Exploratory conversation analysis of ten logs from two public channels on Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, collected over two weeks. The study examines silences in chat, and whether people or the system caused them.
Two public channels#australia and #penpals, crowded English-language channels with no agenda for talk.
Ten logsLogs collected over two weeks, mornings on #australia and evenings on #penpals.
How IRC worksClaims about the system's design draw on participant observation, the IRC protocol, its history and operator guides.
Close analysisTurn by turn analysis of conspicuous cases where users treated a silence as a problem.
BWhat the study found
Silences the system makeswhere the chat system's design produced non-responses
•In these logs, newcomers' openings could go unanswered despite repeated, varied attempts.One user got only one somewhat ongoing interaction out of 20 possible openings. The server's automatic join notice gives little reason to respond.
•In these channels, a regular using a different nickname might go unrecognised.No program reserved nicknames, so a regular who could not get their usual one might not be greeted by people who knew them.
•In these logs, network lag and fast scrolling made users miss messages.Lag is an extreme slow-down in message exchange. One lagged user kept checking the connection even while others were greeting them.
•IRC commands such as /ignore and /ban create silences by design.Commands that block, eject or ban users produce non-responses, while /away lets users explain their own absence in advance.
How users handled silencechoosing silence and pursuing a response
•In these logs, users sometimes chose not to respond and could blame the medium.Because system and human silences look alike, users could threaten others' face, meaning public self-image, or withdraw from threats to their own.
•Users facing an unclear silence often tried easier remedies before harder ones.Users reconnected, greeted again and checked connections. The paper argues that pursuing a response on IRC extends to checking whether a silence was human or technical.
CKey takeaway
Chat systems can produce system-occasioned non-responses that look like being ignored, so people may first check whether a silence is human or technical. Showing presence and explaining silences can help.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
The design of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) affords for, and itself produces, non-response situations that are not possible in FTF or telephone interaction. These system-occasioned non-responses produce almost isomorphic stimuli to participant non-responses. Situations thus arise in which nonresponses are interpersonally accountable despite agentive ambiguity. This study explores four intersections of participant-action and system-occasioned non-responses. An extension to Pomerantz's (1984b) 'pursuing a response' problems/solutions is proposed. The impact of IRC's design on its popularity is discussed in contrast to more recent chat systems. Suggestions are made for active and passive presence and non-response accounting features in future chat systems.
Research brief
By Sean Rintel, Jeffery Pittam, and Joan Mulholland.
Takeaway: Chat users may extend conversation analysis's 'pursuing a response'. When silence might be lag rather than being ignored, they often reconnect, re-greet and check connections, because system-occasioned silences look like human ones.
Why this matters
What was known
Face-to-face and telephone research shows non-responses are meaningful and are pursued. For text chat there were mostly general claims that fewer cues increase ambiguity. There is little detailed research on non-responses in CMC systems in general or IRC in particular(§Non-Responses, CMC, and IRC, p. 2)
What this paper adds
A conversation-analytic look at four places where IRC's own design produces silences, reading chat logs alongside the protocol and operators' documentation, with a comparison to the presence features of newer chat systems. So, it may be argued that, in IRC (and perhaps other CMC systems), 'pursuing a response' is extended to clarifying that nonresponse is in fact a matter of participant-action and not system-occasioned.(§Discussion and Conclusions, p. 11)
Who it matters to
Designers of chat and messaging systems, and researchers of computer-mediated communication. The design message from this study is that users crave proof of connection to one another, and ways of being alerted to, and accounting for, non-responses.(§Discussion and Conclusions, p. 11)
Research questions
How do participant-action and system-occasioned non-responses intersect in IRC interaction, in opening turn-coordination, presenting or determining user identity, transmission-reception, and IRC commands?
How do IRC users deal with ambiguous non-responses, and how does this extend Pomerantz's (1984b) account of pursuing a response?
Method and data
Design
Exploratory qualitative study: ethnomethodological, micro-level description of interaction informed by conversation analysis and ethnography (participant observation and secondary sources on IRC's design).
Setting
Two public, primarily English-speaking IRC channels with no agenda for talk, #australia and #penpals.
Participants / data
Ten logs of IRC interactions. #australia logged from 7:00 to 8:30am and #penpals from 7:00 to 8:30pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time).
Duration
Logs collected over a two week period.
Analysis
Qualitative analysis of conspicuous cases in which users problematised non-responses. Claims about IRC's design based on participant observation, the IRC protocol statement RFC1459, an IRC history, operator guides and a user primer.
Findings
Openings went unanswered. Newcomers to a public IRC channel could fail to start any conversation despite persistent, varied attempts. One user got only one somewhat ongoing interaction out of 20 possible openings. The server's automatic join notice gives little help: #
“the ambiguous nature of the AJE provides few structural or social requirements for newly-joined users or existing channel members to either produce or respond to initiation attempts”
A different nickname goes unrecognised. No program reserved nicknames on the channels we logged, so a regular user who could not get their usual one might not be recognised or greeted by people who knew them. #
“IRC's nick allocation design can problematize respondable-to identities”
Lag looks like being ignored. Network lag and fast-scrolling channels made users miss messages. One lagged user kept checking their connection even while others were greeting them. #
“lag is a system-occasioned non-response that looks the same as participant-action non-response”
Silence can be a choice. Users could also deliberately not respond, exploiting the lack of visual cues or blaming the medium, which lets them both threaten others' face and withdraw from threats to their own. #
“[participant-action] and system-occasioned non-response both allows for face-threatening action and, conversely, the ability for users to withdraw from face-threat”
Commands build in silence. IRC commands that block, eject or ban users (/ignore, /kick, /ban, /kill) create non-responses by design, while /away lets users explain their own absence in advance. #
“Commands are the ultimate intersection of participant-action and system-occasioned non-responses”
Easiest fix first. Facing a silence they could not interpret, users often tried easier remedies before more demanding ones, suggesting that pursuing a response can include checking whether the silence was human or technical. #
“On IRC, 'clarification', such as it is, takes the form of reconnecting, re-greeting, and connection-checking”
Questions this paper answers
Why do people feel ignored in online chat rooms?
Because chat systems produce silences of their own. Network delays, messages scrolled out of view and unrecognised nicknames create gaps that look almost exactly like someone choosing not to reply. So users cannot easily tell neglect from technical trouble. (See §Non-Responses in Opening Turn-Coordination, p. 5; §Nick Instability, p. 6; §Lag, p. 7.)
How do chat users work out whether they are being ignored or their connection is lagging?
By trying easier remedies before more demanding ones. They reconnect and greet again, then ask outright, as in 'can anyone see me now?'. On IRC, pursuing a response included checking whether a silence was human or technical, and users had no definitive way to fix lag. (See §Lag, p. 7; §Discussion and Conclusions, p. 11.)
Chat systems should help users show presence and account for non-responses. The design message from this study is that users crave proof of connection to one another, and ways of being alerted to, and accounting for, non-responses.(§Discussion and Conclusions, p. 11)
Newer systems with stable nicks, online indicators and typing notifications (ICQ, instant messengers) grew faster than IRC, possibly because they handle non-responses better.
Future research could systematically examine how experienced and inexperienced users differ in managing non-responses.
Limitations
Claims are exploratory, often based on conspicuous cases, and some are inferential rather than empirical. The status of the claims made in this study are exploratory and often based on conspicuous cases.(§Data and Methodology, p. 3)
Findings come from crowded, agenda-less public channels and may not hold elsewhere. They may not be representative of all IRC channels, private IRC interactions, or other typographic chat systems(§Data and Methodology, p. 3)
Data come from English-speaking channels, and cultures attach different meanings to non-responses.
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Concepts
Non-response
The conversation-analytic sense of the term: hesitations or delays in response to actions that solicit responses in a sequential interaction environment(§Non-Responses as Interactionally and Interpersonally Meaningful, pp. 1–2)
Participant-action versus system-occasioned non-responses
Silences caused by people versus silences produced by the chat system. On IRC: while non-responses may be system-occasioned or result from participant-action, they ambiguously intersect(§Non-Responses, CMC, and IRC, p. 2)
Automated Joining Event (AJE)
The server message announcing that a user has joined a channel. An Automated Joining Event (AJE), appears before every user's entry into IRC which has similarities (as a mechanized explicit introductory device) to the summons of a telephone ring.(§Non-Responses in Opening Turn-Coordination, p. 4)
Lag
Our definition: Lag is an extreme slow-down of message exchange times caused by latencies in the Internet's packet-switched transmission-reception system.(§Lag, p. 7)
How to cite
Sean Rintel, Jeffery Pittam, and Joan Mulholland. 2003. Time Will Tell: Ambiguous Non-Responses on Internet Relay Chat. The Electronic Journal of Communication / La Revue Electronic de Communication 13 (1).
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@article{rintel2003time,
author = {Rintel, Sean and Pittam, Jeffery and Mulholland, Joan},
title = {Time Will Tell: Ambiguous Non-Responses on Internet Relay Chat},
year = {2003},
month = {March},
publisher = {CIOS},
url = {https://seanrintel.com/publications/time-will-tell-ambiguous-non-responses-on-internet-relay-chat.html},
journal = {The Electronic Journal of Communication / La Revue Electronic de Communication},
volume = {13},
edition = {The Electronic Journal of Communication / La Revue Electronic de Communication},
number = {1},
note = {Rintel, E.S., Pittam, J., & Mulholland, J. 2003. Time will tell: Ambiguous non-responses on Internet Relay Chat. The Electronic Journal of Communication, 13, (1).
Online version is free and best version (Use Publisher URL)},
}