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Neil Stone wrote:
>
> IRC isn't hostile.. I don't think so anyway... or is that just my
> opinion of it as an IRCOPER ?
Well it may depend a lot on choice of client, but IRC is pretty fiercely
new user hostile as a technology.
It provides a zillion options, almost all of which are absolutely
useless, or just obscure, to most users.
Most clients demand you know a server name, or the network you want to
connect to, even the port you want to use is exposed upfront ("I see you
are sending an email, would you like to try port 25?") , and will
provide very little hint as to what to do if you don't know, or worse it
goes wrong.
Then you find many servers are still trying to use "ident" (talk about
pointless protocol), and lots of weird messages about probing delays and
strange text, and message. Some networks don't even provide channel
lists, or don't do it in a consistent fashion. Most have only vague user
authentication, and are quite happy to let your account lapse if you
don't use it, usually for some obscure policy period not presented up
front to the user.
If you bypass that you may early on encounter a load of trolls, or other
such stuff. Then there is a whole culture and language of its own.
Mostly it is interface design issue. I've seen Java front ends to IRC,
where you just visit a website, pick a nickname, and it sticks you in
the relevant channel as if it were a simple chat room. Which is probably
the kind of level new users need, although ideally without the need to
have Java installed.
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