[em-bee]

this list exemplifies the biggest issue i have with IRC. it's not federated. these are all islands, and i'd have to sign up on each one of them to join the community there.

that said, none of the newer alternatives are any better unfortunately.

it seems jabber really was the only federated system with any moderate success, and maybe matrix is getting there too with its ability to integrate different services.

[badsectoracula]

FWIW you do not need to 'sign up' on IRC, just pick up an unused nickname and you're in. No registration or anything necessary.

[em-bee]

i don't know if there are irc networks that require nick registratin, but there for sure are channels on freenode that you can't enter without a registered nick.

but that's not the issue. the issue is that i can't maintain a global identity, and that i have to add each network into any configuration instead of just sending a message to anyone on any network without creating an identity on that network (even if it's just picking a nickname).

some of this could be worked around in the client if the client has an uptodate list of irc networks so that sending a message to embee@freenode would automatically connect your client to freenode, make you pick a nickname and send the message.

hmm, that's an interresting thought experiment.

how could this be made seamless without inviting spam.