(excerpted from mirc.com): IRC stands for “Internet Relay Chat”. It was originally written by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988. Since starting in Finland, it has been used in over 60 countries around the world. IRC is a multi-user chat system, where people meet on “channels” (rooms, virtual places, usually with a certain topic of conversation) to talk in groups, or privately. 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 on IRC.
IRC Clients / Methods of Joining Chat
For the best experience, you are strongly encouraged to use a standalone IRC client to participate in the chat. We recommend mIRC or X-Chat on Windows, and X-Chat Aqua, Textual, or Colloquy on Mac. On Linux you can use irssi or X-Chat. ]
- The server name to connect is irc.geekshed.net on port 6667, and we are chatting in #kayol
- SSL connections are supported on port 6697 and 443, but require you tell your IRC client to ignore “invalid” SSL certificates.
The chat client that you see Kayol using on-air is Colloquy.
If you don’t wish to use a standalone client, the IRC chat has a web flash interface at our ustream channel that takes you directly into chat on the side. Some users have found that the browser Opera (which has IRC built-in) provides an easy-to-read interface.
What are the #kayol chat rules?
We want the chat to be a pleasant and safe place for all chatters. To ensure this, please follow these simple rules:
- Keep the conversation PG-rated, since there is a wide range of ages in the chat. Anything deemed offensive will not be tolerated.
- No offensive references to a person or group by race, religion, gender, or orientation.
- Do not “hit on” the hosts or guests on camera. This includes comments on physical appearance, especially for female hosts or guests.
- No illegal activity (e.g. offering or discussing where to get warez, pirated movies, etc.) under any circumstances.
- Do not impersonate any other user in the chat. This includes moderators, show hosts, well-known guests, and Kayol himself.
- No shouting (i.e., TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS).
- Do not harass other chatters. You can respectfully disagree, but don’t be rude.
- No spamming of web sites for either personal or commercial purposes. Posting a personal web site once is OK, just don’t do it repeatedly.
- Do not repeat yourself over and over to try to get noticed, as this is disruptive to the chat. This also applies to situations where technical issues are occurring; having hundreds of people flooding the chat with “no audio” isn’t helpful to anyone, so please don’t add to it.
- Talk of politics, sports, or religion should be avoided, especially during live shows. Politics and religion are sensitive issues that can degrade the quality of the chat for everyone. If this topic ends up being something discussed on a live show, use your best judgment before posting in chat.
- Allow the moderators to do their jobs. Rather than correcting behaviour, ignore people who bother you and inform a moderator if someone is being disruptive.
- Do not run any IRC “bots” or scripts on the server or in any channels.
…and the most important (and simplest) rule:
- Use common sense, and don’t be a jerk.
The chat rules do not cover all possible things that can happen in an active IRC chat. Generally speaking, if you avoid being disruptive to other user’s chat experiences, and if you are polite to the younger and less experienced chatters, you will avoid any chance of being removed. A little thinking before typing goes a long way.
Strong suggestions for using chat
When participating in chat, please keep in mind the following important items:
- Do not be rude to newcomers. Since Kayol promotes the IRC chat to those less tech savvy, it attracts a lot of newcomers. Be patient with those who ask about the live schedule or any other FAQ, and provide them with helpful information if you are able.
- On occasion, Kayol or other hosts or guests may say something that isn’t within the rules of the IRC chat. Please be aware that repeating those remarks is still a violation of the chat rules.
- During a live show, topics not relevant to the subject of the show should not be brought up in #kayol channel. The exception is for the NSFW show.
- If you intend to ask for technical help, watch the flow of the chat for a bit to see how busy chatters are and what topics are already under discussion. Even if there seems to be a lot of chatters present, some of them will be busy elsewhere. Be ready to explain what you’ve tried, and if you’ve researched the issue using Google searches.
- Do not be offended if your question cannot be answered right away, and do not post your question multiple times. Have patience; you may just need to interact more with other chatters to learn when to ask your question, or what might be the best words or phrases to use in a search.
- When Kayol is on a live show, many chatters may be busy trying to support him. When not too busy, sometimes Kayol can answer your question directly, but remember that he has multiple chat rooms and other venues to monitor.
- If you might be hanging around for a while or returning frequently, the “regulars” like to see a personal nickname instead of a generic one. Shorter names are more appreciated than longer names, as are names that are unique in the first few characters. To change your nickname while in the chat, type: /nick somenewnickname. Nicknames over 16 characters in length are not allowed.
- The use of Kayol’s name in a nickname is discouraged, as it can create confusion. Please do not use “Kayol” in your nickname. We want to reserve such nicknames for those who are actually affiliated with Kayol Hope Live. This suggestion is precluded by the “no impersonation” rule delineated above.
- Please disable the auto-away feature of your chat client, disable scripts that tell us what song you’re listening to, and do not type “away”… “back” or any other “what am I doing right now” messages yourself. IRC is not Twitter; such messages simply contribute to noise.
Got a problem with someone?
People being people, protracted heated arguments (some over relevant tech topics, some not), personality clashes, and other issues arise in IRC just as in real life. If you find yourself arguing with the same person over and over, the following advice from the late Usenet personality Gharlane of Eddore may prove useful:
Arguing with idiots is wasted effort. They have no minds to change; and unlike you, nothing better to do with their time.
See also this xkcd strip.
Bear in mind that the moderators will kick people who are disruptive to the chat, but this often will include both or all of the participants in an ongoing fight. From the outside it is often very difficult to see who is the instigator.
If you just can’t get along with someone, consider using the “ignore” feature of your IRC client. In most clients you simply have to type:
/ignore nickname-to-be-ignored
Consult your chat client’s documentation for more details
What are the symbols or colored dots next to some of the users’ names in IRC?
In decreasing order of privilege, the meaning is as follows. Users at each level can do anything that users at all following levels can do.
- ~ (X-Chat • purple dot) denotes a channel owner. The channel owner(s) can designate other users as channel administrators. (On the #kayol IRC, Kayol is the owner of all channels, but he is not always present in the chat.)
- & (X-Chat • red dot) denotes a channel administrator. Administrators can designate other users to be automatically recognized as channel operators or as voiced users.
- @ (X-Chat • green dot) denotes a channel operator (“chanop” in IRC parlance), also known as a moderator. Moderators can set the channel topic, kick or ban users from the channel, and “voice” users. See the next section for more information on moderators.
- % (X-Chat • blue dot) denotes a channel half-operator. A half-operator has limited operator privileges. Half-op is rarely used on #kayol.
- + (X-Chat • yellow dot) means “voiced.” In a “muted” channel, only voiced users (or above) can send messages to the channel. The #kayol IRC channels are not normally “muted,” so “voiced” conveys no special privileges or abilities. Instead it is used to identify users of special note, such as hosts and guests on Kayol’s programs or visitors at the studio.
To most users, ~, &, @, and % are really equivalent: They’re all chat moderators.
What is the role of the chat moderators?
The chat moderators are there to keep the channel focused, fun, and friendly. Since the chat is a component of the show, they try to keep the chat on topic. They are all volunteers who help Kayol in their free time.
The moderators do try to be fair. If you break the rules, you could kicked from the channel, banned from the channel, or banned from the IRC server, so, be nice! The intent is to have fun, make friends, and maybe even learn something, so we encourage participation as appropriate!
Being kicked or banned from the chat is (usually) not permanent. Do not take a kick or ban personally; remember that it is simply the moderators’ job to enforce the rules and to ensure a fun and pleasant experience for all participants in the chat. Please do be aware, however, that repeated offenses will be dealt with more harshly. Since every situation is unique, the appropriate action to be taken for a given offense will be left solely at the discretion of the moderators.
Remember that the chat moderators do not work in the studio, nor are they show producers. As such, they do not have any control over the content of the video and audio streams. This includes both the live and re-run schedules and calendars, and playback issues such as volume levels and buffering.
How do I register and identify for my nickname?
IRC Chat allows you to reserve your nickname if you are the first person to obtain it. You do this by sending a message to a bot called NickServ (short for Nickname Services). This bot manages all the registered nicknames on IRC and provides protection for your nickname and its settings. Nicknames that are not logged into for 3 months will expire and will be available for registration by another person.
To register a nickname to the IRC server
- Send a private message by typing the following command into your IRC client:
/msg NickServ REGISTER password your.email.address
Replace password with a password of your choice, and fill in your email address in the second section. Use a password that has not been used on any of your other presences online to make it secure.
To identify for your nickname on subsequent joins to IRC
For subsequent joins to the chat after registering your nickname, you will need to identify yourself with NickServ as the true owner of your nickname. You may do this manually, or you may configure your IRC client to do this automatically.
Send a private message by typing the following command into your IRC client:
/msg NickServ IDENTIFY password
Clients such as X-Chat generally offer a “NickServ Password” field inside of the server settings where you can have the client automatically identify for your nickname every time you log in. Consult your client’s documentation for more details.
More information on nickname registration
For more information on Nickname Services and what they have to offer, see the IRC Help links at the bottom of the article, or use the command
/msg NickServ help
How do I turn off all the join/part/quit messages?
During live shows, the influx of chatters can be overwhelming to those not accustomed to busy IRC channels. Fortunately, it is possible to configure your chat client to ignore channel join, part, and quit messages. Here’s how:
- Mac - X-Chat Aqua: Go to the Preferences menu, Chatting -> General -> Hide join/part messages. You must also restart the client. Alternatively, click on the small down-arrow button to the right of the text input box, and select “Conference Mode”. No restart is required, but this setting will be reset when you close the program.
- Mac - Colloquy: See here: http://is.gd/j4Qf
- Mac - Snak: Go to Snak -> Preferences -> Channel, and uncheck “Parts” and “Joins.”
- Mac - Textual: Go to Textual -> Preferences -> Style tab and uncheck Show channel join/part/quit activity on the bottom
- Windows - X-Chat: Right-click on the #kayol channel name, or type /set irc_conf_mode 1
- Windows - mIRC: Go to the View menu, then choose Options => “IRC”. Click the “Events…” button. Change the “joins”, “parts”, “quits”, and “nicks” to your desired settings: “In Status” or “Hide” are good options.
- Linux/Unix - irssi: /ignore -channels #kayol * JOINS PARTS QUITS NICKS
Extra
Here are some customer commands to interact with our system_bot which serves to regulate and maintain our IRC even when his Master, Kayol can not be present.
!motd - displays the Message Of The Day
!mods - displays a list of the moderators including OPs and HalfOps
!system_bot - communicates with system_bot
!kayol - *secret*
!rules - displays url to the IRC rules
!google - displays Google+ url
!twitter - displays Twitter url
!facebook - displays Facebook url
!myspace - displays MySpace url
!forum - displays forum url
!channel - displays channel owner
!email - displays email address
!cam - displays of live webcam and url
Wait! Thats not All!
In IRC each command is summoned with the ”/” and here is a list of command IRC commands:
JOIN
Syntax:
/JOIN <channels> [<keys>]
Makes the client join the channels in the comma-separated list <channels>, specifying the passwords, if needed, in the comma-separated list <keys>. If the channel(s) do not exist then they will be created.
KICK
Syntax:
/KICK <channel> <client> [<message>]
Forcibly removes <client> from <channel>. This command may only be issued by channel operators.
NICK
Syntax:
/NICK <nickname> [<hopcount>] /NICK <nickname>
Allows a client to change their IRC nickname. Hopcount is for use between servers to specify how far away a nickname is from its home server.
OP
Syntax:
/OP <username> <password>
Authenticates a user as an IRC operator on that server/network.
HALFOP
Syntax:
/HALFOP <username> <password>
Authenticates a user as an IRC half operator on that server/network.
PART
Syntax:
/PART <channels>
Causes a user to leave the channels in the comma-separated list <channels>.
TOPIC
Syntax:
/TOPIC <channel> [<topic>]
Allows the client to query or set the channel topic on <channel>. If <topic> is given, it sets the channel topic to <topic>. If channel mode +t is set, only a channel operator may set the topic.
WHOIS
Syntax:
/WHOIS [<server>] <nicknames>
Returns information about the comma-separated list of nicknames masks <nicknames>.If <server> is given, the command is forwarded to it for processing.
More can be found here
<