[distcs]

> Man, I wish I still knew people on IRC

IRC is still alive. I still know people on IRC. Most opensource channels have thriving communities on IRC with 100s of regulars logged into the channels everyday. The people I knew in the IRC world in 2010 are still very much there in 2023. The only big change has been that all of us moved away from Freenode over to Libera after the Freenode takeover. And everyone has become older and more mellow and more friendly to beginners.

If you've been away from IRC recently, I urge you to get back to Libera chat network and see for yourself. The IRC world is much better now than it was before.

[sho_hn]

There's a fair amount of enthusiastic or expert communities that remain the most vibrant in their IRC edition.

I recently looked for an active chat for hobbyist/DIY EE stuff, and I joined around half a dozen Discords and they were all nearly completely deserted. Part of it is that each individual Discord aims to be a complete lifestyle, replate with completely redundant #general rooms and what not - it's too hard to sustain that kind of thing.

##electronics on Libera, meanwhile, is alive and kicking every time of the day.

I've made similar experiences with non-tech topics like e.g. cycling.