Introduction to IRC

Introduction to IRC

An IRC network consists of servers which are connected to each other in a tree structure (some disagree and argue that an IRC network is not an IRC network unless the server are disconnected to each other). There are many IRC networks out there, for example Freenode, IRCnet and EFnet. Those networks are never connected to each other, and provide different features.

Every user on an IRC network has a unique nickname. This nickname, or nick for short, is used for most IRC commands to identify a person.

Once connected to a server, and, transitively, to a network, you can join a channel. A channel is the main way to communicate with others on IRC. Different people can join a channel and talk on it. Everything said on the channel is visible to all participants. Channels exist on various topics, though it is not uncommon for the people on a channel to diverge widely from the actual topic implied by the name of the channel. An example channel is #emacs on Freenode, which exists to provide help with Emacs, but has seen discussions ranging from the issues of Free Software, to WikiWikiWeb design, to detailed analyses of Marx and Kropotkin.

To talk on a channel, just write what you want to say. If you want to address someone specifically, for example as an answer to a question, it is custom to prefix the message with the nick followed by a colon, like this:

Glaucos: Have you seen Scylla recently?