IRC: Run it or use it, but try to avoid doing both

Use it but for the love of god take some precautions or you'll end up like me [1], being raided by the Police for clicking an innocent looking link that was sent to you by PM

[1] https://blog.haschek.at/2015-that-not-so-awesome-time-the-po...

I mean, I agree, but it's difficult to operate a good service if you don't dogfood.

I've been incredibly blessed with a staff which has little ego to bruise, so it can work (small community though, only 500 users on the network).

But the temptation to reach for tools to crush "trolls" is very much there, even for me. What helps is running unprivileged.

You wouldn't run your computer as root, don't talk on your network as an operator. It's too easy to do something in a fit of rage..

I'll concur, based on the experience of colleagues that both running HN and participating don't mix well.

People running or moderating a site have a responsibility to be impartial. And no matter how impartial they actually are, they'll be accused of every conceivable bias. It makes it frustrating to participate when every comment becomes fodder for each side thinking you're shilling for the other side.

For example, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25922311 and the parent it's responding to.

Hmm I don’t totally agree. I get it probably mitigates risk , but it removes to much of the human element and sense of purpose.

I admined game servers and built a couple communities. I made long lasting friends I wouldn’t of met otherwise.

Playing with others gave me a sense of purpose to protect others. Banning cheaters to protect the community from grief felt good and fulfilling. We had some tooling to detect abnormal stats of users to help remove biases. Due to the game mechanics some scenarios were instant red flags.

IMO you should have a protocol in place for bans, and make sure to follow it to remove emotions. Admins should definitely keep each other in check when admin powers are used. Admins should continue listening to community concerns about a particular admin too.

Don’t let someone become an admin for self motivated reasons. Ensure they respect and identify with the community. Great admins often come from being apart of the community first.

Wow, I couldn't possibly disagree more with this. I have operated a small chat community of old friends and acquaintances for five years and I hang out and chat all the time, and it has become the most valuable community in my life, and blows regular social media completely out of the water.

Has it been completely without drama? No, but it costs a non-trivial amount of time and money to operate, and my only motivation is that we can be masters of our destiny and know we aren't being spied on

So no, I'm sorry, but my personal experience says that this article is completely incorrect on all counts

Maybe Rachel shouldn't participate and operate, but we're doing fine in my community

> if your company has somehow managed to turn its IRC system (or let's face it, any other chat backend) into the kind of shit-flinging jungle that the world at large can become at times, you have much much bigger problems.

Wise words indeed.

Chat reflects culture, not the other way round.

No, that doesn't sound right.

In fact it's the opposite of the regular advice for entrepeneurs to build the thing they would use.

Eat your own dogfood.

At some point being an op/admin/moderator etc in a channel, server, slack, whatever does tend to interfere with being able to use it socially.

It's hard to say when that line happens though.

That might be good principle, but kinda difficult to execute on a volunteer basis. How do you attract volunteers to run a service that they themselves don't use?

Yeah, I ran an ewtoo based telnet chat server in my early 20s, and I agree with the sentiment, though the advantage with my server was that I was pre-defined as having godlike powers and it was basically "choose to come to my server, or go to one of hundreds of others" - so I had to manage my behaviour or nobody would come to my server. Kind of like a private home.

What I would say is "don't try to build a community that you expect to be long lasting in somebody's private home", but there's nothing wrong with going to somebody private party and even going back for another party if you liked the last one.

As someone who ran servers on a few large IRC networks (Dalnet, Undernet and Espernet) as a teenager, I wholeheartedly agree. The temptation to abuse even this trivial amount of power turns rational adults into monsters. It also makes you a target for all the “undesirable elements” on the server (think DDoS, swatting, etc) if you try to do anything about it.

In the good old IRC where ops were gained by conquest not authentication/reservation/birthright people had some more honor.

The risk the author talks about can be somewhat mitigated by establishing governance policies beforehand.

While I get the logic behind this, the problem is there's no real motivation to run and maintain a server without the intention of also being part of its community.

A smart idea, but why would someone take the non trivial effort of running an IRC server if you’re not interested in chatting on it?

What are the qualifications for such advice? The author presents it as hard fact, yet does not substantiate their claim.

Many administrators of IRC servers participate in the very same community in which they administer.