Over the past week a lot has happened with the Priyom chat. First, we have decided to extend to Discord, and created our own server there where you can join us and chat: if that's what you'd like, simply follow this invitation.

This is just an extension, not a move: our Discord server is bridged with our IRC channel, so it's the same chat, and not an alternative or a replacement. You don't have to leave IRC and get on Discord if you don't want to, you can keep using our IRC chat like currently if you prefer.

However, our IRC channel isn't remaining unchanged either. Last week, there were unexpected dramatic changes in the governance of freenode, the IRC network where our #priyom channel was hosted. The freenode network has always been managed by a community of independent peers volunteering as staffers, and now they have resigned en masse, accusing a corporate entity of a forceful, unwanted and hostile takeover of freenode. They have left together to launch a new network, named Libera Chat. With the future of the freenode network as we know it in jeopardy, many projects and communities that used to chat there have now moved to the new Libera network too.

We at Priyom have decided to move as well, away from freenode and over to Libera. Our IRC channel can now be found on Libera, by connecting to irc.libera.chat, with the same channel name: #priyom We understand and apologize for the bother that this may cause you, and we understand if some of you don't care about those politics and wouldn't mind at all staying on freenode. However, as administrators, it is our duty to manage those things, and we feel that we cannot responsibly put our users at a potential risk by staying on freenode, especially users for whom monitoring of numbers stations and intelligence transmissions could be a sensitive activity. Thus, we have moved: please excuse and bear with the momentary disturbance.

But let's stay positive and enthusiastic, not all change is bad! This new network is meant to bring new evolutions in the future, and this can alternatively be an occasion for you to try and switch to Discord - if you don't mind that it's even much more corporate than IRC!

I understand if you're still a bit confused with all this so far, and don't fully grasp everything I've talked about; so now, so we're all clear, I will go over a few questions with you.

 

What does this change for me?

If you're accessing the chat from the chat box on our website's home page, this changes nothing for you. You can still do that all the same, the same chat box now takes you to the new network and channel instead.

However, if you had registered your chat username with NickServ and a password so nobody else could use it, you'll have to do that again to register it on the new network as well.

If you're accessing the chat from your own IRC client, you'll have to change its configuration to connect to irc.libera.chat instead, and find us there; the channel name is the same: #priyom

What also changes is that if you never liked the embedded chat box or IRC very much, or are already a Discord user, you now have the option, at your sole choice, only if that's what you personally prefer, to use Discord instead. The interface is different and more modern, with more features, and perhaps you'll find it more comfortable. You'll have to create a Discord account if you don't have one. No program installation is required for desktop computers - on mobile, you'll want to use the Discord app.

 

But I don't like Discord. Will I have to get on Discord from now on to keep partaking in the Priyom community?

No, absolutely not. Nobody is forced to get on Discord, it's only and purely your personal choice to do so if that's the option you prefer. We have no plan to discontinue our IRC chat now or in the future.

 

What are the differences between Priyom's Discord server and Priyom's IRC channel?

Just the general differences between Discord and IRC. The two of them are bridged together, with messages relayed in both directions, so it's the same chat, with the same contents and same people, with everybody from each side able to talk all together.

If you choose Discord, you'll get its pleasant interface, with reaction emojis, direct file uploads, website link preview, and your other Discord friends and servers if you're already on there. If you choose IRC, you'll get its neat, streamlined and efficient text-only interface, with images and uploaded recordings appearing and available as text URLs.

 

Is Priyom getting on Discord because of what's happening with freenode?

Yes and no.

When Discord started trending as a popular chat platform, many of us were rather skeptical about it. But now it has indeed turned out as a successful and very relevant platform. So we had already been considering this for a while now. It is true that IRC and Discord have radically different and perhaps opposite styles, so a bridge between them sounded like a path forward that could offer the best of both worlds.

Then when the question of migrating our IRC channel from freenode to Libera posed itself, this Discord bridge sounded like it could help: if you can have one IRC <-> Discord bridge, you can have two of them, and just get everything bridged together for the time being. So that's what we started with - because we knew that we wanted to extend to Discord anyway, and didn't know yet what could or should be done about freenode and Libera.

But beyond this, the freenode events precipitated our decision to get on Discord for a more fundamental reason: if you're going to question which IRC network you should be on, shouldn't you also question which chat platform you should be on to begin with? Isn't it as relevant and important or even more, especially if you're going to start changing things and need a migration anyway? Thus it was a good moment to make a decision about and implement what we had already been considering.

 

I'm on IRC and see people chatting, but I can't speak myself, I get an error when trying. Help!

You're probably still on our old channel on freenode, and seeing IrinaLeva, our bridge bot, still relaying for now the messages from Discord and from our new channel on Libera. Please leave the old channel on freenode and connect and join us on Libera instead, and all will be good :-)

 

I hope this helps. Whatever your choice of chat platform is, we hope to see and talk to you there: remember, as mentioned on our home page, Priyom without its chat is like shortwave radio without sound!

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