I miss the kind strangers who genuinely cared about helping others without being abrasive jerks. I learned a lot on IRC; made many new friends. This was back in 1994–98 when I was growing up in Turkey. The scene was rather small yet still full of kind enthusiasts. Sure there was some passingly “oh you’re a n00b” messing but it wasn’t toxic. EFNet and DalNet were a bit more different. Maybe less kind but still full of helpful people. If you weren’t grossly stepping out of boundaries of netiquette, you’d get treated with reciprocal dignity.