FLite test IRC chat or similiar?

[Bacon8tor]

I think it would be nice to have an IRC channel or a chat room on the website. May offer quicker responses to ppl's simple questions. I know I would hang out in it all day, this community is awesome. I sometimes have questions that i dont feel are indepth enough for a forum post but have no other way to ask. with an IRC chat i could quickly post and possibly receive an answer quicker. Although this would take away from having some topics that ppl may find interesting or useful in the future. I know I still learn stuff from post a few years ago.

 

[SpecialEd]

I'm a web developer who has been using IRC since 1993. It amazes me that in the year 2015 there is no better open source alternative for group & private instant messaging/chat than IRC.

I also would love a Flite Test IRC option. Its possible to use an IRC bot to log the chat and post the logs online which can be used to answer people's questions.

An IRC server does not require much resources and can easily be installed alongside a webserver such as the Fedora Linux server hosting this forum. I personally run a private IRC network with ~15 clients hosted from a tiny VPS I lease as my reverse Nginx proxy caching server.

One of the best tutorial sites on the web for Linux tools is HowToForge, and they've published instructions on how to set up a full featured IRC Chat server on Fedora Linux: https://www.howtoforge.com/linux_irc_server_anope_services

For users to connect to IRC they'll need to use an IRC client such as mIRC (Windows), X-Chat (Windows, Linux), or LimeChat (OS X). Alternatively it is possible to install an IRC client on a webserver, my personal favorite for this is the open source CGI:IRC (written in PERL).

If this is something that Flite Test is interested in (as I'm already one of two users that would like this), and your server administrator needs a hand with deploying this feature feel free to shoot me a message on here. I've got Skype and would be more than happy to lend a hand (for free) as an IRC community focused on RC fun would be absolutely amazing.

 

[Kurt0326]

Okay, so I have never used IRC so I have no example for this. What are the advantages/disadvantages of this? Why do you feel that you don't get fast responses to your questions from the forum? What do you think would change in communication we already have?

There are a few other chats out there through facebook and such that people have already made and I don't use them very much. I guess I just haven't felt the need to use it.

 

[pungbjoern]

Me and another guy from the forum run #quadcopters on EFNet. We just started the channel. You're welcome to join! =)
#flitetest on EFNet is already owned by someone. Unknown if it's related to this site.

 

[RichB]

I was on IRC when the owner of a channel was just the first person to join back up after a netsplit

There is a very IRC-like web-based chat called HipChat that I've used a couple times recently. I think it would be great for us

 

[defhermit]

I would be up for this as well. However, I'm really pleased with how quickly my questions DO get responses here on this forum. There ARE times, however, where I have small questions that would be silly to start a whole thread over. Other times I feel like I'm hijacking other people's threads to change the topic to my problem...

There could be a case made that the presence of a chat room here might dampen the activity level of the forums. If people can use the chat for quick questions and just general conversation they would probably be less likely to do the same in the forums.

 

[pungbjoern]

There's something to be said for simply hanging out and chatting on irc, though. It's not necessarily problem solving. But what it is is real-time, which is nice.

 

[Spastickitten]

Yea, and I get bored waiting sometimes... ^w^

 

[pungbjoern]

Yea, and I get bored waiting sometimes... ^w^

Well, you're always welcome to come hang out on EFNet =)

 

[SpecialEd]

No offense, EFNet is pretty deprecated and has been for about a decade now. In its hey-day it was the largest IRC network, but its like 90% botnet now.

FreeNode is what 95% of human IRC users are using, but it would just be best to run a separate IRC server for this type of application (which alone solves the concern about "netsplits").

Regarding HipChat and Facebook chat (which is really private IM and not group chat room style), there are dozens of such applications. All of these applications I've searched high and low for are proprietary. actually they're extremely expensive - hundreds/thousands of dollars a month for licensing which is absurd.

Furthermore, most of these proprietary chat applications have various compatibility issues (flash, etc). As my first response above stated, I'm amazed that IRC remains on top; I've researched this area heavily over and over again for the last 6 years now and still haven't found a better solution than IRC...

As far as response time goes, I don't see the point in this as this is a hobby and nobody is looking for immediate help such as technical support. It'd just be a casual place to engage in conversation with others in the hobby. Forums are always better than IRC when your looking for a very specific answer to a question/problem because with IRC the chances are low that the person who has the answer for you is sitting around staring at an IRC screen at that particular moment...

 

[pungbjoern]

No offense, EFNet is pretty deprecated and has been for about a decade now. In its hey-day it was the largest IRC network, but its like 90% botnet now.

Perhaps, but at least there is a channel available. Two, actually, since somebody else runs #flitetest on EFNet already.

 

[AirTrafficJO]

If you ask a question that is answered in the chatroom you should just copy and paste the dialog in a new thread on the forum. Flite Test could even create a new topic category for such things.

 

[pungbjoern]

If you ask a question that is answered in the chatroom you should just copy and paste the dialog in a new thread on the forum. Flite Test could even create a new topic category for such things.

Easy enough for a bot to do, even. =)

 

[FlyingMonkey]

I don't know about you guys, but I chat in the super duper top secret Flite Test Facebook chat.

 

[bitogre]

Ok, this is not the first time this topic has come up. There was the Live FT chat thread and the Chat! thread. Back, in December, we had at most 5 people logged into the #FliteTest IRC channel on EFNET. People do still log into this IRC channel.

Good luck with this effort. I hope it is more successful than previous attempts.

 

[FliteTime]

The chat button was one of the first things I looked for when I first visited the Forums. It's helpful to bounce ideas around and have conversations without creating a post. Going back and fourth in a post just eats up the storage, if something deserves it a post can be made.

 

[Fluburtur]

Kinda necro but I would too love too see a live chat, either an IRC or an integrated thing at the bottom of the forum page.
I have many small questions that aren't worth creating a topic and just talking casually with peoples would be nice.