Yeah I forgot all about this. Also a lot of anti-Semitism. You had to have some thick skin on the old internet.

He’s completely, totally, and absolutely incorrect.

I spent decades on IRC starting in the early 90s, and this is a politically-driven contemporary re-imagination of what existed at the time.

We were open to all because we ourselves didn’t fit in elsewhere.

This is obviously going to depend on the space, but I suspect many of the white participants simply won't remember it because the bigotry was both casual and just euphemistic enough.

I don't think there are IRC logs from the 90s, apart from bash.org, but we could check Usenet archives to see how inclusive (or not) it was back then.

Some communities did have a lot of virulently racist and make-chauvinist trolling. The infamous 4chan forum culture didn't just spring up out of thin air, after all. It's a bit harder to tell whether that was anywhere close to representative, of course.

Yeah but 4chan and sites like it are shit. Why even go there? For one of those low tier sites there were hundreds of forums and communities which were normal.

Not a valid data point. You’re picking some fringe element and assuming the whole internet is like that.

I think 4chan can hardly be put in the same category as freenode channels. It's just an incredible leap in reasoning in my experience with both (albeit not much experience with 4chan, others than the occasional snippet I've seen online)

> We were open to all because we ourselves didn’t fit in elsewhere.

Yes, totally, most of us were indeed social misfits. But many of us also instead of being empathic and understand what was the real issue there, simply perpetrate the same abuse to someone else who was in a weaker position.

with all of the evidence you've provided to back up your claims, i'm so glad you took the time out of your day to enlighten us all. you fit the very types of posts that was being discussed.

My experience is different, too. I've never experienced these racist/sexists IRC communities in the past either. Sure, there'd be the occasional asshole like everywhere else online, but they'd get warned (and banned eventually).

Why is your comment so passive aggressive, though? While the counter claim hasn't presented any proof, the same holds true for the original claim.

You seem to be only thinking critically of the comment that goes against your confirmation bias. It's not a good habit to have.

> My experience is different, too. I've never experienced these racist/sexists IRC communities in the past either. Sure, there'd be the occasional asshole like everywhere else online, but they'd get warned (and banned eventually).

Would you be part of the target audience, back then? Or you were part of the main group and just remember that "nobody was harassing nobody"?

Disclaimer: White gay man here.

So, I experienced homophobia first hand at least.

I've never felt like the communities (any of the tech related ones) were anything but wholesome, though.

Bullshit was immediately called out, and in more severe cases handled by ops (as was I in a few channels).

Again, we are talking about COMMUNITIES. Not INDIVIDUALS.

So, I guess I was (somewhat) in the privileged white male group, but that doesn't mean I'm illiterate or can't reason and feel empathy.

just dismissing someone else's claims out of hand because they don't fit your personal experience--while not on the same level of negative as making actual racists posts--it's not helpful to say the least.

when someone makes posts of their personal experience, the follow up posts that claim "my experience is different" proves what? are you honestly suggesting you're having a better experience? that's great for you. are you trying to make the the original poster jealous and feel superior?

are you suggesting, "keep your head up because it's not that way everywhere so don't let 'em ruin it for you"?

are you trying to argue and say they are wrong because their experience differs from yours so it must not be true?

but to tell someone that they are totally incorrect about their very on personal experience is just baffling

I can't tell if your questions are genuine or not, since they seem passive aggressive. But I'll humour you:

They made a blanket statement about how all of IRC is a racists/sexists shithole. They obviously have some unresolved resentment, and I am not denying it seems from a bad experience; certainly wouldn't from good ones.

My comment wasn't meant to make them feel bad (maybe that's something you indulge in, given your comment etiquette).

It was meant to offer a different perspective—of someone who was a part of some of those large communities. And I was involved in a lot of technical ones on Freenode around 2000s. Those communities put a lot of effort into inclusivity (and was an operator in some) and generally making everyone feel welcomed.

So it feels a bit like a spit in the face to see someone going around talking about technical IRC channels being Xist.

I'm not sure when they added the EDIT to their original post, but the hypocrisy added another layer of annoyance, trying to invalidate any comment speaking about their experience and writing off authors as "omnipotent IRC Gods" when nobody here but them is talking blanket statement bullshit.

Edit: I'm not saying there's weren't racist/homophonic/whatever communities on IRC. I know a lot of shitty fandom channels I joined and promptly left to find better ones. So yes they were out there.

Edit 2: Also, I think I took their comment too personally, given I was there and I know how much effort was put into making it feel welcoming for everyone.

Also, I find it ludicrous you're trying to tell me off for commenting online—whilst you yourself are commenting online—and claiming my experiences don't matter, but another person's do, all in an attempt paint me as doing the same lol. But anyway, I digress.

The original comment I replied to:

"He’s completely, totally, and absolutely incorrect."

that's a very very bold comment to make about someone else's personal experience. what you're going on about seems very strange in this context. it's not like they said, "this person's experience is totally different from mine". No, they said the guy is absolutely wrong. that's where all credibility fails for me. to be correct, that would mean there was never a case of harassment, racist, homophobic, or any other kinds of negative experiences on any of the interweb services regardless of how early days it was. that's just an odd hill to die on for protection of one's memories of the early web.

What evidence did the person he replied to provide to back up his claims? Or does he get a pass from providing facts because of... reasons that are related to DEI initiatives on your part?

I believe they call this "the soft bigotry of low expectations"

I was never on IRC much but I spent an awful lot of time on usenet and he's a lot more correct than you are.

That was my experience as well.

absolutely not...the amount of homophobia and racism and antisemitism and nationalism etc... was pretty intense compared to what you see in most parts of the current internet.

IRC tended towards super edge humor and was a big piece of like early internet culture generators like somethingawful and 4chan.