IRC channels have a prefix (most commonly
#, but occasionally others like & or +). This # has become a feature of many messaging apps that came after IRC (discord, slack, etc). I'm curious if this was a random choice from the set of non-alphanumeric characters, or if it was motivated/preceded by some other usage.
[This 1993 RFC](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1459#section-1.3) sets out the distinction between # and &, but does not contain any hints at the reasoning. Are there any earlier documents on why # was chosen?
Asked by Kaia
(121 rep)
May 23, 2023, 07:24 PM