This article is not about our IRC channel or anything else so lame. This article is mostly about the rise and whimpering fall of IRC…

I recall using IRC as early as 1993 with the whole thing reaching its peak around 1997-98, and from there it declined into the present situation where it is used mainly by the hardcore users/inner circle of various online communities and/or for semi-legal activities. Back then, the center of the universe was EFnet and other networks continued to come and go (as they do to this day). Efnet had the “advantage” of having little in the way of adminsitration, rules, order, moderation, stability, or anything at all, really. Looking back, it was kind of like trying to carry on a conversation in a country where machine guns and arson are totally legal…

At least once a month, your channel would be hijacked and rather than socializing, you'd spend your time retaliating and regaining control. I'd almost be so bold as to say the concept of a DDOS attack was born as a result of IRC drama (and I'm probably right). What happened, as far as I'm concerned, is that IRC split the Internet into two distinct groups: hackers and users.

The users just wanted to talk to their friends without having to deal with all the technical drama. In the end, users moved away to instant messaging services where they could talk to their friends in peace. What was lost, of course, was the open nature of conversation on IRC. Instead of talking to strangers from distant lands, they were talking to people they already knew a few blocks away. Strangely, the kiddies who used to take over channels followed them and IRC was left a ghost town as a result. Instant messaging gave way to texting, which is the same thing but everywhere, and in the end most users in the world never meet or talk to new people.

It's a little sad is all…

So you may be wondering if I'm in favor of heavier moderation on IRC. That's not really what I'm saying here. The situation has changed dramatically since the days of the Wild West on EFnet. Now more than ever, home computers of all kinds and the IRC servers themselves have better connections and far better protection against attacks. This has led to a far greater degree of stability at every level. Simple improvements to the infrastructure have yielded positive results.

It is still there and technically anyway, it's better than ever.

So will it come back in a big way? Doubtful. The users have gotten used to being isolated in their own little world and if they want, they can reach out and touch all they'd like through other entirely one-sided and impersonal means (Twitter, Youtube, whatever). I think it will come back to a certain degree because it's so hard to control. I say this in the same way I talk about the anonymous message board: it's small, mobile, beyond cross-platform, higly adaptable, and it's difficult to monitor. As governments around the world do their best to get their fingers into every form of communication we have (and I always wonder why), they're going to find it especially difficult to deal with this old friend of ours.