Skype vs IRC - Skype's persistent group chats ... and a Skype technology primer

[Dan York]

CCIWG folks,

On the topic of Skype vs IRC that has been discussed on the list, I
thought I'd share a bit about why I've actually become quite a fan of
Skype's group chat capabilities.

First, though, let me also say that I'm also a heavy user of IRC and
have both running on my desktop - I see uses for both and use both on a
daily basis.

The powerful aspect of Skype is the persistent nature of the group
chats. I wrote at some length about this here:

http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2010/12/skype-and-the-incredible-power-of-persistent-group-chats.html

The ability to shut down, go to another location (which could just be
from work to home or vice versa) and then have your chat client get
completely caught up on the history while you were offline is a powerful
capability. I can read the chat history *directly in the chat window*,
reply to it, etc.

Now, you certainly *can* get close to what Skype can do with some of the
XMPP servers out there... and I'd love to be able to use XMPP or IRC for
these kind of group chats... but I've yet to find one that handles this
persistence quite as cleanly as Skype does. (And I say this as a huge
XMPP fan.) The user experience with XMPP clients for a *non-technical*
user is also not quite as easy as Skype. (Ditto for IRC.)

Anyway, this persistence is a big part of why I've seen Skype work so
well in group chat settings.

Also, if folks aren't overly familiar with how Skype actually works, I
wrote a primer about it a while back:

http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2010/11/a-brief-primer-on-the-tech-behind-skype-p2psip-and-p2p-networks.html

and also explained Skype's supernode structure here:

http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2010/12/understanding-todays-skype-outage-explaining-supernodes.html

(Caveat: I don't work for Skype but have had confirmation from various
folks that my info is essentially accurate.)

Finally, if you aren't aware, Skype chats do carry over many of the
common IRC commands:

https://support.skype.com/en-us/faq/FA10042/What-are-chat-commands-and-roles

Again, I'm not necessarily advocating for one versus the other... I
personally can work with Skype, IRC, XMPP or whatever. Given that a
number of folks were asking the "Why Skype?" question, I thought I'd
provide some background on why I've found Skype's group chats work well.

Regards,
Dan

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[Deborah Shaddon]

Yes yes yes is the history-peristence thing. For a community working on stuff over a period of time, being able to go back and read the thread is key. We've heard comments about jumping in and out of any long-running and moving-fast chat is really really hard, this history in skype at least gives you some context that helps.

Dan, would you mind starting the pro-cons-observations section table on the wiki to capture-consolidate these points? Had a link in another post. :)

Deborah Shaddon
Sent from iPhone

[Monika Adamczyk]

Finally, someone who also sees clear benefit of Skype over IRC chat. :-)

Monika Adamczyk

-- MACO TECH INC
-- http://www.maco-tech.com
-- mon...@maco-tech.com
-- +1 781-816-9817
-- Twitter @macotech

[Ted Han]

I have to say, while i appreciate skype for all the things it does well, text chat is definitely not one of them.  We've had several people over the last week who have been unable to participate because their skype clients keep flaking out on them.  While IRC can have net parts, you're basically either connected or you're not, no weird intermediate states that your connection can get wedged into.

Also, we can get web clients connected to IRC over port 80, and so far as i'm aware, i haven't seen comparable software for skype (which instead relies on its firewall busting capabilities and supernodes).

Again, i'm not knocking skype, i just really think it's a sub-optimal text medium.  And while i agree that skype's history synching is nice, new people who join up don't get to see the history, so either way we really should have a logging bot that records and posts everything publicly on the web anyhow.

Cheers,

-Ted

[Monika Adamczyk]

I agree that Skype is not available via browser but to me IRC via
browser is not very useful either. I tend to close its windows / tabs
often, therefore loose conversation contact even when I am online.
Admittedly I have never been found of IRC in general so my point of
view might be skewed in this matter.

As for the Skype chat history, I believe a chat creator can set option
allowing new people see past history (up to a certain time). However
this would have to be verified since I only heard about it in a group
Skype chat and never configured it myself.

Monika Adamczyk

-- MACO TECH INC
-- http://www.maco-tech.com
-- mon...@maco-tech.com
-- +1 781-816-9817
-- Twitter @macotech

[Monika Adamczyk]

On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 8:51 AM, Monika Adamczyk <mon...@maco-tech.com> wrote:
> As for the Skype chat history, I believe a chat creator can set option
> allowing new people see past history (up to a certain time). However
> this would have to be verified since I only heard about it in a group
> Skype chat and never configured it myself.
>

I can now confirm that this is true. I was just added to the
infrastructure chat and I have access to messages posted on 3/14.

[Dan York]

Monika,

Yes, I set the option in the CCIWG chat to show newcomers the last 400
messages. For others to know, the command is:

/set options +HISTORY_DISCLOSED

and is mentioned here:

http://www.skype.com/go/help.chathelp

However, a couple of people who joined the chat did NOT receive any
messages, and upon further investigation it seems they both used Skype
5.1 on Windows. Other people on other versions of Skype did receive the
last messages.

Unfortunately, it would NOT surprise me if Skype broke something in
Skype 5.1 so that this no longer works. Hopefully they will fix it.

Regards,
Dan