@HihiDanni @jk
IRC has suitable web-clients that require no user installation, and can easily be embedded in a website - I'm not sure if that's suitably "user-friendly" enough - at what point does it become comparable to a more "mainstream" communication system such as Discord?

@jk @HihiDanni
Certain clients such as "hexchat" also allow for native opening and importing of server links, as well - does that function suitably in place of "invite links" services such as discord offer?

@marlyn @jk 1. The person has to be using Hexchat. 2. The person has to be using _that_ Xchat, no not that other Xchat, or that other fork or mIRC or w/e. 3. It would not subscribe the browser to server URLs or w/e so you'd need to find the option hidden in the menubar that lets you connect, and you'd have to make sure that yes, the server URL syntax is correct. 4. "No I can't help you because I did it myself on this other client, do it yourself."

@jk @marlyn 5. Even if it did subscribe to the URL or protocol or w/e it'd probably be relying on a separate package that isn't installed by default, and may also conflict with, or not be honored by the current desktop environment, browser, or w/e. 6. "You need to register with NickServ, so do all this weird stuff that starts with a slash. Trust us."

@marlyn @jk "7. Don't post large text here! Upload it somewhere, but we're not going to provide any hosting space for it, so figure it out yourself. But also don't use those URL shorteners." 8. To be pingable 24/7 you have to be connected 24/7, which wastes electricity. 9. No, IRC bouncers just paper over the problem. Even Quassel, which is far easier to use than typical IRC bouncers, has issues.

@jk @marlyn 10. The mere act of logging onto IRC may expose you to DoS attacks. Apparently this is a big enough issue that Freenode has a special thing called "cloaks" to mitigate this. No, you don't get to have one by default. You have to do this song and dance for it. And then the cloak won't even be applied for the first few seconds you're actually connected, so it's useless

@marlyn @jk 11. "This is the developers' channel. Users asking for support should go into the user support channel. No we don't actually read anything that goes on in there."

@HihiDanni
1. I only used Hexchat as an example, other clients such as quassel, pidgin, and mibbit should also be able to open such links. For example, I think this link should be parsable to such clients? Your web browser should offer a list of IRC clients registered to handle that URI if you click on links in this form (this one is a dummy example and not real, however)
irc://irc.foobarbaz.net/#frotz
5. Browser-embedded clients such as mibbit or kiwi are good fall-backs if the user only has "default" software, or if they have difficulties configuring their client

@HihiDanni

For some of your grievances, the "ircv3" project is aiming to streamline the UX so it is on par with more modern chat programs --
6. For registration without fiddling with arcane commands and messages
https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/276
8,9. For recalling missed chat history without a bouncer:
https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/batch/chathistory-3.3.html
--
10. Agreed, IRC servers exposing user IPs is trash praxis. I know of some that offer cloaks by default, but I have no idea why that isn't the standard everywhere.
11. This one seems like a culture issue that won't be solved by a different choice of communication platform, unfortunately

@HihiDanni

7. This would be an instance where chat programs flounder for this purpose - none of the ones I use regularly (Discord, primarily) allow posting large text dumps directly, nor do they serve well for seeking through such data all at once. Services such as imgur, pastebin, and github's "gist" allow getting around some of that. "no url shorteners allowed" sounds like a strange policy, although are they necessary for linking text dumps or images? When does one normally utilize URL shorteners? (my apologies, I am not familiar with the use of those)

@marlyn Ooh, so there's work on a new IRC protocol. I should look into this.