IRC - A First Time Guide (Internet Relay Chat Help Archive)

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Product:	Internet Relay Chat Help Archive
Date:	01/08/01 (230 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Friendly in places, Great to meet people, Lots of nifty features

Disadvantages: Hackers (and wanabees), Perverts, Can be confusing at first

Sorry for the harsh title, but after spending over a year on that thing, I had to express my disgust with it. This may be a long story, but don't be too bored, its not all bad. Around February/March of last year I downloaded ICQ messenger. For those of you that don't know, ICQ stands for I Seek You, and is just another run of the mill chat program like MSN, Yahoo Messenger or AOL Messenger. While looking around icq.com, I found a link to a chat server called IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and being the naturally curious teenager I was, I decided to click it and see what it was all about.

Upon entering a chat room called #icq I was confronted with people talking at me from every angle. First I noticed with IRC was the list of bizarre names down the right hand side. Some people with @ in front of their name, some with a +V in front of their name, I had no one what any of this meant. First thing I was asked was a/s/l. Being a bit of a chat room virgin, I had no idea what a/s/l was. It does infact mean age/sex/location. Now if you are planning to spend any amount of time using IRC, then you need to know what things like IRC mean. So here's a quick guide to some IRC lingo.

- 'Op' or Operator - this person or persons is the higher power in the channel (room to you or me). They can kick, ban and do all other room functions. This way, any people who refuse to obey by the rules, wont be let back in. It also means you can give your channel a personal feel. The Super Op is the person who started the room, and has total control, he/she can appoint others Op to help run the room, or maybe because they are a good friend. If you are Op you will appear with an @ in front of your name.

- '+V' or Voice - this is mainly for people who are on the way to become Op, or are regarded as a good friend. This can be given by an Op to anyone in the room, but doesn't itself hold any power. If you are voiced, you will see a +v before you
r name.

- Nick - no he isn't a friendly user, this is the term used by everyone for someone's nickname. So if someone thinks you should "Change your nick" on IRC, you simply type in /nick nickname (but obviously replacing nickname with your desired handle)

- Channel - The name for a room, if you call it a room, you will get scolded, I found that to my cost many times :-))

- IRCops - The grand daddies of IRC. They are the head honchos of the server, they control over disputes, stolen rooms/nickname, and generally at as head masters. If someone tells you they are an IRCop, best thing to do would be to not believe them without proof.

- Hackers - One of the problems with IRC is it is a haven for hackers, crackers, phreakers and the rest of them. If you try to stay with your friends and have your own little channel, then you probably wont see any. Hackers do things through IRC to damage, control or learn about your PC. IRC is like a big hole into your PC, but you shouldn't worry too much, most don't bother with average users like you or me.

- Scripts - A script is a chat program that allows you to connect to different servers. mIRC is an example of a script.

So that's the basic ins and outs with IRC. Lets move on to further matters. mIRC is a chat program that allows you to connect to different servers. The ICQ chat room I mentioned earlier is based on a server called irc.icq.com, and others are called things like chatserver.irc.org. You can download mIRC from all over the net, a search on google or yahoo will get you results, or you can try mirc.com. Once you have downloaded mIRC, open it up and go to the 'File' and then 'Options.' Click the Connect tab on the left of the options box, and on the IRC servers drop down box and select one. At this stage in your early IRC life, it's probably best to just look around different servers and see how it all works. If
you have trouble connecting to the server, just use the Help file to learn how.

Once you have connected, you can search for channels on that server by click the "List Channels" button, which is the 4th icon from the left. This should bring up a list of channels that you just double click on. Try a medium sized room (10/20 users) at first. The amount does of course depend on what server; some are more populated than others. Once you are in, try and mingle, look for people who know a lot about IRC and ask some questions. Best rooms to try first would be the help rooms, usually called #help or #irchelp etc etc.

Now you are pretty much ready for IRC. Back to my story, when I first joined a channel, I was greeted with smiling faces and very pleasant people. I think I got quite lucky. Over the weeks and months I struck a good friendship with some guy who had been on IRC for years. He taught me all I needed to know, until I got too the stage where I actually started developing my own IRC scripts like mIRC. Unfortunately the channel I regularly inhabited on IRC had a huge war with another channel I liked to use. After that fateful night, people didn?t go to those channels anymore, and gradually I lost my passion for IRC and eventually left it completely. I do pop in now and again to see my old friends, but it doesn't have the flare it used too, not this server anyway. I do look for new ones now and again, but it's hard to recreate that love I got just over one year ago.

For a first time user, I think its best to either to www.icq.com and go to IRC on there, at least you don?t have to worry with downloading and setting up programs like mIRC. Another good idea would be to look for someone you know who already uses it, to get some advice and maybe show you around. My e-mail address is in my profile and I am on MSN, so feel free to gimme a bell if you're thinking about using IRC for the first time. I do recommend
it totally, just it's hard for me to admit after the amount of bad days I had on that Internet Relay Chat...

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