Replayability discussion

[Trumgottist (Rikard Peterson)]

@matt w

I don’t use Twitter myself – how is it restrictive?

From what I’ve seen of Twitter (I have an account, but is not a big user), it’s far from usable as a place to have a discussion. It’s good for making one-sided announcements (of many different varieties - some fun, and some useful), but judging from what I’ve seen, not much else.

[matt_weiner (matt w)]

@ToxicFrog

@matt w

Well maybe the problem is that I’m not used to IRC (I may be a dinosaur), but moving and joining channels has been a problem for me on the MUD. And in the little IRC experience I’ve had, it does seem more accessible than the MUD; I can just type and have it show up, though I do make lots of typos and send things off in the middle when I forget that return means “send.”

I think being used to Twitter but not IRC makes you whatever the opposite of a dinosaur is; IRC’s been around since the 80s.

I must defend my honor: I am not one tiny bit used to Twitter. I have access to an account but the only Tweets I have ever caused to come into existence were from Ulitmate Quest. (Completely OT, but did anyone ever figure out what product that was advertising?) Sometimes I look at people’s Twitter pages in my browser.

I think ifirc would be most of the way there if (a) it automatically put you in the lounge when you connected (since that’s where most conversation happens) and (b) it automatically joined you to MUD channels when you joined the corresponding channel in your IRC client. Maybe. I think what I really need to do here is talk to people who are both comfortable with IRC, and familiar enough with the MUD to know what they want out of it without being so familiar that they don’t care about accessing it through IRC at all.

I wonder if it would be worthwhile for me to run a public ifirc instance, publish a Kiwi link for it, and collect feedback from users? Or is there just not enough demand to be useful?

Well, problem one is that I don’t understand the first half of that sentence at all, and problem two is that it sounds like a bunch of work. But this in particular isn’t a problem I have with the MUD–there’s a web-based ifMUD client somewhere which is how I’ve always logged in in the past, though apparently it’s considered less than ideal. I was talking about IRC conversations that weren’t on the MUD. But again, I’m probably not participating anyway, so if IRC is better for everyone else that’s probably the way to go. And maybe KiwiIRC would let me get onto one of those, if I mysteriously found the time to do it?

I’m just trying to point out where there might be obstacles to people participating – if you have to install something or learn a new command syntax to participate, you’re less likely to participate.

Kiwi is a web-based IRC client; you go to the KiwiIRC website, enter your info (name, network to connect to, channels to join), and it gives you an IRC client in your browser. This eliminates the “install something” hurdle, at least, and it can be preconfigured to automate the network/channel selection. Of course, as you point out, there’s a web-based ifMUD client as well – so the question is whether IRC is sufficiently more accessible than the MUD to be worth using.

If conversations move off the MUD entirely and use IRC as the backend, then something like Kiwi is the obvious choice for “zero barrier to entry” stuff – people can install more capable clients locally if they want, but aren’t obligated to just to participate. But I haven’t seen much IF-related traffic on IRC, nor much interest among the IF community in moving there.

Yeah, I find this much more accessible than the MUD. I’m on a #theoryclub channel (as “Thurnley”) right now, in fact. (But I probably won’t be by the time I post this, and anyway it should probably by #IFtheoryclub.)

As I saw it the problem here was that TheoryClub was not getting enough participation, and we were wondering whether the ifMUD was creating hurdles to participating. In this way it seems like moving to IRC would create its own interest – if we said “To participate in IF Theory Club just head to your IRC client and log in to the #IFTheoryClub channel – if you don’t know how to IRC, just go to kiwiirc and put the channel name in there,” then the IF folks who want to TheoryClub would show up, wouldn’t they? The question is whether people are joining on the MUD who wouldn’t join on IRC, perhaps because they hang out on the MUD anyway. Which is very plausible.

(stuff about Twitter snipped because I can’t stand Twitter and am more than happy to agree with any anti-Twitter comments)

@Trumgottist

When I visit the mud (for the occasional club Floyd or awards ceremony - I haven’t been able to attend one of these discussions yet), I always have ifMUD for beginners open in a browser window.

Me too, but I don’t find it very helpful; I have to switch back and forth between browser tabs to do it and there’s a lot of information to search through (something like twelve screens worth on my laptop), which makes it hard to use in a real-time conversation. The IRC I was just doing on kiwi seemed a lot easier, though it helped that no one else was there.

Anyway! This is not about my needs. Just a suggestion that (as Carolyn suggested) the MUD may be throwing up obstacles to participation to people who want to participate but are not conversant with MUDs, and that IRC may create lower barriers to entry.

[Juhana]

@matt w

Well maybe the problem is that I’m not used to IRC (I may be a dinosaur), but moving and joining channels has been a problem for me on the MUD. And in the little IRC experience I’ve had, it does seem more accessible than the MUD; I can just type and have it show up, though I do make lots of typos and send things off in the middle when I forget that return means “send.”

Thankfully for the Theory Club it’s much easier than for many other MUD events. You need one command to join the channel the first time you log in, and from then on the only difference to IRC is that you have to prefix what you say with a semicolon. No need to move around, follow multiple channels or talk outside the channel like during XYZZY awards.

I don’t use Twitter myself – how is it restrictive?

Twitter is really, really not the right medium for this. For one, replying to multiple people eats quickly away the 140 character limit (username + 2 characters per participant) and the discussion thread is practically unreadable afterwards and during the conversation. Following a hashtag feed is an option, but not a much better one: hashtag-discussions tend not to have any kind of true interaction between the participants.

Trust me, of all the available options Twitter is possibly the worst one. I’d rather have people carve messages to potato slices and send them to each other via messenger pigeons than use Twitter for this purpose.

[PaulS]

For what it’s worth, I find the MUD difficult too, on the rare occasions I have ventured there. I always feel like a schoolboy invited to have lunch with the queen, and I’m completely terrified I will do something wrong, and type some apparently harmless command which will be the equivalent of using the wrong spoon or eating asparagus with a fork or something, and end up with the guide open like a book on etiquette and hoping I don’t notice the footmen snickering at me. I’d probably find IRC more accessible, though to be frank my non-participation is as much (a) lack of time and (b) diffident scepticism that I have anything useful to contribute.

[aschultz]

@PaulS

though to be frank my non-participation is as much (a) lack of time and (b) diffident scepticism that I have anything useful to contribute.

I agree the MUD is tough. Even when I know the rules, I need to keep my commands vanilla, as I still worry about dumb mistakes and use the HELP command frequently.

For b), looking at the discussions people have had, I find I have my own angles on them if I sit and think. I’m not sure what time there is between responses, either–sometimes seeing it there, for me, lets me feel that I could keep up with the pace of a discussion.

The word “theory” is also a bit intimidating for me, but that’s my own hang-up. And no, I can’t think of a better word.

[David_Whyld1 (David Whyld)]

I went on MUD for the IntroComp ceremony, but got confused and never ended up making it there. After fruitlessly trying to access various channels, wandering around and getting lost a few times, repeatedly typing HELP and getting more confused at the sheer array of obscure commands on offer, I just gave up in dismay. (The ceremony was probably over by that stage anyway.)

Some forums I’m a member of actually have chat boxes at the top of the screen. Maybe something similar could be done here.

[cvaneseltine]

IfMUD is FAR better than Twitter for a group discussion. It’s not just the 140 characters - it’s the part where you’re either a) losing a ton of those 140 characters to replies and hashtags in order to build a conversation with other people, or b) confusing the heck out of anyone looking at your feed by making context-free comments.

(I’m fairly active on Twitter - @mossdogmusic, or twitter.com/mossdogmusic if you just wanna peek without having an account.)

[matt_weiner (matt w)]

OK, I think we can forget about Twitter, given that everyone who actually uses Twitter thinks it would be terrible. It only came up because I don’t use Twitter and so didn’t know it would be so terrible.

What about ifMUD vs. IRC?

[Ron_Newcomb]

Yeah basically I just want to click a link in the web browser and start reading/writing the chat. Should be as easy as adding a comment to someone’s blog post.

I’ve no idea what technologies, though.

[ToxicFrog]

@PaulS

For what it’s worth, I find the MUD difficult too, on the rare occasions I have ventured there. I always feel like a schoolboy invited to have lunch with the queen, and I’m completely terrified I will do something wrong, and type some apparently harmless command which will be the equivalent of using the wrong spoon or eating asparagus with a fork or something, and end up with the guide open like a book on etiquette and hoping I don’t notice the footmen snickering at me. I’d probably find IRC more accessible, though to be frank my non-participation is as much (a) lack of time and (b) diffident scepticism that I have anything useful to contribute.

We don’t bite, and the MUD is generally pretty tolerant of newbie mistakes. And non-newbie mistakes, for that matter. People have been remarkably laid-back when my proxy tests go horribly wrong and spam the lounge.

If you get completely lost, type “lounge” and then “say Help, I’m a newbie and I don’t know what to do!” and hopefully someone will be in the lounge and paying attention.

@Ron Newcomb

Yeah basically I just want to click a link in the web browser and start reading/writing the chat. Should be as easy as adding a comment to someone’s blog post.

I’ve no idea what technologies, though.

With the recent proliferation of web-based IRC clients you almost get that – the user still needs to choose a name unless they want to be WebIRCUser1234. But then, adding a comment to someone’s blog usually requires going through some terrible ad hoc registration process, so in those terms IRC is ahead of the game.

ifMUD (even if accessed through IRC) is a bit trickier because you need to sign up for an account first; you can connect as a guest but guests are sharply restricted in what they can do. IRC generally lets you connect as yourself first and then register and claim your name once you’re already connected. Although, for conversations that take place in rooms rather than channels, being a guest might be sufficient. Makes it hard to tell who’s talking, though.

[Khalisar]

I have gotten used to the IfMUD by now, but I must say I am surprised there doesn’t seem to be an IRC channel or Facebook group. Maybe I simply did not look hard enough.

[zarf (Andrew Plotkin)]

There was a thread about an IRC channel: https://intfiction.org/t/interactive-fiction-24-7-chat-room-irc/6120/1

I don’t know if it got any action.

[cvaneseltine]

@zarf

I don’t know if it got any action.

I was in there for a little bit, but it never had the momentum to carry.

[matt_weiner (matt w)]

Does that mean IRC wouldn’t work for TheoryClub? It seems like a critical mass is more likely on IRC if you say “A bunch of us are going to get together on this channel at this time to discuss this issue” than if you say “Here’s an IRC channel to hang out on.” I can see why a MUD would be more appealing if you wanted to just hang out (and in that case you’d have more time to learn how to MUD, too).

[zarf (Andrew Plotkin)]

I think just about any chat medium can work if we decide to use it.

(Twitter is not a chat medium.)

[zarf (Andrew Plotkin)]

I wrote:

A mud-channel <=> XMPP chat room gateway wouldn’t be hard to set up.

Okay, I have experimentally done this. Jabber chat room “theoryclub@conference.volity.net” is now gatewayed to the #theoryclub channel.

I’ll leave this running for the next couple of hours. If it looks good, and people like it, I can set it up as a permanent service.

[zarf (Andrew Plotkin)]

It’s running again, and will be until further notice.

[Healy]

Question about the Jabber chat room: is it possible to access it with mribbit?

[zarf (Andrew Plotkin)]

Not familiar with this. Did you mean “mibbit”? The wikipedia page on that says “supports Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Yahoo! Messenger,[4] and Twitter.” So no.

Look at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Free_XMPP_clients

Also, the Messages client that comes with MacOSX will work.

[emshort]

IF Comp post-mortem talk is today: 8 PM British time / 3 Eastern / noon Pacific.