
[12:12 PM] <chiper> I'd like to make the output fully schemable, but I'm not sure how to pull that off yet