I've tried to get some sort of clever browser thing going, but failed, as backup, some of you may remember the old #space chat room that was at


irc://chat.freenode.net/#space

I've found it a bit...umm....noisey at times. Sometimes great, sometimes a bit "WHY DON'T TEY USE TEH COLOR CAMERA5" if you get my drift.


So - I'll only announce it here - try irc://chat.freenode.net/#umsf tonight, I'll try and stay in there from about 1900, and us lot can have a chinwag about the MOI event as it happens

I use www.mirc.com to get 'in', but other irc clients are around - http://www.irchelp.org/ might help.

In the future - I want to have a java based IRC client within the UMSF domain so that we can just go to a page, put in a name, and be chatting - but for now, hopefully a couple of you will make it in there tonight.

Doug

*bangs head against wall repeatedly whilst trying to connect using irc*

*joins paxdan*

Regarding #space on irc.freenode.net, I fear that we have been somewhat inaccurately portrayed. We try very hard to maintain a forum that is sane, open, and one that relies on community governance and participation. From the outset of the original #maestro channel, to the formation of the #cassini channel, and the agreed merging of both channels into one unified channel that is all about space (#space), we have stirved to get along and roll out the welcome mat under a broad banner of respect, and most of all of immediacy, and openess.

We try hard to foster a sense of community and rely largely on the good will of freenode, and the vastly larger open source community as a model for governance and sustainability. Members of #space are for the most part members here on UMSF, and although I rarely speak up here, most in #space appreciate the forums provided here.

We are not perfect. Nothing is. However we try very hard, and any failings of the channel can be largely attributed to fact that we are diverse; spanning many countries and many mindsets united by space, science, and technology. We have many ops from around the world, and many members. We try to give back to the community wherever and whenever possible.

Its a network of friends with no official channel websites or something we are trying to sell. It has no agenda other than space exploration. We are not run with the heavy hand of totalitarianism like some channels are.

So we continue to try, and will continue to perservere, and will talk of great things from time to time, and share great moments together. And all of you are most welcome to join at any time, and make yourselves comfortable. Its a give and take type thing. Sometimes it is really,really elegant, sometimes its not. But we do try for those elegant times as much as possible.

The door is always open :)

Oh - I don't disagree with anything you've said, #space is very very well maintained and is a lot more civil than 99% of IRC stuff out there.

BUT

It's at a different place than UMSF in levels of presumed knowledge - aos, lga, hga, tcm etc - someone will always end up asking "whats that", and whilst it's great to share the knowledge, sometimes you want to have a chat with people who already know the basics, it can get in the way somewhat. You'll have people say "my digital camera can take a colour picture, why can't the rovers" and so on, all valid questions for the beginner, but tedious after a while.

#space is great, but I've had a suprising number of people email me and ask if I am going to set up some sort of chat service for #umsf, and indeed, the very fact that it is the home of #space is the reason I went to freenode with trying out the idea of #umsf, more as an experiement more than anything else. A few people had difficulty getting in, but about 8-10 of us had a good chat during the evening and it was actually quite enjoyable.

Doug

Pity I haven't known sooner. I really like the idea of #umsf for a more select audience. If you want to make #umsf permanent place, you are going to need an IRC bot to maintain it (I can volunteer there with almost 10 years of experience with maintaining my home channel). Also, while Java client would be nice for some, it's no replacement for the real thing (I recommend X-Chat for both Windows and Unix/Linux).

Borek

x-chat is also available for us mac types

X-Chat Aqua

I'm happy to see that we clarified all that, because we do try very hard to keep #space a friendly place for near real-time discussion of the latest and not-so-latest space exploration news. I think Dusty did an excellent job describing it. But IRC is quite a different animal from a forum, in that a channel cannot be neatly compartmentalized into topic areas. That means community chit-chat and off topic conversations must be tolerated to the extent that they do not materially interfere with the main purpose of the channel. We initially experimented with separate channels for MER and Cassini, but later decided that that overly fragmented the user base. The consensus opinion of the channel operators was for the merger that created #space. We still do maintain the side channel #space_politics as a place to direct the political and related conversations that tend to arise.

But Doug does make a good point when he says, "It's at a different place than UMSF in levels of presumed knowledge..." It would be nice to have a place where one could join a fireside chat with knowledgeable people. In #space, people have more or less learned to recognize who is likely to have useful information and who is likely to contibute to the background noise. UMSF does have a significant user base that might be mobilized into a chat mode. It will be an interesting experiment that I would like to see succeed.

In the meantime, some people have expressed their frustrations connecting to irc. This might be an appropriate place to describribe the problems they are having, and where other people can suggest solutions.

I got connected but lack of familiarity with IRC led me down a few dead ends.
The "link" doug gave ( irc://chat.freenode.net/#umsf ) had me thinking that mIRC itself would have some sort of location to plug in a URL. I floundered a bit while trying to figure out what settings to use and then how to connect to an unregistered\unpublished channel.

The "Doh!" moment came when I realised that the correct procedure was just to install mIrc (or any other IRC client that installs an irc:// url handler) and then use the link Doug provided as a browser URL.

Worked a treat for me but I had to abandon ship on #UMSF and the whole MRO MOI event for external reasons.

There are pros and cons to the idea of an IRC UMSF concept but one thing I think needs to be borne in mind is the idea of critical mass - chat is real time and it seems to me that in general there are only brief periods when there is a critical mass of active UMSF folks at the same time. However at the times of major events (MER EDL, Huygens descent, Deep Impact's impact, Hayabusa sample touchdown, NH Launch, MRO-MOI etc) the number is easily sufficient for an effective chat medium.

Now that I have the whole thing working I think I'll start to check out #Space - seems like you guys have the balance right.

I managed to get into a UMSF room though it wasn't the right one I guess...someone named '@Enceladus' was there and UM3K dropped in at one time. No activity though..

Nico

I have visited a number of websites which feature their own chat systems. They usually provide a java applet-based chat client that loads via a webpage.

However, I would imagine that this would require more support (and possibly bandwidth) from Doug's provider than he is currently paying for. If they can support it at all.

But, for a "pure" UMSF chat experience, that would be a marvelous thing. And since you'd have to be a registered member to log into such a chat function, that would tend to keep the salt-of-the-Earth types (you know -- morons) from ruining the signal-to-noise ratio...

-the other Doug

The bandwidth wouldnt actually be an issue - if I can get something working that it registered members only ( irc or otherwise ) - then that's what I'll do. It was simply an experiement to see how MROMOI would go down as a chat thing, and whilst not too many people made it in, it's obviously quite a popular idea - so I'll continue to look into it.

Doug