WikiFur talk:IRC

Article says "(Note: Firefox users will need to install the ChatZilla extension in order to use IRC through the browser.)" Perhaps rephrase to "(Note: Firefox users who don't want to use the CGI:IRC gateway will need to install ..." --EarthFurst 06:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Jabber chat?
What about a Jabber chat? IRC suffers from identity-collision and security problems that Jabber solves once and for all. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.33.18.2 (talk • contribs).


 * I'm not really sure what you're suggesting here - that we make people get Jabber clients and logon with them? IRC is used because there's a convenient web portal to it, and because many furs already have IRC clients and are familiar with its usage. WikiFur suffers from identity-collision, too, but we manage to work around it. As for security, you probably shouldn't be discussing matters that require it in an open chat channel. :-) --GreenReaper(talk) 14:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's what I'm suggesting. Authenticated means don't collide nicknames, and as far as security is concerned, Jabber is not prone to spoofing, flooding or spam (better serverside controls for such things).  More people use Jabber than IRC, anyway:  Everybody on LJ and Google is on Jabber.  Jabber only has about a million fewer users than AIM, making it the second most popular IM protocol out there, and at the current rate of growth, Jabber will overtake AIM by August.  The writing's on the wall, Jabber's the future on this one.


 * People on LJ and with Google accounts have the ability to use one of their accounts as a Jabber account. That doesn't mean they have the client for it. We have an IRC web portal that people can just go to and connect with. Several WikiFur administrators - and, perhaps more importantly, Wikia staff - are on the IRC channel throughout the day. We are unlikely to be able to get the latter to a private Jabber chatroom. Identity and spam is really not a huge concern for us - we've had a couple of instances of the latter, but that's why IRC has mute and ban commands. Besides, some of our contributors prefer to stay anonymous. Simply put, IRC works fine for us. I don't see a need to make any changes. --GreenReaper(talk) 19:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

GAIM/Pidgin
Huh. Thanks, Markus. I was completely unaware of the name change, for all that I use GAIM on a daily basis.DuncanDaHusky(talk) 13:05, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggested Firefox extension possibly gone
I see this hasn't been touched in years, and am not even sure if anyone is still watching it... But the link for the Firefox extension, ChatZilla, goes to a generic "not found" on Mozilla's Firefox page. At the time of this writing (Oct 25, 2019), I do not know an alternative, so this is just a heads up for the moment.

Moving away from Freenode
Freenode's current staff have resigned, alleging a hostile takeover. I'm not sure if the new owner have values aligned with the furry community. Perhaps it's time that we move to a different IRC network, move to a different platform such as Discord/Telegram altogether, or discontinue live chat? Personally I do not like Telegram's tying identity to phone number and contact list access. Kakurady (talk)
 * Projects and organizations such as Ubuntu, Wikimedia, Fedora, Haskell, and many others have moved to Libera.chat, an IRC network by ex-staffers of Freenode. Freenode responded by taking ownership of any channel that mentions they have moved to libera.chat in the channel topic, considering it "inappropriate advertising". I do not think this is appropriate behavior for an IRC network. Communities such as Debian and OpenStreetMap are already on a different IRC network, OFTC, and are not affected. ---Kakurady (talk) 15:25, 28 May 2021 (EDT)