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IRC F.A.Q.

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(31) How do I create a new channel?

A channel is automatically created as soon as the first person joins it. If you join a channel and you find your name as the only one there, you just created that channel. Channels on IRC are dynamic in the sense that anyone can create a new channel, and a channel disappears when the last person leaves it.

(32) What are good channels to try while using IRC?

The famous channels #holland, #funfactory, #unix, #warez, #42, #friendly, #chat and #riskybus are almost always filled with people. Just join to find out what happens on these channels! Besides chat channels there also exist channels specialized towards helping other users. Examples are #help, #windows, #winsock, #irchelp, #ircnewbies and #mirc.
To get a list of all available channels with their names and topics, type /list. To see only the most active channels type /list -min 20 which will show you channels with 20 or more members. You can also do this for smaller numbers. Even very crowded channels can be silent, so if you join a channel and don't hear much talking, it may be because you joined, but just because the people on that channel are doing other things.

(33) Someone is using my nickname, can anyone do anything about it?

In the past on EFnet, NickServ registered nicknames. On smaller networks some nickname registration still exists (see below). It is important to understand that there are not always enough nicknames to have nickname ownership. If someone takes your nickname while you are not on IRC, you can ask for them to give it back, but you can not *demand* it, nor will IRC operators /kill for nickname ownership normally.

(34) Someone is using my channel, can anyone do anything about it?

There are, literally, millions of possible channel names, so if someone is on your usual channel, just go to another. You can /msg them and ask for them to leave, but you can't *force* them to leave.

(35) 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 in the channel. Complaining either to IRC operators or to the system administrators about being kicked or banned from a channel is considered extremely childish, and will not result action. IRC operators do not meddle with channel politics - that's the job of channel operators. Proper 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 content there. Imagine channels as houses. The owner of the house can decide to share ownership with someone else and can decide to prevent any individual from entering 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.

(36) There aren't any channel operators on my channel, now what?

(Channel operators are the owner(s) of their respective channels. Keep this in mind when giving out channel operator powers. Do not give out channel operator status to *everyone*. This causes the possibility of mass-kicking or otherwise harassing by unknown ops and the channel be left without any channel operators. However, always make sure to give ops to enough people so that all of the channel operators don't unexpectedly diappear and leave the channel without any operators. If no ops have stayed on your channel you have one option. You can ask everyone to leave and rejoin the channel. This is a good way to get channel operator status back. This does not work on large channels or ones with bots, for obvious reasons. On Dalnet ChanServ allows users to register and maintain absolute control over channels as far as who gets channel operator status and how that privelege is governed. Other channel modes are also optionally maintained by this bot, with the only exception of bans.

(37) What is a "bot"?

A "bot" is short for "robot". It is normally a script run from a client or a separate program (in perl, C, and sometimes more obscure languages). Bots are normally not needed on IRC. A bot generally tries to "protect" a channel from takeovers. It is important to know that many IRC servers (especially in the USA) ban ALL bots. Some IRCOps ban domains if you run a bot on their server (See the segment on K: lines). On IRC you will find a lot of people with a love/hate attitude towards bots. Some bots do good work as file- or info-servers. Some will even entertain you with funny or brain teasing games. These bots can be useful and desireable. Contrary to these bots, you will find lots and lots of bots performing useless 'carekeeping' of channels, harassing and boring people and sometimes created with the sole purpose to produce garbage. You can imagine that these bots are disliked by the IRC community. In this context it is good to advise you to -never- -never- ever take bot code, .ini-files or strange commands from someone and run it without exactly understanding what it does. Blind trust is a common mistake among newbies. If you feel you just -have- to run a bot, at least learn the programming. At this moment no Windows based bot programs or script handling clients exist.

(38) What was NickServ? Is NickServ ever coming back?

On EFnet NickServ was a nickname registration service run in Germany. It was a bot that told people who used a registered nickname to stop using that nickname. NickServ has been down since the Spring of 1994. It is not likely that NickServ will be back. Remember, nicknames aren't owned on most IRC networks. On the Dalnet IRC network a NickServ is still active. Dalnet's NickServ allows users to register and effectively "own" nicks. This version of the services is considerably more potent than it's EFnet predecessor since it has the capability of killing anyone who claims a nick registered by someone else. Therefore, it is not wise to simply ignore this one :-)

(39) Help, I get disconnected after the LIST command.

If you use the LIST command the server generates a list of all channels (about 2000 on Efnet) and quickly sends that list to you. But, because the data throughput is finite, the entire output of the LIST command is queued in a buffer on the server. At some point that buffer is overrun, and the server, detecting this ('reached maxsendq'), disconnects you. This mechanism is designed to disconnect people who generate more characters per second than any 'normal' person uses for normal conversations. It is a server protection mechanism, but unfortunately the server does not recognize that the data stream you caused is simply the result of your harmless LIST command, and disconnects you. On most IRC clients you can filter the channels list to show only channels with a minimum and a maximum number of people. You can also specify a text string so that your client will only list channels with that string in their name or topic. However, for the problem described, this does not help at all. The server always sends you the entire channels list and your client takes care of the filtering. So, asking for a partial list to prevent you from disconnecting won't make ANY difference. It is unfortunate, but there is nothing you can do to prevent this from happening. It is just one of the all-too-many IRC oddities. Try using some other server, as many are more forgiving.

(40) I've done a /whois on myself and other people, and I notice that my real name shows up in parentheses. I don't like this! It doesn't show up in other people's parentheses. How can I change it?

In the setup of your IRC client simply state a fake real name.

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