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c1THE BLESSINGS & CURSES OF IRC
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c3BY DARKHAWK/IRIS
as
c2Many people in the scene have a modem 
nowadays or are otherwise connected to
the c5internet. c2Once there, you will
eventually be drawn into the Amiga 
scene specific IRC channel called 
c5#Amigascne. c2This is an interesting 
place for several reasons, and it 
certainly warrants an article about 
the dangers and benefits at being 
online on that, and other IRC 
channels.

At first sight, it seems like a new
world opens up for you, you meet a lot
of fellow sceners, chat with them,
exchange ideas, watch the famous
persons fool around, you get a lot of
stuff faster, you might even come to
meet your own groupmembers on the
channel, exchanging work and ideas
with them, and timing the making of a 
production from there. Thus, at first 
sight, the c5IRC seems like a blessing,
c2and the circle of sceners you get to 
know expands dramatically.

So, the positive things about the IRC
is the c5communication, c2the people you
can get to know, the easier access to
productions and knowhow. On top of
that, the relationship in your group 
can also improve dramatically when 
everybody is online and meets there. 
The IRC seems to be a very sociable 
place with a lot of blessings for the 
new IRC'er.

However, after a certain amount of
time has passed, after you have been
regularely online on #Amigascne, a
different picture begins to show
itself, and then you will see and
perhaps experience for yourself the
downside of IRC and the Amigascne
channel.

If you become addicted to your daily
dose of IRC, your motivation for doing
scenework will go down, regardless of
you only spending your IRC time on a
scene channel. When going online, you
will not have enough motivation left
to log off and do some serious
scenework, no, you will not be able to
log off, even if you feel like you
should, you will hang around, hoping
to chat a bit more with some person.
c5The IRC will sort off leech your
motivation right out of you, c2until the
point where you just sit infront of
your IRC screen and wait for something
to happen. Even if you do not end like
that, you will spend some time on the
IRC, time which had better been spent
doing scenework, especially if you
only hang out on scenechannels anyway.
You might get inspired and recharged
for scenework by being on e.g.
#Amigascne, but beyond a certain
point, things will work in the exact
opposite way, so you have to be real
careful and find the golden
middlepath.

One of the positive aspects about IRC,
that about c5getting to know a lot of
people, c2is also one of the negative
aspects. Chatting via the IRC will
only get you that far, you will not be
able to really get to know the
people you chat with, you have to meet
people in the real life too, to
experience c5real social interaction.
c2However, it seems that if you hang out
on the IRC a lot, you come to think of
social interaction as synonymous with
chatting, and you loose a lot in this
way, not only being able to booze with
other people, hehe. In other words, if
you overdo chatting, your relationship
with other chatters will have a
somewhat shallow character, especially
if you do not feel it neccessary to
meet up with them in real life.

Besides those points, c5#Amigascne is
really a somewhat sad place c2in some
ways. There are usually atleast 20
'people' online, but if you sort away
ex. sceners, bots and idlers, there's
only 2-3 people left out of 20, heh.
It might take some time to notice, but
the activity level of the channel is
quite low. Some interesting people
start interesting discussions about
the scene now and then, but mostly
there is just long periods of silence
or a lot of small talk about PC games
or the like, by some lame c5ex. sceners
still sticking around on their PC's
c2because they have nothing else to do.
Eheh, upps.. Other ex. sceners are
nice enough though, and you can get
some interesting discussions with
them. That's also the mainpoint about
#Amigascne I guess, not the general
activity level but more that you can
meet up and chat privately with a lot
of different sceners whom you can get
to know. However, the general channel
can be a very depressing experience
too. If most of those people present 
on #Amigascne actually WERE the scene, 
we would be totally dead now, hehe.

c5The conclusion.. Nothing that is good
is completely good, and nothing that
is bad is completely bad. c2The IRC most
certainly has its uses, but you have
to be real careful if you don't want
your scenish motivation to suffer.
Otherwise you will become like what
seems to be the mainpart of the people 
on #Amigascne, a collection of 
has-been's and never-will-be's, who 
just hang around, who have had the 
spirit leeched out of them, or who
have never even possesed the spirit.

And I didn't mean to insult any active
sceners here, new or old, only to warn 
them; c5handle the IRC with care, c2or 
risk loosing your scenish motivation!


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