IRC - Frequently asked questions
1. What exactly is IRC?IRC stands for the Internet Relay Chat. On IRC, several persons can simultaneously participate in a discussion over a particular channel, or even multiple channels. There is no restriction to the number of people that can participate in a given discussion, or the number of channels that can be formed over IRC. All conversations take place in real time. That's one of the fortes of IRC, and IRC has been used extensively for live coverage of world events, news, sports commentary, etc. It also serves as an extremely inexpensive substitute for long distance calling. People from all corners of the world can be found over IRC. 2. What does a client do? What's a server?
An IRC client reads in the commands that you give it, and parses them. It filters them and
performs the appropriate actions, and if necessary, passes them on to a server. An IRC
server can serve many other clients. The server holds information about the channels and
people on IRC, amongst other pieces of information. It is also responsible for routing
your messages to other people on IRC. The IRC network itself consists of multiple servers
which connect to one another in a tree-like fashion (as an undirected acyclic graph to be
precise). 3. What is a channel? How do I join/create one? How do I join multiple channels?
A channel is a place on IRC that people can meet and participate in a discussion. channels
on IRC are dynamic in the sense that anyone can create a new channel, and a channel
disappears when the last person on it leaves. To get a list of channels you may try the
command /list. To join a particular channel use: /join #channel_name
You can also register a channel to make it permanently yours. 4. What's a channel operator? How do I become one?When you do a /names #channel_name, the persons with a @ prefix before their nickname are channel operators for a channel. A channel operator can decide who can be allowed to stay on a channel, and the various settings for the channel (such as whether the channel can be made secret, or invite only, etc). A channel operator can pass on the operator status to another person. By default when someone creates a new channel (by simply /join #channel_name) he gets to be the channel operator. A new channel is created by specifying one that doesn't exist in a /list. So, to become a channel operator yourself, you can either (1) create a new channel , (2) ask an existing channel operator to op you, (3) in some channels ops must be earned so if you are told no upon asking do not push the subject or you may risk being kicked or even banned. 5. Help! Someone kicked/banned me from a channel. Whom do I complain to?The answer to this question is the current channel operators, and them alone. Given the dynamic nature of channels, channel operators do not need to have a reason to kick you off. They decide what goes on over the channel. Complaining either to IRC operators or to the system administrators about being kicked/banned from a channel is considered extremely childish, and results in no action. IRC operators do not meddle with channel politics - that's the job of channel operators. Another IRC netiquette is to keep IRC issues within IRC, because system admins have little time to deal with IRC issues and many would rather shut it down rather than deal with problems arising from it. If you should get banned or kicked from a channel, you are always free to start your own channel and decide what is appropriate over it. Think of channels as houses. The owner of the house can decide to share ownership with someone else or decide to disallow any individual he chooses into his house. In your own house, you call the shots. Feel free to create your own channel, and set up your own rules for it. 6. What commands can I use?
NOTE: The /who and /whois command switches described here will not work on invisible users
not on the same channel as yourself. They will work with a specified
nickname ONLY for such users. 7. What are channel modes?
To use these modes in the channel type /mode #channel_name + or - letter
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