IRC and ICQ ... Re: [LINK] SMS, IRC etc. beyond phone & email; was: Progress ... "ENUM"

[Adam Todd]

I wanted to break the subject :)


>I have seen people spend evening after evening in busy IRC, ICQ etc. -
>sometimes with five or so completely separate people they hardly know
>simultaneously in different sessions.

On my IRC server there will be around 20 - 30 people chatting with me and 
each other at any time.  The conversation when new people start are 
interesting, however as people "become" part of the furniture, their 
interest ability drops.  Nothing seems to go on in the lives of these 
people!  They seem to do the same thing, day in and day out.  Strangely 
enough, that's quite true. Thank goodness I have variety!

ICQ depth of conversation:  "Hi" ... "How r u?" ... "OK" ... "I'm going for 
a drink"  ....

Never much else, and I've got over 600 people one ICQ list (and 50 on 
another but its professional use and has better conversation!) of which 40 
will be online at any time and mostly doing nothing, talking un 
constructively or complaining about a bad day at the office.

>But I have never been convinced that the depth of communication they 
>achieve comes close to what I regularly do with email.

I totally agree.  People who write email messages longer than 3 lines tend 
to be a little articulate and have something useful to say.  Biggest 
problem is people who quote back a 3 page email you spent 40 minutes 
writing to put at the bottom "Yeah sounds great"  <sigh>  Or worse!  They 
put it at the top!  They probably never read the message!

>I am not suggesting that my value framework should be theirs - just that 
>line-at-a-time chat seems to be good for what I regard as superficial 
>communication.

ICQ (instant message systems) are good for "getting attention"  I ALWAYS 
tell people to move to my IRC server if they want to exchange more than 2 
messages with me.  Mainly because beyond that the conversation is normally 
repetitively boring based on what happened the day before, and the day 
before that.  At least if they are in my IRC server, someone else will talk 
to them!

Two nights ago I have 12 people all ICQ me at the same time.  "Hey' we're 
going on holiday"

BIG DEAL!

>My own experience with IRC and its Yahoo proprietary equivalent drives me 
>nuts,

I avoid Yahoo's java toy, too heavy.

>since these systems often can't handle a single sentence of 
>mine.  Besides, I think in paragraphs . . .

Ahh, you need to use my IRC server :)  It can handle 1024 bytes in a 
message :)  At least when someone says a BLOCK of text you can actually 
READ something useful!

>Also, whilst composing the sentence in my one attempt at group IRC, I was 
>acutely aware that five other people are waiting for me - it is infuriating.

What about good conversation n IRC with people you really know.  My wife 
and i chat by IRC a lot! (It's true!)  And we'll have two very different 
discussions happening.  I will be leading my topic and she will be 
responding, then she'll write her topic and I'll respond ... then the loop 
begins.  It's quite hard to read the logs afterwards!

It's not so much the tool Robin, that is the limitation.  It's the person 
using the tool.  If I meet with a group of people I'm not commonly mixing 
with who spend a lot of time together, their conversation level is very 
limited in a social environment.  Topics become generic because most people 
in society have only a few real interests:

1. Get up, shower, breaky go to work
2. Come home, have dinner, watch TV go to bed.

Strangely this is not uncommon for the "average" person.  Then there are 
the unemployed, these are the people most commonly found ALL DAY and NIGHT 
in IRC and ICQ.  Their lives consist of:

1.  Bad argument with partner
2.  Getting pregnant and ... miscarriage, early labor, stalled labor ...
3.  House being robbed
4.  Can't pay the bills
5.  Can't pay the bills but bought new CD, TV, Adult Cable Channel,
     or something they saw on TV for ten times the value.
6.  Bored
7.  No petrol to go anywhere
8.  Car Rego expired
9.  Don't go out anywhere, can't find a job  (think about that one!)
10. In big Dispute with partner of split up and kids and money and
     who owns what cloths, who bought what ring etc.
11. no money
12. offered a job but it doesn't pay enough, isn't the CEO or 2 km's
     from home is too far to travel.
13. Partner cheated, pretty sure about it, dah di dah

That pretty much covers it.

So the reality is, the more you are part of the well worn furniture the 
less interesting you are.  At least in 90% of cases!