mostly (and still) on the un-encrypted IRC :D
No one seems to be chatting about anything, the only messages I see are logging people joining and leaving. One time I left an irc client open for hours and i finally saw some other human asked a question. After that , more nothing, I don't think anyone replied to them. These servers often show 100s or 1000s online too!
Am I doing something wrong, or am I missing something I need to use irc?
I used to keep a few channels open at work all day long in 2007. #j2me, #java, #c. The conversation was active with no more than a few minutes of silence at a time. People would say good morning at the start of the day, goodbye at the end, they would talk about their weekend. It was like a virtual break room where you could ask tech questions (except #c was hostile to questions, those guys were weird) and make friendships.
It’s not just less active now. It’s dead every time I look.
It's not dead. You're just in the wrong severs.
I wouldn't call it dead at all.
I run a The Lounge[0] instance on a cheap VPS.
Honestly, I think things started declining when the original jjava bot got wiped :( RIP, jjava.
But yes, IRC channels in those days didn't take kindly to questions from people who didn't bother reading the docs, and imho that was a very good thing. Nobody properly learns by being spoonfed.
2. Most channels have a time of day when they're alive. That may not be when you're in them.
3. Turn off/Suppress the join/leave messages in busy channels. You'll be happier.
Checking my IRC client since yesterday, there's at least 500 new messages in almost all channels I've joined. Some more popular channels like #linux have constant conversations going.
If you're in a channel at the same time as other people, it's fairly common for it to be active. Assuming interesting things to talk about. ;)