13 years ago we launched our IRC Channel on the Efnet Network; a year later the first version of SAX was released by KermMartian. A few years after SAX was released, the IRC-SAX bridge was permanently brought online and helped establish instant chat as a cornerstone of the Cemetech community.

Now, after a suggestion from mets11rap, we now have a Discord server that is bridged to IRC! So, feel free to join our Discord server by clicking the image below and join in on the discussion!

Discord is a nasty, proprietary service that sells your data and has a dubious business model.

I'm sticking with IRC.

Are there open source alternatives? Sure. MatterMost and Mumble come to mind. But honestly, the alternatives don't have the reach and appeal Discord does; they tripled their users in a year which is phenomenal.

Cemetech is a rather niche community, so being able to tap into an incredibly vast and established user base is invaluable. With 145 million (and counting) Discord users, visitors will join who are interested in programming but haven't created an account. They'll be able to ask questions and and get results. Through this communication they'll create an account on the forum and use our tools and services.

With an alternative, Cemetech members and visitors who would want to join our chat would need to create an account on yet another service.

Is IRC great? Yes. I love it. However, times are changing and we need to capitalize on these opportunities. My younger cousins don't understand IRC. They see it as archaic. "Why send text when you can send memes?" It's like texting. I remember when my phone could send text and photos. That's it. Now I can send gifs, I can include backgrounds and text effects, I can attach stickers and reactions to text messages my friends or I send.

It's a different world than when IRC was started. We need to realize that. I hate that it's proprietary too but I'm not going to keep the artificially high barrier of entry to this community because of that. With the amount of users on Discord, it'll be so much easier for others who are interested to join in.

Yeah. The thing is that we are in 2018, not 2002. We have to adapt and deal with it.

Additional channels have been added!

• #welcome contains our Rules and any relevant welcome messages or announcements.
  
• #cemetech is connected to the forum, so you can chat with folks on IRC and SAX.
  
• #disconnected is out off-topic channel. If there are on-topic discussions going on in #cemetech please direct your conversations to this channel.
  
  
• #programming is for generic programming chatter, breakout specific discussions in the appropriate channels.
  
• #ti-basic is best used for Axe, ICE, and other BASIC-hybrid languages as well as pure TI-BASIC.
  
• #z80-ez80 is for those particular languages
  
• #computer is for programming related to programming languages like C.
  
• #java can always be renamed but we have a matching forum on the website here.
  
• #webdev again mimics a forum here on the site but it's definitely a much more active area. This will start as a front end and back end and if it gains in popularity, we'll split it off to different channels.
  
  
• There are currently no running contests otherwise there'd be a channel here.
  
  
• #gaming-general is to discuss everything games. Did you get a game you want play with others? Share steam names?
  
• Voice chat is for games and teams. If you're playing a game with other Cemetechians, join a Game Chat voice channel. If you guys are playing against each other in teams, pick teams and join a respective channel.

So, if you have a Discord account and would like to join in please feel free! If there are any channels you think we should add please let us know in this topic or on Discord!

Why?

Sorry to disappoint, Nikky xd

Agreed. saxjax has a purpose of connecting site visitors to IRC. This discord bridge is just a weird link that tries to duplicate functionality? I don't get it, and can't believe Kerm agreed to it.

There isnt a channel for hardware and stuff like that >.>

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll make one! I'll start it off as a general hardware channel and create specific channels for it as the discussion grows.

Also, in 2.5 weeks since the Discord officially launched we have 79 members; a few members don't have accounts on Cemetech and are already asking questions about TI-BASIC, which is awesome.

I've added our first bot to the server. With this bot you can use custom commands and "level up."

Presently, the custom commands are:

!offtopic - Encourage users to take the conversation to the appropriate channel.

!topic - Ask users to create a topic on the forum.

!volunteers - Remind users that we're all volunteers here.

Leveling Up is something I'm entertaining. Currently you earn "experience points" by sending messages in any of the non-general channels, with the exception of "Hardware" and "Programming" (which you will earn experience points in). I'm not sure how the bot handles leveling up but I currently award a role which gives users a color in chat and priority when in voice chats. I intend to expand upon this as time goes on based on how this works, how well this is perceived, and feedback. It should go without saying, but please don't spam the channels to level up. !!This only works in Discord!!

Messages sent over IRC or SAX don't get you experience because (1) the bot ignores the IRC-Discord bridge, (2) even if didn't ignore the bridge it'd only see CemetechIRC as the user posting in the channel, and (3) the #cemetech channel on Discord does not count towards your experience points anyways. Again, this may not stay as I currently don't see any value to it but I'm interested to try it out.

Additionally, the bot will announce new users to the server since the native join messages aren't passed along to IRC/SAX.

The discord is seeing incredible adoption - currently at 83 members! - but not a lot of utilization. But it's okay, we'll grow into it

There are some discussions happening in #ti-basic as well as #hardware. Stop by to join in on the conversation!

Almost a year later we are at 167 members. Activity is pretty strong and we've added quite a few channels as a result. We now have two channels dedicated to contests: brainstorming ideas as well as discussing the current contest underway.

We have a channel for creativity to share photographs, paintings, wood carvings, and anything else. As discussions grew in #creativity, two channels devoted to music were created. So whether you want to share music you've made/found or discuss anything related to music we have you covered.

On another note, thanks to a suggestion from UDXS it's now easier for folks on Discord to differentiate between IRC users as the bot now changes its nickname based on who chats in IRC. As a bonus, if your Discord and IRC usernames match, the bot will also copy your Discord profile photo too. As you can see with Jeffitus's message. 🤯


Another quality of life improvement is that the bot should now auto-join when it gets disconnected from IRC server or the IRC channel.