Eh, the number of downvotes I'm seeing for a contrary opinion to article about something not really controversial is also pretty weird. Seems like evidence of a concerted promotional push on HN to be honest, if only anecdotally.
The first few times these discussions were interesting. But for every submission mentioning Slack, somebody has to come and claim that IRC is all anybody ever needed, and all the arguments have been rehashed over and over. The alternatives mentioned in the article on the other hand are barely discussed at all.
I find it interesting that all those who claim IRC is insufficient or is too hard to implement (they say the same about XMPP) don't ever seem to say what is so hard, or mention the features that are missing.
As soon as you say "run a bouncer" you limit your audience severely. Without a bouncer, you're a transient in the world of IRC. Doubly so if you have the temerity to want to interact from a mobile device that pops on and off networks all the time.
I was in the LCA2016 IRC channel and at LCA2016 in person. I really wish we could have CCC [1] levels of "audience participation" because it allows people to interact with the conference who may not normally be able to attend. The live streaming was really well done but I think there needs to be One True Chat Channel for LCA2017. Maybe that means using Slack or similar and swallowing a bit of FOSS pride for a while.
Because such comments are at this point inane and uninteresting. As has been mentioned ad nauseum, Slack and friends are winning because IRC is a pain and lacks really basic creature comforts like offline messages and anything but text.
I'm downvoting them as I see them for this reason. Anyone saying "Why not IRC?" to the question of "Slack alternative?" is being willfully ignorant at this point.
Same goes to those who accuse people of astroturfing absent evidence other than "$ideaILike is being downvoted".
Only as inane and uninteresting as the comment you just posted.
You can't impute motives why someone might ask that question. You may feel it has been repeated ad nauseum but it's quite possible those asking the question haven't read the previous HN comments.
I'm sorry but from where i am it's not "contrary opinions" being downvoted, it's useless dribble.
Hell one of the downvoted comments is just "IRC comes to mind"... Just hand waving away all of the problems that something like slack is trying to solve, which the article talks about.
It's not even that great of an article, and yet it's the top post on HN? I hope at least dang looks at the data. I'm sorry it's pretty suspicious. Like what is so notable about this post that it warrants being at the top? Above the living social layoffs and the various other way more interesting things on the front page right now.
Worst case, it turns out being a legit article, in which case it's cool. Eh, no big deal.
If you're worried about the upvotes on the article, they're definitely legit (as far as we can tell). I suspect it's as simple as that Slack is a hot topic (for or against) and people here like open source. And are passionate about chat software.
