Communication

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Communicating with other people online is a vital part of modern day computing, and because it is so vital everyone deemed it a good idea to build their own way of communicating, and now there's a billion different ways of talking to someone online. This guide will attempt to go over the main ways of communicating, and some of the autistic ways too.

Note: This page treats "protocols" and "platforms" the same. However they are fundamentally different. Know the difference between a protocol and a platform

Synchronous Communication (Real time)

Synchronous communication is when messages are received and sent at the same time by both parties. You can think of this as "real time" messaging. Thinks like irc, instant messaging, VOIP are all forms of synchronous communication as messages are transmitted and received "instantly".

Recommended

• IRC - Considered "dead" by anyone that doesn't know the difference between a compiler and an interpreter. Still popular(ish) among tech people/communities (although it is admittedly dead for all other discussion). There are many /g/ associated channels
• Matrix.org - There were too many different ways to communicate with people, and matrix.org was a protocol made to try and fix this. By creating another way of communicating with people. But they swear this one will work; Its designed to be able to work with most of the already existing platforms/protocols. You can connect to all your favorite irc channels while in matrix, talk to furries on telegram and your boss on slack, all in a single place.
• Telegram - Made by some Russian dude. Claims to be privacy focused but has some design features that you wouldn't immediately think of as being all that privacy focused, however the Russian dude does a good job of defending and rationalizing the design decisions.
• Mumble - Basically like IRC but for voice and more dead. Some /g/-like (but not associated with /g/) servers floating around. If you want to talk to a friend however then mumble is minimal setup, good quality and many free servers available.

Not-Recommended

• Discord - Probably deserves its own page on why you shouldn't use it. Richard Stallman makes some points here. Also its /v/ trash. Replacement; Matrix.org or IRC+Mumble
• Skype - Because its owned by Microsoft, gives away your ip, and is dead for anything other than business conferences. Replacement: depends what you used Skype for.
• Slack - Discord but not for gamers. Replacement: Mattermost
• Facebook Messenger - Because its owned by Facebook. Replacement: Telegram
• Kik - Because its for children and pedos. You will be v&. Replacement: stop stalking kids.
• WhatsApp - Because its also owned by Facebook. Replacement: Telegram

Asynchronous Communication

The opposite to synchronous communication. Messages have """delay""", as in you are not expected to be reading the messages as soon as they are sent. The most common is email. The primary advantage of Asynchronous Communication is that people generally spend more time thinking about what they write, and it tends to be closer to the style of a letter. This contrasts to the style of synchronous communication in which people send messages as if they were talking to each other in the same room. Carefully thought out responses vs first thing that comes to your head.

• Email
• Online forums (and imageboards)
• Wiki talk pages
• Social networks