Krassi, Not everyone is you. IRC is not as ubiquitous now as it was 20 + years ago. "Kids these days" know about Discord from their friends, Twitch, and other social media. Slack is well known because of its widespread use in many businesses. Out of the 1138 members in the NANOG Discord, 37 have accounts less than three months old, and 170 are year to date. That is 18.2%, meaning that over 4 of every 5 users that join the Discord already have an account.
I am not sure where you got Java (as in the Java Runtime Environment - JRE) as a dependency for Discord, Slack, Teams. They are based on Electron which are Chrome embedded apps, which can contain a lot of JavaScript code, but is not Java, and Java + JavaScript are not in the same ballpark for languages. As for security issues, I am asking so that I and everyone here can better understand. We're all open to learning. Everyone has different upbringings, and technology changes over time. There is nothing wrong with using technology that the 90's side of the millennials and gen z are more familiar with, especially when it works very well. We do not need to force everyone into an IRC client just because "this is how it's always been done" or "this is how real network operators communicate." For the "point and click" generation, let's understand here that network architects, engineers, and now the ever increasing automation engineers, are writing UIs, tools, workflows, and using AI to automate and scale. Some of that automation could be Slack or Teams bots, but more often its REST APIs, and UIs, targeting users who are not network engineers, to grab information from the network, and update the status of the network, with ease. Ryan Hamel ________________________________ From: Krassimir Tzvetanov <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2025 7:25 PM To: Ryan Hamel <[email protected]> Cc: North American Network Operators Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Where else do you hangout? Caution: This is an external email and may be malicious. Please take care when clicking links or opening attachments. Ryan, I am a bit confused. I was using IRC when I was 16 (we didn't have Internet before that) and never found it to be difficult, even when I was a SYSOP. Maybe something has changed over the past 20 years. As to heavyweight, I think this is self-evident - if you need to install Java - it is... note I never mentioned Teams... As to the security issues, I would think one knows better than to ask this on a mailing list of this size and publicity, so I'll let you think about that one... ...and maybe this is the issue we have in the community, the days of the hard core network operators have passed, and we do now have point and click generation trying to figure out the Internetz... jokes aside, let's think how competitive we are on the world arena? Cheers, Krassi On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 7:07 PM Ryan Hamel <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Krassi, > There is nothing like the simplicity of IRC. IRC is anything but simple, with so many clients with varying features, having to know many commands. It makes instructing someone on how to set it up and use it more difficult. > Discord, Slack, are heavyweight and fairly insecure, which also begs the > question, what happened to those people that were security conscious? Heavyweight is subjective, especially when compared to Teams. How they are insecure? > Should we consider starting a IRC server for NANOG I would argue that if the existing #nanog channels out there are effectively dead, and #ix (could be) slowly winding itself down. A NANOG IRC server would not get anywhere near the use, compared to the NANOG Discord server (https://discord.nanog.org<https://discord.nanog.org/>). A very strong proposal would need to be made from the Moderation Committee to the Board to make such a thing happen, however with the committee focused on Discord and mailing list, it would likely not happen due to the friction involved in set up and maintenance, for little to no usage in return. > Or should we pick one of Discord and Slack? (none of which I'm a fan TBH)... The NANOG Discord has been around for a few years, and we'd all be happy if you joined. https://discord.nanog.org<https://discord.nanog.org/> Ryan Hamel ________________________________ From: Krassimir Tzvetanov via NANOG <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2025 6:37 PM To: North American Network Operators Group <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: Krassimir Tzvetanov <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: Where else do you hangout? Caution: This is an external email and may be malicious. Please take care when clicking links or opening attachments. There is nothing like the simplicity of IRC. TBH, I don't care if the smiling face emoji is animated or just two ASCII characters. Most of the clients - Discord, Slack, are heavyweight and fairly insecure, which also begs the question, what happened to those people that were security conscious? I am not ranting here but I am pointing out the simple fact that people are spending too much time on distractions and not on the actual function and goal they are trying to achieve. Every 2-3 years, there is a new social media hotness that sweeps the crowds and then we end up even more fragmented. Should we consider starting a IRC server for NANOG, or simply setting up a chat group on Signal? That's at least to solve the NANOG crowd problem... Or should we pick one of Discord and Slack? (none of which I'm a fan TBH)... We should have a meet up in person during the next NANOG! No cell phones allowed during the meet up! ;) Cheers, Krassi On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 5:53 PM Andrew Latham via NANOG < [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > I will make note that two things cause me caution when socializing. > > 1. NDAs (so many!!!!) > 2. Spear Phishing > > On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 6:49 PM Mark Prosser > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > > On 2025-08-20 20:45, Andrew Latham wrote: > > > "Get off my lawn!" :P > > > > > > * Direct chat with peers > > > * Mailing Lists > > > > > > I avoid walled gardens like discord. I do miss Google+ where I could > > > make my posts globally visible without any ads. Used to run "The > > > Backbone Of The Internet" group there. > > > > > > > :P > > > > You're definitely not wrong to avoid the walled gardens. > > > > I gave Google+ a try a long time ago but I never really explored the > > groups. > > > > I guess I forgot to mention I'm on Mastodon & Bluesky. I prefer the > > former, but there isn't much NetEng talk going on there. > > > > Warm regards, > > > > -- > > Mark Prosser > > // E: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > // W: > > https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fzealnetworks.ca%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cryan%40rkhtech.org%7Cc70aef361a6f41023dc608dde053909f%7C81c24bb4f9ec4739ba4d25c42594d996%7C0%7C0%7C638913371706389877%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=voaEKj7XLgit9PLV%2BE2f%2FOauj7oPYvOsRhlm5LUjpsM%3D&reserved=0<https://zealnetworks.ca/> > > > > -- > - Andrew "lathama" Latham - > _______________________________________________ > NANOG mailing list > > https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.nanog.org%2Farchives%2Flist%2Fnanog%40lists.nanog.org%2Fmessage%2F42LEGGJ6XHGLFBLFXGUMCS7BWHSCU7ET%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cryan%40rkhtech.org%7Cc70aef361a6f41023dc608dde053909f%7C81c24bb4f9ec4739ba4d25c42594d996%7C0%7C0%7C638913371706416340%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2BTPmF7cOk2jgflhvmmwGfDz6%2BPKfJaUJ05VzlAjB2wg%3D&reserved=0<https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/42LEGGJ6XHGLFBLFXGUMCS7BWHSCU7ET/> _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.nanog.org%2Farchives%2Flist%2Fnanog%40lists.nanog.org%2Fmessage%2FIAO3KOILKEBAAO4GHLOCVJ3MMHM5MY5O%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cryan%40rkhtech.org%7Cc70aef361a6f41023dc608dde053909f%7C81c24bb4f9ec4739ba4d25c42594d996%7C0%7C0%7C638913371706431600%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=K14xTXq2rXJcrdVAcK4Gl781K3mh8cmckmm9Ak6n088%3D&reserved=0<https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/IAO3KOILKEBAAO4GHLOCVJ3MMHM5MY5O/> _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/HEAU3J6T2PRDKSE7LFC42THGMPCZ4ABE/
