New Website, Discord & IRC Integration!
We’re thrilled to announce some major improvements to Debauched Tea Party that will make it easier than ever to stay connected with our community and access fresh content. After months of planning and development, we’ve launched our newly redesigned website and implemented seamless communication bridging between Discord and IRC. The Discord Server is still “Under Construction” it is publically accessible but we have yet to setup bots and roles for a majority of the features. This is a work in progress and will be available to use shortly. From our Discord you will be able to tune into our radio via the voice channels, request tracks, put in a request to DJ, use our learning bot with a huge number of free Try Hack Me rooms and courses, get firmware updates and direct flashing links for a number of devices and chat directly with our IRC through our bridged channel. We also plan on adding regular updates based on user feedback so if you have any ideas please let us know in the chat.
A Fresh Start
Our website has been completely rebuilt using WordPress, marking a significant upgrade from our previous platform. This transition wasn’t just about aesthetics though we think you’ll love the new look it’s about functionality and accessibility. WordPress provides us with a user-friendly content management system that streamlines our blogging workflow and enables us to deliver content to you more efficiently than ever before. Most users hopefully won’t be able to tell the difference, as we built a variety of custom plugins to replicate the look and feel of our original website.
What does this mean for you? Simply put, more content, more often. The intuitive nature of WordPress allows us to focus on creating quality posts rather than wrestling with technical issues every time we want to upload. Whether it’s tutorials, community highlights, project updates, or industry insights, we’ll be able to share information with you regularly and consistently. Our goal is to keep you informed, engaged, and connected to everything happening in our community, these changes also mean that it will be easier for us to accept guest posts for anyone that wants to write for us.
The only major visible change since switching to WordPress is our webchat. We were able to move away from an off-site Lounge install to a custom webchat built around a heavily modified https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/badwolf-web-irc-client/ . This webchat should be more responsive when used on mobile devices and look and feel cleaner on desktop. We hope you like it!
Discord Meets IRC
One of the most exciting features we’ve implemented this week is the integration between Discord and IRC using Dis4IRC. For those unfamiliar, Dis4IRC is an open-source bridging solution available at https://github.com/zachbr/Dis4IRC that creates seamless communication between these two popular platforms.
Why is this important? Our community has always been diverse, with members who prefer different communication tools. Some of you love the modern interface and features of Discord, while others appreciate the simplicity and longevity of IRC. Previously, this meant our community was somewhat fragmented, with conversations happening in silos. Not anymore.
With Dis4IRC, messages sent on Discord now appear in IRC channels, and vice versa. This means you can participate in community discussions using whichever platform you prefer, without missing out on any conversations. It’s truly the best of both worlds, maintaining the unique characteristics of each platform while ensuring everyone stays connected.
The bridge operates reliably in the background, handling message formatting, user identification, and even basic features like relaying edits and deletions where appropriate. It’s been configured to provide a smooth experience for users on both sides, making the technical differences between platforms virtually invisible during everyday use.
What’s Next?
This is just the beginning. Our new website provides a foundation for future enhancements, and we’re already planning additional features based on community feedback. We’re committed to continually improving your experience and finding new ways to keep our community connected and informed. We do plan to reintegrate some of the earlier tools found on our website such as the pastebin and image hosting features over the coming months. Our old website suffered heavily from feature creep, we created a huge selection of tools, many of which went unused and did nothing but clutter up the navigation, however the pastebin and image hosting were well used and we don’t want them to be missed.
We encourage you to explore the new website, join the conversation on your preferred platform, and stay tuned for the regular content updates we’ll be rolling out. Thank you for being part of our community, and here’s to this exciting new chapter!
Have feedback about the new site or bridging features? We’d love to hear from you in our Discord or IRC channels.