Channels, and why they don't work how they wish I would

A lot of times, I want to be in a channel with a bunch of other people, but I don't really care about the topic of the channel. The very nature of IRC channels is very seperatist: you're in one or the other, you can't be in some mix of both.

For example, I enjoy a lot of the people in #swig: they're interesting, and they talk about interesting things. However, it's a very strictly controlled topic: wandering off topic tends to lend glares at you, for some reason I don't quite understand. So, rather than just hanging out there, and contributing when I feel like it (which most of the time starts slightly off topic and heads more so), I don't feel comfortable being there.

What I really want is something that can be more of a gathering place; someplace where I can sit around and watch various topics. What I want is more along the lines of a cross between a MUD and IRC. The problem with MUDs it that you can only be in one place at one time. The problem with IRC is that you can't move between places(/topics) easily. If there was some way to have a more "current topic" than "always the topic" aspect to IRC (which is something that discussion in MUDs seems to typically have), that would be cool.

This thought was inspired by the fact that danbri is here, and danbri is someone I find quite interesting: he's always got some new neat project up his sleeve (even if, like me, they're mostly incomplete ;)). But I don't see him around all that much cause he's always busy with something. So, it would be cool to just be able to follow danbri around and see what he's currently working on. Of course, then I would waste even more time of my day on IRC, which wouldn't be useful

Kandinski points out (Hooray, somewhat collaborative writing) that sbp had a mechanism to enact this: he had a secondary client that was basically all conversation in one window, IIRC. (That was sbp`.) However, this 1. means yet another IRC client connection for me. Given that there's already 9 or 10 client connections coming through my house, i don't really want to flood the channel more every time the connection dies than I already do. and 2. doesn't really complete all the goals that I'm working towards: it means that I'd have to either deal with all conversation in one window (ick) or just be back to the equivilant of what I had when I was sitting in every channel, just so I wouldn't miss anything.

I suppose what would work would be a way to give "priority" to messages. So, everything goes in one window, then I have swhack which is "Loud" and foaf which is "not so loud" and swig which I could just review if someone mentioned redland or something. The thought behind this is based around my MUD idea: When you're on a MUD, you can hear local poeple if they "say", and you can hear people in the area if they "yell", and you can hear people mudwide if they "gossip" So, I can wander around to different channels, but if something interesting happens in nanother channel, I want to see it no matter what: vis the swig/redland example at which point I can jump to that location and watch all the conversation there

The biggest probloem is that I just have too much information flowing at me: I typically sit in ~ 10-15 IRC channels. So there's just too much stuff flying by. I think that part of this problem could be fixed with figuring out how to adjust the hilight levels in irssi. I'll have to look into that.

Anyway, just some rambling thoughts, as well as a semi-explanation on why I'm not in #swig now/as much.