blog: forming irc(s) links

_posts/2015-05-18-ircs_links.md

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+---
+layout: post
+comments: true
+title: "irc & ircs links"
+category: [english]
+tags: [english, IRC]
+---
+
+*Yet another note-to-self post, but these links are confusing, how do you
+make proper irc:// or ircs:// link?*
+
+I started wondering about the proper way to make irc/ircs links today and
+based on the following addresses
+
+* 2015-05-18 https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/prov/ircs
+* 2015-05-18 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-butcher-irc-url-04
+
+I decide that the correct form which I will use is
+`ircs://irc.example.org:6697/#channel,##channel,!channel`.
+
+* specifies that the link uses SSL with the *s* (for plain text just remove
+  it)
+* specifies the port so client doesn't have to guess it
+* clearly specifies the channels without leaving prefixes for the client
+  to guess
+
+The previously linked pages also contain other forms, but this seems the
+best to me and I am against using channel keys as there are better ways
+to keep channel private (such as restricted or +i and +I to authorized
+people) and server passwords aren't used anywhere where I would encounter
+them, other than forwarding the password to NickServ, but that is depracted
+by [SASL](http://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/sasl-3.1.html).