An op is someone who takes responsibility for the running and policing of the channel. You can pick these out easily as they have a @ beside their nicks when you do a /who or a /names. Any questions you have about the channel can be directed to these people.
The name or nickname you use while on the IRC can be anything you like, your real name, your nickname or anything else you want e.g. mine is "Fiend" or "Nivek" (Kevin backwards, sounds Star Treky!), others are "Genie", "Sunflower", "Demon", and basically anything you can think of! The name you use is referred to as your 'nick'.
If you are talking to someone in particular, it's a good idea to put their name followed by a colon at the start of your message. This helps to keep things from getting confused, especially on a busy channel. The person also knows the message is directed towards him/her.
The names of channels begin with a '#', this is to distinguish between them and nicks.
"Lag" is when you are waiting for your server to catch up with all that's happening and send you new messages. Depending on your server this can get really bad, lag for about 20 seconds and then get all those messages up on screen at once, then another 30 second lag. Picking a good server should allow you to avoid this.
There's several abbreviations for things, like:
Wallops are when someone is annoyed with someone else and sends out a comment about this person. It's not used much, but you can receive them using "/mode [nick] +w" (leaving out the quotes, [nick] is your nick)
/join #[channel] | join channel #[channel] |
/who [nickname] | who is [nickname], or /who * for who are everyone on your channel |
/who #[channel] | who is on channel #[channel] |
/whowas [nick] | who was [nick] - if someone has just left, you can check who he/she was |
/part #[channel] | leave channel #[channel] |
/msg [nick] [message] | send the message [message] to person with nickname [nick] allowing no one else to see it |
/nick [newnick] | change your nick to [newnick] |
/ping [nick] | how long does it take for [nick] or everyone (use *) to see your messages - this is a good way to see are people ignoring you or lagged |
/dcc send [nick] [filename] | send [filename] to person with nick [nick] |
/dcc get [nick] [filename] | accept a file [nick] is trying to send you |
/dcc chat [nick] | open a direct line between you and [nick]. It's faster but can only be used between 2 people at a time, and both people must do this. Take advantage of this by using /msg =[nick] [message] |
/dcc close chat [nick] | close the direct line opened with /dcc chat [nick] |
/query =[nick] | talk only to [nick]. You must have /dcc chat open |
/server [server_name] | connect to server [server_name] |
/names | list all channels and the people on them - this will take a while!! |
/names #[channel] | list the nicks of people on channel #[channel]. This is like /who #[channel] but only gives the nicks |
/list [-max "n"][-min "n"] [#string] | an alternative to #names, lists currently available channels. You can show only channels with a minimum and a maximum number of people on. You can also show only channels with #string in their title. NOTE: a few servers will kick you off for using this command as there can be thousands of channels. |
/me [action] | gives a message beginning with * [your nick] e.g. "/me smacks Beavis" would give "* Fiend smacks Beavis" |
/exit | Leave the IRC, disconnecting from the server |
CTRL-V | in a message changes the color of the characters to blue e.g. "hello ^vthis is blue^v this is normal" |
CTRL-_ | in a message reverses characters i.e. black-on-white to white-on-black |
Launch Ircle, and you will be faced with a number of fields to fill in. Use the following values:
Connect via: sandiego.ca.us.undernet.org
Nickname: whatever you like
Real Name: fill this in if you like, it's not necessary
and click on ok. Ircle should then open a connection to that server, displaying 2 windows: a big one showing messages and a small one where you type your messages into. This might take a few seconds, and when you start you will be on no channels.
Next, join a channel and you can get talking straight away. The two main channels for chatting are #chat and #chatzone. These are usually fairly busy so it can be difficult to follow all of the conversations. #macintosh usually isn't too busy, but the people on it take a while to reply, if they do at all. For this example join #chat:
type: /join #chat and press enter
After a few seconds a new window will open and a lot of messages and stuff will start to appear. Usually when someone arrives onto a channel they say "hi everyone", which is a good way of getting into conversations with people, they answer and it's onwards from there.
type: hey everybody!
This should bring a few replies, and you can chat away then. When you're tired of it and want to try out another channel, first leave this channel.
type: /part #chat
and then go onto whatever channel you want to go on, e.g. #newbies
type: /join #newbies
When you want to quit out of the IRC
type: /exit
You can also see what people from Ireland are on, type: /who *.ie The same can be used for other countries, substituting the ie - uk is for the United Kingdom, jp is for Japan, ca is for California, au for Australia, fr for France, se for Sweden, etc.
There are games channels e.g. #poker, #chaos, #conquest, etc. where the game is run through use of a 'bot'. A bot is a script or program running on the channel which runs the games. They are usually called something with 'bot' in the nick - the #poker bot is pbot, chaosbot runs #chaos, and so on. You can find this out easily by asking any of the ops or anyone else on the channel.
There's are some poker channels: #poker and #poker2
There is a Jeopardy type quiz channel: #riskybus
A game where you join one of two teams and try to get the top ten keywords in a category: #chaos
And some rpg type channels where you are a soldier or farmer trying to get ahead: #conquest, #doomsday
The only IRC app. that I can think of for Wintel machines is MIRC, they
had their own channel last time I checked (#mirc). I don't know where you
can pick this up, but if anyone knows please let me know!