Have channels default to secret?

[DanielOaks]

I really like the idea of doing this. Right now channels default to +nt but no +s. What expectations do normal users have and do we lose anything by setting +s by default? Wonder what other ircds default to and whether anyone not as inside the irc bubble has thoughts about it.

[bogdomania]

Why would a channel be +s by default? any chan founder can /mode #channame +s after creation. In case of a large deployment, with hundreds of channels, they won't show up in /list

[slingamn]

There's no limit on the LIST response length in oragono, so they'll show up somewhere.

What are the use cases for secret channels, as opposed to channels with join restrictions (like +i)?

[bogdomania]

well.. according to good `ol Wiki..

s - Secret channel—not shown in channel list or user whois except to users already on the channel

Chan Modes I don't see any reasonable point to force +s channels by default.

[slingamn]

+s seems hacky as a privacy protection to me, like +k but weaker.

I do like this proposal as an anti-spam measure (since bots can't just connect to the server, find the most populated channels, and spam them); however, it might be better to have an option to restrict access to LIST output (I've seen setups where anonymous users can't LIST for the first 60 seconds of their connection).

[Mikaela]

I think ZNC defaults are +snt and I have seen at least one Ergo user confused by it not being default mode.

However I find this question as something where everyone may have a different opinion and there may not be one real answer.

Personally I have enabled +s as default in my instances as:

• I originally had a bot I pointed to my instance from another server so it created a lot of empty channels where it was idling until I got around to cleaning those so +s avoided cluttering the list
• when initially creating channels on my instance (without importing db from another network), most of the channels I wanted to be private or invite-only so +s as default was one mode less to set.
• once channel has been created and seen on /list, it can be difficult to hide again, and as said before, +s is easy to enable works the other way too, it's easy to disable as well. It may also be difficult to hide once it has been seen in /list.
  • as I said, to me this seems as something opinionated and not something where it's easy to give a single answer 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Mikaela]

IRCd default channel modes:

• Charybdis +nt https://github.com/charybdis-ircd/charybdis/blob/charybdis-4.1.2/doc/reference.conf#L828
  • Solanum +nt https://github.com/solanum-ircd/solanum/blob/e370888264da666a1bd9faac86cd5f2aa06084f4/doc/reference.conf#L778
• IRCd hybrid: didn't hit my eyes at https://github.com/ircd-hybrid/ircd-hybrid/blob/8.2.38/doc/reference.conf
• InspIRCd: +not https://github.com/inspircd/inspircd/blob/v3.10.0/docs/conf/inspircd.conf.example#L653
  • what is a +o? A die option for operator not reading through the config?
• Nefarious2: none? https://github.com/evilnet/nefarious2/blob/2.0/doc/example.conf#L1200-L1201
  • at least it says "AUTOCHANMODES" = "FALSE"; and "AUTOCHANMODES_LIST" = "";
• txircd: +nt https://github.com/ElementalAlchemist/txircd/blob/v0.2.7/txircd.yaml-example#L168