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Discord vs. IRC Rough Notes

Lobsters has had a chat room on Libera Chat for 9 years today. Lobsters itself is 12, and I see Libera Chat as continuous with a rename a few years ago.

text formatting: links, bold, underline, italic, code blocks security - MFA, alert emails, active login list message editing emoji reactions (and allergic users can hide them) mod tools reasonable banning (+b is garbage; separation of kick is misdesign) no @ on mod names (https://libera.chat/guidelines/#channel-operators-are-users-too) highlight/filter on keywords w great default lists many high-quality 3rd-party tools (eg https://carl.gg/) public modlog (might req carl.gg, I forget) actively hostile to 3rd party clients/general hackery a serious culture clash that prompts most of the UI problems Discord is oriented to mass-appeal passive consumption of games, gossip, and memes Lobsters is about creating, learning, sharing experiences/expertise Text-oriented group chat has products like Discord, Slack, Zulip, WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, WeChat, iMessage, GChat, Skype, Teams, Kik, Mattermost, Snapchat, Wickr, and then, you know, some small ones that only have tens of millions of active users.

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