That’s what I thought until I learned that history really seems to refer to persistence. So if you’re not connected, you won’t get messages, even after you reconnect? For many that’s not very useful.
> So if you’re not connected, you won’t get messages
That's true, if you're not connected, you don't receive messages.
> even after you reconnect?
That's not true, once you're connected, you start receiving messages again.
> For many that’s not very useful.
Yeah, I understand it isn't useful if your perspective is that you should be able to read what happened when you were away. But I guess my previous point is that people shouldn't have to do that, there should be another resource for catching up what happened when you were away, and instead it should be OK to return without having to read through all the messages.
I think this is the number one reason more people don't end up using IRC nowadays. The flow for newer, younger users is:
- Use some software project, want to ask a question, see they have an "IRC channel"
- Hopefully it's a hyperlink to an IRC web chat, or else they'll have to do a lot of research to find out what IRC is
- Join the web chat link, see a room with a list of names
- See no messages
- Ask a question
- Wait ten minutes, get no reply
- Assume it's just dead and leave
The ability to see older messages would be a huge boon, and to see messages between connections as well. I've seen it happen that a user joins a channel, they leave because nobody talked to them, somebody answers their question after they leave, they rejoin, they ask the question again, then disconnect.
