There is a marginally active #nlnog (irc.nlnog.net) and fairly active #networker channel that I lurk on despite not speaking Dutch - but they are mostly European. I am on several Slack groups that are DNS-focused. There is the DNS-OARC Mattermost. I do sort of prefer IRC - Slack becomes quickly fragmented into "helpful" topical sub-groups that I never have the time to look at - one layer of categorization is plenty. Discord is walled garden. Social media is barely functional for conversations - it is a broadcast mechanism. Email lists are also functional but have been dying out in favor of... nothing. I am on some IRC channels dedicated to very narrow subjects (all OSS-related.) If someone wants to champion an effort to re-invigorate an IRC channel, I'd probably be there. I just looked at the Freenode #nanog - three other participants. I'm not even sure if that was the server/channel that I had used in the past, so pointers welcome if there is a more lively channel. As with all open platforms, keeping the really off-topic chatter down is a challenge. It drives people away. Also, there needs to be some minor gatekeeping, otherwise #nanog would become "I can't print - is the internet down?" I have no answers on this issue, though. JT On 20 Aug 2025, at 17:39, jim deleskie via NANOG wrote:
I haven't been on IRC in a long long time. Damn I'm old. :(
On Wed, Aug 20, 2025, 8:36 PM Mark Prosser via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I was chatting with some industry colleagues recently and I realized that various sectors of our industry are not "online" in the spaces I'm online.
Perhaps there was a time when most of us were on mailing lists & IRC, but now the communities seem fragmented and behind walled gardens (Mainly Discord and Slack .. the latter is deleting our messages faster and faster).
Personally, I'm subscribed to several discord groups (including NANOG), several slack groups, a few mailing lists, IRC (I'm not on that often these days), one or two Matrix groups, IETF Zulip...
This quickly becomes cumbersome and I find myself mainly in Packet Pushers & NAF Slack groups -- while being "reachable" in other places. I feel like I'm missing out on conversations outside of the few bubbles I participate in.
Where do you spend most of your time, outside of this mailing list? Why do you like it there? What kind of folks hangout there?
Warm regards,
-- Mark Prosser // E: mark@zealnetworks.ca // W: https://zealnetworks.ca