FINE I'LL WRITE ONE. But I command people to read through it and add to it and fix mistakes I make etc
1. What on earth is IRC?!?
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. If you are within the target audience for this site, chances are it is older than you. General structure is that there are a lot of servers you can connect to, and then once connected to a server you can join channels ('chat rooms') on this server.
This is a collection of reasons as to why we have this set up instead of using MSN, despite the latter being more familiar to you:
● msn would involve adding heaps of people to your contact list
● If we were on msn, we'd have to make a large conversation. This means it is the people currently chatting's responsibility to invite everyone else into it, you can't invite yourself. On IRC, the room is permanently there and you are the one that controls joining it. It also means that you are less at the mercy of people not liking you and purposefully excluding you or 'forgetting' to invite you.
● Also, msn isn't very space efficient. Take a person who has decided to use most of the 139 characters for their msn name. If they were to say even 1 word, it takes up quite a few lines to do so. IRC has person + message all on one line. Therefore, when more than a few people are talking, it is easier to follow the conversation as you are spending more time reading it and less time fighting with the scroll bar.
● Also, people tell me msn + giant conversations (20 people etc) don't go well together and makes it go slow.
2. How this works
As said before, there are a bunch of servers out there, and on these servers users can create channels. You have 2 options, clicking the chat button from FSN, or downloading and using your own client.
Using the chat button
Automatically you join the villageirc.net server, vce channel, and are given your FSN username. This is good if you are a newbie to it all because you can talk straight away without becoming frustrated at it all.
Using your own client
This is where you have a special IRC program, like mIRC. These are good because you can control them more and can do more stuff and generally look nicer. Plus, you will never suffer the problem of accidentally pressing backspace while not in the typing box and navigating away from the page (or forgetting about the window/tab it is hiding in).
Where the list of usernames are, you will notice characters next to some people such as & and @. These represent various power levels people have:
& = admin – head honchos
@ = operator (op for short) – have lots of power eg can kick people, change topic, make other people ops
% = half op – can do most of the things ops can do except they can't give power to other people
+ = voice – This is fairly useless they way we roll.
3. Useful things to know
Note: any commands that you type to the server (start with “/”) are never seen by anyone else. Therefore, do not fear that if you make a mistake other people will be able to see it, they won't, it'll just bounce back an error message for you.
● Registering nicks: Because anyone can choose whatever nickname they feel like, this means other people can pretend to be you if they are feeling particularly malicious. You can register your nickname with the server, and then whenever you want to use it you have a 60 second timeframe to type in a password, otherwise your nickname is automatically changed to something else. To register a nick, type “/msg nickserv register password email” (replace password with your chosen password and email with your email address respectively). Every time you come online, you must type “/msg nickserv identify password” to identify yourself.
In addition, this is useful in case someone ever wanted to make it so that when you joined a channel, you automatically become an op/half op etc, as your nick needs to be registered for this to work.
● Other channels: Anyone can make a new channel. This is useful if you do not spend your whole life discussing VCE (which of course is the sole use of the VCE channel, who would want any of that general socialising stuff). To join another channel, type “/join #channelname” (you need the #). For example, we currently have #math, #vcetrivia which no one uses etc.
(on a similar point, you can start a conversation with one other person by clicking their name somehow, but you have msn for that)
● Changing your nick: /nick newnickhere
● Doing actions: This just makes your message look different to normal chatter (eg in the FSN chat it looks purple) and you can use it to do actions with by typing /me pokes caramel, /me is sleeping etc. Just like how you'd normally do actions surrounded by * or – or whatever they use where you come from (eg *hugs caramel*). The 'me' bit gets replaced by your username.
● See other people's IRC clients: /ctcp nickname VERSION (thanks AppleXY)
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