It has been *very* interesting following this discussion for the past week or so, you know. There's been some really well-thought-out discourse here. (And, of course, there's been that couple of hundred other posts, too...)
You'll notice that I've posted several replies to some of the more recent posts in this thread, using a Talk City CCC nick rather than the ubiquitous Anonymous Coward nom du tron. I've also included a link to a home page on TC where I've written a longer explanation of the facts and logic behind these IRC-access changes.
That decision isn't something that was done arbitrarily, nor without a lot of extended discussion on the corporate level. But it *is* something that has stirred up a lot of controversy in the online community.
There's been a lot of anger, a lot of support, and especially a lot of misinformation being spread around the chat rooms and the rest of the Web about this change. Inaccurate speculation and erroneous assumptions were making the rounds of the Internet within minutes of the announcement. That's why I think it's important for those of us who know more instead of less about this particular issue to make our voices heard in response. And that's why I'm posting here about it now.
Most of the people doing most of the talking seem to believe that nobody at Talk City is listening. That is very definitely not the case here. I can assure you that TC has been following the various threads about this in the discussion boards, and in the chat rooms, here on Slashdot, and on the alt.online newsgroups, etc. The company is well aware of what our users (and also those who are not our users) have been saying about this change. And believe me, the online hosts and the TC community staff are all very aware of what everyone's been saying about it, too.
A few of you may recognize my CCC nick, but I expect that even fewer of you know who I actually am. I'm Rick Albertson, and I'm the Homes Pages Producer for Talk City. However, I'm not just being a company mouthpiece when I post to these threads. I'm speaking as a concerned and informed individual, not as an employee parroting a party line. What I'm saying here is my own opinion, based on my own beliefs, and not an official pronouncement from the company itself. If you have any questions, comments, or complaints about anything you read in my posts, please feel free to email them directly to me.
And I'm not just saying what I say here because I work for Talk City - trust me on that one, because with the job market as tight as it is in Silicon Valley, I wouldn't have to work here if I didn't want to. But I do want to. I like the people I work with, I like the people I work for, and I think we generally do what we do better than most anybody else does.
Your mileage may vary, of course. I know you have your own ideas and opinions about all of this. And that's why I encourage you to make your own voices heard where it really counts. Here are some places where you can go to learn more about the details, and to tell Talk City what you think about them:
To read Talk City's current FAQs and information about this IRC change, go to <http://www.talkcity.com/irc>.
To send your feedback to Talk City's corporate staff about this IRC change, go to <http://www.talkcity.com/help/egain>.
To read and post to the Talk City discussion boards about this IRC change, go to <http://boards.talkcity.com> and open the Community News folder.
To read an excellent article discussing growth and change on the Internet in the context of this IRC change, go to <http://www.talkcity.com/communities/computing_art icle1.htmpl>.
To chat with Talk City's community producers and CommOps staff about this IRC change, log in to #TalkCityChanges on chat.talkcity.com. The room should be open from 4-5 am, 9-11 am, and 5-8 pm Pacific time every day during the changeover period.
Nope. It's true. Pirch *doesn't* run on MacOS. And you know, fact checking really *can* be a lot of fun sometimes. Here's a few more facts that you guys might want to know about this changeover:
--- Talk City is *not* abandoning WebTV or Mac users. While TCPirch is already available for Windows, a new feature-rich custom IRC client for WebTV is already in the pipeline, and discussions are already well underway regarding a custom TC version of IRCle for the Mac. There also are both Java and non-Java versions of the EZTalk3 Web-based client available for use online, by the way.
--- Talk City is *not* doing this just to generate revenue by forcing more users to watch ads while they chat, nor in an attempt to somehow exercise company control over their personal computers.
--- Talk City is *not* blaming all IRC users for the regrettable actions of a small minority that have negatively affected the shared experience of all members of the community.
--- Talk City is *not* ignoring the contributions made by its many loyal members and hosts over the years, nor is it trying to drive any of them away. In fact, the company hopes that most of those who are distressed by this decision will choose to stay involved within the community once they become aware of the reasons behind it.
Ironically enough, Talk City is anything *but* Mac-unfriendly, nor did it ever intend to be an IRC network. Its roots are deep in Apple's eWorld community, which was a pre-Web online service that used a decidedly proprietary interface. When Apple prematurely pulled the plug on eWorld, its core users refused to give up their network of friends and fellow chatters. So Talk City was created to maintain that community. It started off using GlobalChat for a default client, and many of the users and hosts complained about having to learn a new software package. Then TC decided to move beyond the inherent limitations of GlobalChat, and many of the hosts and users then complained just as loudly at having to switch over to new programs like mIRC and IRCle.
Anyway, there's a lot more that I can tell you from the perspective of someone who's working here at Talk City and knows a good bit about what's going on behind the scenes. Rather than post it all here at once, though, I put it up on a Web page instead. The URL's right up there below my nick. By all means, feel free to check out the rest of the facts there, too.
Sorry, Mr. Coward, but TC's stock price has nothing whatsoever to do with this decision. And neither does 'forcing anyone to use their special client'. It is a business decision, yes, but you've got the logic a little bit turned around here.
Talk City is a business. It's not a DALnet or an EFnet. It's not subsidized by a government or a university or a charitable foundation. It doesn't have the luxury of running a complex online service at a loss, or of making decisions without having to account for the economics involved.
It costs Talk City several million dollars each and every month to provide the online community with its various consumer services... and the company has never charged any of its users one thin dime for doing so. Running advertisements is one of the ways that TC pays for everything it's been giving away to the users for free. So it would be absurd for me to claim that nobody here cares whether anyone ever sees ads or not.
However, it's also absurd to insist that the only reason for this change in policy is to force more users to look at ads while they chat. Frankly, if that was the actual rationale, TC could have made this move a long time ago. It's not a matter of increasing ad counts by brute force by shutting out text-only IRC clients. In fact, the existing revenue generated by users who do see ads on the site and in chat is already well within plan for this year.
So it wouldn't make economic sense to change the existing setup now just to make more users see more ads. In fact, due to the inevitable upset in the user community, there would be good reasons *not* to. Closing down access from straight IRC clients clearly will not earn the company more money in the long run, and especially not in the short run.
In any event, there's a lot more that I cansay about the facts and reasoning behind this this controversial decision, but I'm not going to clutter up the thread by trying to say it all here at once. If you'd like to read more, I've put a longer explanation up on the Web -- feel free to visit the URL listed up there below my nick.
Arker, Talk City is neither stupid nor lying about the reasons for this change. I will grant you, though, that there's been a lot of miscommunication and misinformation flying around the Internet that could have been addressed more aggressively during the last week. That's why I'm posting this reply.
Remember, TC isn't just a raw network of IRC servers. It's a complex collection of online services, both consumer and B2B oriented, and so there are lots of interrelated issues involved. Solutions to the script-kiddie and hacking problems that might be appropriate for something like a DALnet or an EFnet might not be applicable to a company like Talk City.
Of course, there always are certain things involved in situations like this that employees are not necessarily at liberty to discuss. And I am, after all, a Talk City employee. I make no bones about that -- that's why I'm posting as myself, not as yet another Anonymous Coward. But my main area of focus is on home pages, not chat. My problem users are different than the chat hosts' problem users. It's mighty hard to flood a home page or hex a URL. So I suppose I have it relatively easy in my department compared to the CommOps folks.
Still, while I wasn't directly involved in making the decision to stop allowing open IRC access to TC's servers, and I honestly regret the necessity of it... I do see why the company finally had to make that choice. TC really is a community site, not an unmoderated network of random chat servers. TC really does put a lot of emphasis on its stated purpose of providing a "clean, well-lighted space on the Internet". People who come here really should be able to feel that this is one place where they can congregate without being hassled, hit on, hated, hacked, or harassed.
So there's a lot more going on here than the widespread misconception that Talk City's just trying to force IRC users to see ads while chatting. I've touched on some of the points in other replies to this topic today, and I don't want to text-spam the Slashdot community by going into it all chapter and verse in this thread. But if you want to know more about what this particular employee knows and thinks about this controversial subject, I did put a longer and more detailed explanation of the facts and reasoning behind it up on the Web. The URL's listed right up there below my nick.
You know, Anonymous Coward, I still do work at Talk City. So I'm sure you'll want to factor that in when I tell you that yes, of course ad revenues on the consumer site matter to the company -- but no, they matter less and less these day as TC keeps gropwing its B2B services market.
Of course consumer ad revenue matters. It would be disingenuous of me to say otherwise. But, honestly, that's really not the driving factor behind this change in policy.
Free speech may be a basic right, but free chat is something else again. Servers cost money. Bandwidth costs money. Providing a world-wide network of hosts and moderators costs money. Maintaining a 24/7 TCHelp system costs money. Maintaining a 24/7Network Operations Center and operating some 140 servers at a time costs *lots* of money.
Spending lots of money to provide wide-open access that is regularly being abused by a small subset of users is not good business. And TC is, after all, a business. It's not a DALnet or an EFnet. It's not subsidized by a government or a university or a charitable foundation. It doesn't have the luxury of running a complex online service at a loss, or of making decisions without having to account for the economics involved.
It costs Talk City several million dollars each and every month to provide the online community with its various consumer services... and the company has never charged any of its users one thin dime for doing so. Running advertisements is one of the ways that TC pays for everything it's been giving away to the users for free. So it would be absurd for me to claim that nobody here cares whether you ever see ads or not.
However, it's also absurd to insist that the only reason for this change in policy is to force the users to look at ads while they chat. Frankly, if that was the actual rationale, TC would have made this move a long time ago. It's not a matter of increasing ad counts by brute force by shutting out text-only IRC clients. In fact, the existing revenue generated users who do see ads on the site and in chat is already on target for this year.
So it wouldn't make economic sense to change the existing setup just to make more users see more ads. In fact, due to the inevitable upset in the user community, there would be good reasons *not* to. Closing down access from straight IRC clients clearly will not earn the company more money in the long run, and especially not in the short run.
I don't want to clutter up the Slashdot space with longer and more detailed explanations of all the various issues here... but if you want to know more background information from this particular TC worker's insider point of view, you can check out the URL listed there below my nick to see what else I know about the actual facts and reasoning involved.
Actually, Anonymous Coward, I doubt that anyone else does. At least, not anyone who understands the way business works.
Think about this for a second. Following your rationale, angry IRC users who don't want to use clients that show ads are going to be deserting Talk City in droves.
This will result in reduced chat minutes, and less traffic on TC's servers. Okay... so if this logic is sound, the number of chat minutes per day will go down, which means less bandwidth will be used to serve those chat minutes... which means TC's bandwidth costs will also go down.
The chat minutes lost will be those that were previously used by IRC chatters who weren't seeing any ads anyway, correct? So since those chatters already weren't seeing any ads, TC wasn't getting any revenue from those chat minutes anyway, correct?
Hmm. Let's see here. According to this theory, chat minutes used will go down, which means costs will go down, while revenue will stay where it already is. Hmm. And this will anger the stockholders because...??
Think this through a little farther, Mr. Coward. Disruption and harassment of the majority of regular users will go down. Costs for bandwidth used by a minority of users that don't generate revenue will go down. Expenses involved to dealing with the disruptions will also go down.
Net revenues will actually improve. Shared user experience will improve. Talk City's overall expense-to-income ratio will improve. You know, it seems to me that this is usually is the kind of thing that shareholders and investors and partners *like* to hear...
There are an awful lot of misconceptions and erroneous assumptions floating around the Net about this particular issue, Anonymous, and posts like yours indicate that more accurate information is needed here.
While I don't want to clutter up this thread with longer and more detailed explanations of the various issues involved, I did take the liberty of putting them up on a Web page that you might want to take a few minutes to look at: http://home.talkcity.com/migrationpath/rixter_irc
Slashdot Mirror
It has been *very* interesting following this discussion for the past week or so, you know. There's been some really well-thought-out discourse here. (And, of course, there's been that couple of hundred other posts, too...)
t icle1.htmpl>.
You'll notice that I've posted several replies to some of the more recent posts in this thread, using a Talk City CCC nick rather than the ubiquitous Anonymous Coward nom du tron. I've also included a link to a home page on TC where I've written a longer explanation of the facts and logic behind these IRC-access changes.
That decision isn't something that was done arbitrarily, nor without a lot of extended discussion on the corporate level. But it *is* something that has stirred up a lot of controversy in the online community.
There's been a lot of anger, a lot of support, and especially a lot of misinformation being spread around the chat rooms and the rest of the Web about this change. Inaccurate speculation and erroneous assumptions were making the rounds of the Internet within minutes of the announcement. That's why I think it's important for those of us who know more instead of less about this particular issue to make our voices heard in response. And that's why I'm posting here about it now.
Most of the people doing most of the talking seem to believe that nobody at Talk City is listening. That is very definitely not the case here. I can assure you that TC has been following the various threads about this in the discussion boards, and in the chat rooms, here on Slashdot, and on the alt.online newsgroups, etc. The company is well aware of what our users (and also those who are not our users) have been saying about this change. And believe me, the online hosts and the TC community staff are all very aware of what everyone's been saying about it, too.
A few of you may recognize my CCC nick, but I expect that even fewer of you know who I actually am. I'm Rick Albertson, and I'm the Homes Pages Producer for Talk City. However, I'm not just being a company mouthpiece when I post to these threads. I'm speaking as a concerned and informed individual, not as an employee parroting a party line. What I'm saying here is my own opinion, based on my own beliefs, and not an official pronouncement from the company itself. If you have any questions, comments, or complaints about anything you read in my posts, please feel free to email them directly to me.
And I'm not just saying what I say here because I work for Talk City - trust me on that one, because with the job market as tight as it is in Silicon Valley, I wouldn't have to work here if I didn't want to. But I do want to. I like the people I work with, I like the people I work for, and I think we generally do what we do better than most anybody else does.
Your mileage may vary, of course. I know you have your own ideas and opinions about all of this. And that's why I encourage you to make your own voices heard where it really counts. Here are some places where you can go to learn more about the details, and to tell Talk City what you think about them:
To read Talk City's current FAQs and information about this IRC change, go to
<http://www.talkcity.com/irc>.
To send your feedback to Talk City's corporate staff about this IRC change, go to
<http://www.talkcity.com/help/egain>.
To read and post to the Talk City discussion boards about this IRC change, go to
<http://boards.talkcity.com> and open the Community News folder.
To read an excellent article discussing growth and change on the Internet in the context of this
IRC change, go to <http://www.talkcity.com/communities/computing_ar
To chat with Talk City's community producers and CommOps staff about this IRC change, log
in to #TalkCityChanges on chat.talkcity.com. The room should be open from 4-5 am, 9-11 am, and
5-8 pm Pacific time every day during the changeover period.
cheers,
Rick Albertson
Talk City, Inc.
Nope. It's true. Pirch *doesn't* run on MacOS. And you know, fact checking really *can* be a lot of fun sometimes. Here's a few more facts that you guys might want to know about this changeover:
--- Talk City is *not* abandoning WebTV or Mac users. While TCPirch is already available for Windows, a new feature-rich custom IRC client for WebTV is already in the pipeline, and discussions are already well underway regarding a custom TC version of IRCle for the Mac. There also are both Java and non-Java versions of the EZTalk3 Web-based client available for use online, by the way.
--- Talk City is *not* doing this just to generate revenue by forcing more users to watch ads while they chat, nor in an attempt to somehow exercise company control over their personal computers.
--- Talk City is *not* blaming all IRC users for the regrettable actions of a small minority that
have negatively affected the shared experience of all members of the community.
--- Talk City is *not* ignoring the contributions made by its many loyal members and hosts over the years, nor is it trying to drive any of them away. In fact, the company hopes that most of those who are distressed by this decision will choose to stay involved within the community once they become aware of the reasons behind it.
Ironically enough, Talk City is anything *but* Mac-unfriendly, nor did it ever intend to be an IRC network. Its roots are deep in Apple's eWorld community, which was a pre-Web online service that used a decidedly proprietary interface. When Apple prematurely pulled the plug on eWorld, its core users refused to give up their network of friends and fellow chatters. So Talk City was created to maintain that community. It started off using GlobalChat for a default client, and many of the users and hosts complained about having to learn a new software package. Then TC decided to move beyond the inherent limitations of GlobalChat, and many of the hosts and users then complained just as loudly at having to switch over to new programs like mIRC and IRCle.
Anyway, there's a lot more that I can tell you from the perspective of someone who's working here at Talk City and knows a good bit about what's going on behind the scenes. Rather than post it all here at once, though, I put it up on a Web page instead. The URL's right up there below my nick. By all means, feel free to check out the rest of the facts there, too.
cheers,
Rick Albertson
Talk City, Inc.
Sorry, Mr. Coward, but TC's stock price has nothing whatsoever to do with this decision. And neither does 'forcing anyone to use their special client'. It is a business decision, yes, but you've got the logic a little bit turned around here.
Talk City is a business. It's not a DALnet or an EFnet. It's not subsidized by a government or a university or a charitable foundation. It doesn't have the luxury of running a complex online service at a loss, or of making decisions without having to account for the economics involved.
It costs Talk City several million dollars each and every month to provide the online community with its various consumer services... and the company has never charged any of its users one thin dime for doing so. Running advertisements is one of the ways that TC pays for everything it's been giving away to the users for free. So it would be absurd for me to claim that nobody here cares whether anyone ever sees ads or not.
However, it's also absurd to insist that the only reason for this change in policy is to force more users to look at ads while they chat. Frankly, if that was the actual rationale, TC could have made this move a long time ago. It's not a matter of increasing ad counts by brute force by shutting out text-only IRC clients. In fact, the existing revenue generated by users who do see ads on the site and in chat is already well within plan for this year.
So it wouldn't make economic sense to change the existing setup now just to make more users see more ads. In fact, due to the inevitable upset in the user community, there would be good reasons *not* to. Closing down access from straight IRC clients clearly will not earn the company more money in the long run, and especially not in the short run.
In any event, there's a lot more that I cansay about the facts and reasoning behind this this controversial decision, but I'm not going to clutter up the thread by trying to say it all here at once. If you'd like to read more, I've put a longer explanation up on the Web -- feel free to visit the URL listed up there below my nick.
cheers,
Rick Albertson
Talk City, Inc.
Arker, Talk City is neither stupid nor lying about the reasons for this change. I will grant you, though, that there's been a lot of miscommunication and misinformation flying around the Internet that could have been addressed more aggressively during the last week. That's why I'm posting this reply.
Remember, TC isn't just a raw network of IRC servers. It's a complex collection of online services, both consumer and B2B oriented, and so there are lots of interrelated issues involved. Solutions to the script-kiddie and hacking problems that might be appropriate for something like a DALnet or an EFnet might not be applicable to a company like Talk City.
Of course, there always are certain things involved in situations like this that employees are not necessarily at liberty to discuss. And I am, after all, a Talk City employee. I make no bones about that -- that's why I'm posting as myself, not as yet another Anonymous Coward. But my main area of focus is on home pages, not chat. My problem users are different than the chat hosts' problem users. It's mighty hard to flood a home page or hex a URL. So I suppose I have it relatively easy in my department compared to the CommOps folks.
Still, while I wasn't directly involved in making the decision to stop allowing open IRC access to TC's servers, and I honestly regret the necessity of it... I do see why the company finally had to make that choice. TC really is a community site, not an unmoderated network of random chat servers. TC really does put a lot of emphasis on its stated purpose of providing a "clean, well-lighted space on the Internet". People who come here really should be able to feel that this is one place where they can congregate without being hassled, hit on, hated, hacked, or harassed.
So there's a lot more going on here than the widespread misconception that Talk City's just trying to force IRC users to see ads while chatting. I've touched on some of the points in other replies to this topic today, and I don't want to text-spam the Slashdot community by going into it all chapter and verse in this thread. But if you want to know more about what this particular employee knows and thinks about this controversial subject, I did put a longer and more detailed explanation of the facts and reasoning behind it up on the Web. The URL's listed right up there below my nick.
cheers,
Rick Albertson
Talk City, Inc.
You know, Anonymous Coward, I still do work at Talk City. So I'm sure you'll want to factor that in when I tell you that yes, of course ad revenues on the consumer site matter to the company -- but no, they matter less and less these day as TC keeps gropwing its B2B services market.
Of course consumer ad revenue matters. It would be disingenuous of me to say otherwise. But, honestly, that's really not the driving factor behind this change in policy.
Free speech may be a basic right, but free chat is something else again. Servers cost money. Bandwidth costs money. Providing a world-wide network of hosts and moderators costs money. Maintaining a 24/7 TCHelp system costs money. Maintaining a 24/7Network Operations Center and operating some 140 servers at a time costs *lots* of money.
Spending lots of money to provide wide-open access that is regularly being abused by a small subset of users is not good business. And TC is, after all, a business. It's not a DALnet or an EFnet. It's not subsidized by a government or a university or a charitable foundation. It doesn't have the luxury of running a complex online service at a loss, or of making decisions without having to account for the economics involved.
It costs Talk City several million dollars each and every month to provide the online community with its various consumer services... and the company has never charged any of its users one thin dime for doing so. Running advertisements is one of the ways that TC pays for everything it's been giving away to the users for free. So it would be absurd for me to claim that nobody here cares whether you ever see ads or not.
However, it's also absurd to insist that the only reason for this change in policy is to force the users to look at ads while they chat. Frankly, if that was the actual rationale, TC would have made this move a long time ago. It's not a matter of increasing ad counts by brute force by shutting out text-only IRC clients. In fact, the existing revenue generated users who do see ads on the site and in chat is already on target for this year.
So it wouldn't make economic sense to change the existing setup just to make more users see more ads. In fact, due to the inevitable upset in the user community, there would be good reasons *not* to. Closing down access from straight IRC clients clearly will not earn the company more money in the long run, and especially not in the short run.
I don't want to clutter up the Slashdot space with longer and more detailed explanations of all the various issues here... but if you want to know more background information from this particular TC worker's insider point of view, you can check out the URL listed there below my nick to see what else I know about the actual facts and reasoning involved.
cheers,
Rick Albertson
Talk City, Inc.
Actually, Anonymous Coward, I doubt that anyone else does. At least, not anyone who understands the way business works.
Think about this for a second. Following your rationale, angry IRC users who don't want to use clients that show ads are going to be deserting Talk City in droves.
This will result in reduced chat minutes, and less traffic on TC's servers. Okay... so if this logic is sound, the number of chat minutes per day will go down, which means less bandwidth will be used to serve those chat minutes... which means TC's bandwidth costs will also go down.
The chat minutes lost will be those that were previously used by IRC chatters who weren't seeing any ads anyway, correct? So since those chatters already weren't seeing any ads, TC wasn't getting any revenue from those chat minutes anyway, correct?
Hmm. Let's see here. According to this theory, chat minutes used will go down, which means costs will go down, while revenue will stay where it already is. Hmm. And this will anger the stockholders because...??
Think this through a little farther, Mr. Coward. Disruption and harassment of the majority of regular users will go down. Costs for bandwidth used by a minority of users that don't generate revenue will go down. Expenses involved to dealing with the disruptions will also go down.
Net revenues will actually improve. Shared user experience will improve. Talk City's overall expense-to-income ratio will improve. You know, it seems to me that this is usually is the kind of thing that shareholders and investors and partners *like* to hear...
There are an awful lot of misconceptions and erroneous assumptions floating around the Net about this particular issue, Anonymous, and posts like yours indicate that more accurate information is needed here.
While I don't want to clutter up this thread with longer and more detailed explanations of the various issues involved, I did take the liberty of putting them up on a Web page that you might want to take a few minutes to look at:
http://home.talkcity.com/migrationpath/rixter_irc
cheers,
Rick Albertson
Talk City, Inc.