A Guide to IRC

A Guide to IRC: The URPG Edition by Felly
In Which Felly Can't Come Up With A Better Title​

Table of Contents
i. The Introduction
ii. What the Symbols Mean
iii. Basic IRC Commands
iv. Terms Typically Seen on IRC
v. Channel Modes
vi. Staff Commands
vii. FAQ
viii. The Conclusion

i. The Introduction.
In Which Felly Tells You What This Is About
So this is a guide to IRC. Why am I making this, you ask? Partially because Felly has no life. This guide is designed to help those of you that have no idea how to use IRC get by in our URPG IRC chat! For those of you that already know what they're doing, you're welcome to suggest things for me to add to this, especially if it's not already in the guide. My intention is to make the usage of IRC as simple as possible for all involved.

ii. What the Symbols Mean
In Which Felly Explains What All Of These Weird Symbols Mean
If you've ever been on IRC, you've probably seen them symbols before. But have you ever wondered what they mean? Well, for the record, they don't mean that one is poisoned and whatnot. So here's your symbol party guide.

~ This ~ here is the symbol of ownership. These guys are like the Arceus of the chat. They can give you power in the chat or just voice and also change the topic. Oh and they can kick you or ban you or anyone else in the chat.

& The & is not just your local ampersand. It's also the sign of the sop. These guys are one level down from the ~. They can kick and ban everyone that isn't a ~. They can give you voice and change the topic too.

@ The guys at the @ level are ops. These guys are just plain old ops. They can kick and ban and give voice to everyone that isn't a & or ~, and they can also change the topic.

% The % isn't just a percent sign in IRC. It's also the symbol of the lovely hop. They can't really do much beyond kick and ban the voiced guys and them peoples without voice, but they can change the topic!

+ We don't play with addition in IRC, so the + symbol is for them voiced kids. These guys are just voiced. Nothing really significant about this. Just know that a + equals voice, not addition. If the chat has +m on it, then the voiced users will be able to talk while non-voiced users will be muted.

And anyone without a symbol has nothing important about them either. They're like the guys with the +, except the guys without symbols don't have anything by their name and can't talk when the chat is muted. Get it? Got it? Good.

iii. Basic IRC Commands
In Which Felly Tells You About Basic IRC Commands
So now that we've got symbols down packed, lets go to your commands. These are fairly simple, so just pay attention!

1. /me *insert text here* - This is your action command. Pretty simple enough.

2. /part #channel *insert message here* - The /part function lets you leave just one channel. You can add a message after that channel name too.
2a. /cycle - This serves the same use as /part, but you can't add a message afterwards, & it just makes you leave the channel for a moment before adding you back in.

3. /quit *insert message here* - /quit disconnects you from the server completely. You can add a message after that too.

4. /whois *insert user here* - /whois lets you find out info about someone on the channel.

5. /list - This gives you a list of every single channel on a server. Sometimes there's a lot. Sometimes there's very few. Depends on the server.

iv. Terms Typically Seen on IRC
In Which Felly Teaches You A Foreign Language
So there's some strange words that we use on IRC. No, it's not Spanish and it's not French. Or any other language out there. It's IRC Lingo. So this section of our A Guide To IRC: The URPG Edition explains these strange words.

*Server: A server is the thing that hosts a bunch of channels. The server that URPG is on is called SystemNet (irc.systemnet.info).
*Channel: A channel is the legit thing that you can chat in. These are probably always full of people and there's way more than one. The main chat channel for URPG is #urpg , but battle chats are located in #battle , #battle 2, & #battle 3. The FFA chat is in #FFA .
*Kick: A kick is when you kick someone out of the channel. This is only really ever used when someone's being an annoying twat and breaking the rules and whatnot. You can rejoin the channel if you've been kicked as long as you're not banned.
*Ban: This is pretty self explanatory. You can ban someone similar to the way you ban someone on the forums. Of course, this is also used when someone's being an annoying twat and breaking rules and whatnot. This is sometimes used in conjunction with a kick to keep someone from rejoining the channel.
*Join: You join a channel. Just like you join a club.
*Netsplit: These rarely happen, but it happens when a part of the server disconnects from another part. Anyone on the part of the server that disconnects will be disconnected as well. This does not fully block one from getting onto the server, as one can find another open bit of server and reconnect that way. They are fixable by server admins.

v. Channel Modes
In Which Felly Explains Channel Modes
Channel modes. Yeah, there's these letters in []s at the top of your chat window thing. Well, you're probably thinking that they're just random letters. They're most certainly not. Here's a description of the letters and all that jazz.

+m = Muted. The channel is "muted." You can still chat, but only if you have a voice.

+s = Secret. The channel is hidden when you do /list or /whois. Only those that are made aware of the channel will be able to join it.

+r = Registered. The channel has been registered and there is an owner.

+G = No profanity. The channel is rated G for all ages. In other words, if you drop the f bomb, other people won't see it. You'll see it, but everyone else will see <censored> instead of that lovely f bomb you just dropped on the channel. Keep dropping them & it'll blow up.

vi. Staff Powers
In Which Felly Explains Op Powers
So for you lovely ops out there in our lovely channel, I figured I'd give you some commands to use.

/kick #channel nickhere reason -> This kicks someone from the channel. You don't have to give a reason, but it's generally recommended you do.

/ban #channel nickhere -> This bans a user from the chat. Voiced users will still be able to talk if they're just banned. If they are kicked or leave the channel, they cannot return until the ban is lifted.

/chanserv unban #glacidia nickhere -> Unbans someone from your channel. You can even do this outside of the channel if you've been kicked yourself. Chanserv can be shortened to cs if you're particularly lazy.

/topic #channel newtopichere - This allows you to set a new topic in the channel. It will be cut off if it's too long. Doing /topic #channel by itself displays the topic for you.

vii. FAQ
In Which Felly Gives You A FAQ
So for the lazy people who probably skipped down to here (it's okay; Felly still loves you), this is your FAQ. This will cover anything that hasn't been answered above. So if it's not here, either Felly was too lazy to cover it or it's been answered above. If it's the latter, you should probably scroll up. It won't kill you. Trust me; it won't.

So what does IRC stand for?
IRC = Internet Relay Chat. Just call it IRC. I've never seen someone go "So I was talking on Internet Relay Chat the other day." No. Just no.

What is PMing?
PMing = Private Messaging. You can talk one on one with a person this way. Kinda like how you would do it on a forum or on AIM/Skype. Plus, this is more secretive unless the person you're talking to is a big poopy head who posts your PMs out there for everyone to see.

Can I use IRC on Pidgin?
Yes, you can. For instructions on how to use it, click on the spoiler. Credit to vagabondaeon for this guide.

Spoiler

1. Before anything else, Google "pidgin irc plugin" and click on the first link that pops up, then download the Purple Plugin Pack (you'll want the download that says "purple_plugin_pack-2.6.3.zip", since I assume most of you are using Windows).

2. Unzip the .dll files into your Pidgin plugin folder (this is usually going to be something like Program Files->Pidgin->plugins). If you don't want all of them, just select the irchelper and ircmore DLL files.

3. Restart Pidgin, then go into the plugins menu and turn on the IRC Helper and IRC More plugins.

4. Create a new account for the IRC protocol. Under the "Basic" tab, enter "irc.systemnet.info" into the Server field. Enter whatever you want your screenname to appear as on your chat window under the Username and Local alias field.

5. Under the "Advanced" tab, put 6667 for the port number if either nothing or a different value appears there. Do NOT click the Auto-detect incoming UTF-8" or "Use SSL" boxes.

6. Enter your IRC nickname in the Username field. If you have a registered nickname, enter it and your nick password under Auth name and Nick password respectively; this will automatically message the Nickserv service and identify you when you log on. You might also want to enable "Disconnect ghosts (Duplicate names)", so you don't have to go through that hassle if you get disconnected or the network goes screwy.

7. If you want the client to auto-connect to Glacidia or any other channels when it starts up, type #glacidia into Auto-Join Channels. The Default Quit/Part Message field should be obvious. Don't mess with anything else if you don't know what you're doing.

What kinds of clients are there?
Besides Pidgin and Java, there's mIRC, Ice Chat, Chatzilla (for Firefox users), and Mibbit. There are other clients out there as well, and a simple Google search should help you fnd what you need.

viii. The Conclusion
In Which Felly Gives You A Conclusion
Hooray! We've reached the end! Hopefully this guide was helpful in some way to you all! If you have any suggestions on how to improve it, feel free to do so. I hope you all enjoy your time on the URPG IRC chats!