Is this a bad thing? I don't know, but like IRC, having connections to multiple instances is quite annoying and thus I don't like it. What Mastodon has done is create a situation where someone who wants to talk about their favourite anime has to find an instance and then hopefully make a home there. Disagreements over terms of service and or the permissible content on a specific instance has led to de-federation.

We've already seen the software forked to allow right-wing conservatives have their own little social media island and I am certain that there are others out there. Mastodon is already facing down this road. To add to this, DALnet exists because the original IRC network didn't offer services to prevent people from stealing channels or usernames. IRC became segmented because of disagreements, abuse, and then eventually differences in software suites.

The parallels between the discord leading to EFnet's existence and subsequent further fragmentation of IRC networks with today's modern-day Mastodon are painfully obvious. A-net soon vanished, leaving EFnet as the only IRC network.Ĭontinuing problems with performance and abuse eventually led to the rise of another major IRC network, Undernet, which split off in October 1992. Restriction grew and, in August 1990, was the last server indiscriminately allowing other servers to join it, Eris being the Greek goddess of strife and discord.Ī group of operators, with the support of Jarkko Oikarinen, introduced a new 'Q-line' into their server configurations, to 'quarantine' themselves away from eris by disconnecting from any subset of the IRC network as soon as they saw eris there.įor a few days, the entire IRC network suffered frequent netsplits, but eventually the majority of servers added the Q-line and effectively created a new separate IRC net called EFnet (Eris-Free Network) the remaining servers which stayed connected to eris (and thus were no longer able to connect to EFnet servers) were called A-net (Anarchy Network). Initially, most IRC servers formed a single IRC network, to which new servers could join without restriction, but this was soon abused by people who set up servers to sabotage other users, channels, or servers. The latter network refers to itself as 'the original IRC network' and exists after abuse from when IRC was a free-roaming protocol with interoperability. The IRC channel I joined was on DALnet and not EFnet.

new user would feel comfortable thanks to conversation tracking, address books. Eventually I came to discover this, but it didn't matter to me because I had gotten used to the space I was in. Mac IRC clients are all grown up and have entered the new era of free. However, when I went to connect to IRC, instead of connecting to one network, I connected to another and for sometime I was in another Sailor Moon chat room that was not the one I had found on some Geocities website. This is how I found out about Internet Relay Chat and channels to talk about various topics including the aforementioned anime. Conveniently, my school had also gotten access to the Internet (sharing a 33.6 kbps modem was fun then) compelling my parents to buy book on how to use it. Back in 1996, I became very, very into Sailor Moon (and still am).

Undernet bookz irc