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Are old IRC chats discoverable over Google? I don't see any in my results. This was a stated aim of the forum

It's usually done by publishing IRC logs on a webpage.

Examples: - https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/latest/%23ubuntu.html - http://irc.yoctoproject.org/irc/%23yocto.2024-01-05.log.html

How discoverable it is on Google depends only on Google and on how those logs are stored.

Forum threads inherently have better searchability, because conversations are split into separate pages, with a clear subject/title, and usually a description of what the thread is about at the beginning of the page.

In theory IRC logs could be organized appropriately. But that would require some kind of curation, either manual or via AI, that doesn't really happen in practice, even when irc logs are published.

Not true; it’s usually simply not done at all.

With IRC it is/was common that people run loggers and publish them. In the past IRC conversations, especially in tech/support channels, were easily found. Today you don't find many on Google, but that problem was already solved way better than it is today.

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