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Ultimate IRC Tutorial!
This tutorial was written by Modulous and is the winner of Jarmund's IRC-tutorial competition.

Hello and welcome. If you are new to the world of IRC, hopefully this (rather large) tutorial will give you a good grounding in the concepts. It won't make you a pro, but it will give you enough information to kickstart learning more. If you really want to there is a looot of things to learn about IRC.

So what is IRC?

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is basically a simple chat program. The idea is that you first connect to a IRC server and then you can join rooms (called channels), or privately message people to your hearts content.

Getting started

First you will need an irc client. There are lots of them out there, and I will cover a few of them later. Assuming you have already chosen a client and you have it open in front of you, the server name is irc.toribash.com. An easy way to quickly get started in most clients is to simply type /server irc.toribash.com and hit enter in the main window (there is usually a line for entering text towards the bottom).

A whole bunch of text will normally spew out in front of you, it should start

-!- Welcome to the Toribash IRC IRC Network YourName
-!- Your host is irc.toribash.com, running version Unreal3.2.7
-!- This server was created Fri Nov 23 2007 at 19:54:54 SGT

YourName is usually selected during the install procedure, but can vary from client to client. If you aren't happy with whatever is here you may change that at any time with the command /nick NewName where NewName is whatever you want your screen name to be.

The final few lines of text should read

-!- - Welcome to the Toribash IRC Network!
-!- End of /MOTD command.

And you are left sitting there, with a command prompt patiently waiting your next move. This is the point, in my experience, that people start to get a little nervous about this strange and scary process - but it's almost done, so stick with it a little longer...

OK, so the next thing to do is to join a channel and see what's going on there. However, if you are new to this whole thing I recommend an additional step. Type /list and hit enter. This command lists all of the channels on the server:

#boaf 3 [+ntr] BAF LIVES FOREVER
-!- #cnbl 3 [+ntr] yummmm nachoz
-!- #halo 1
-!- #kick 1
-!- #gmod 2 [+ntr] LOLOLOL. || models: http://games.slainvet.net/gmod.zip || steam://connect/games.slainvet.net:27015
-!- #olda 2 [+ntr] ;Welcome to the OLDA IRC channel, where people who are Over Legal Drinking Age meet | Register
your nickname, so you can get op status automatically |OLDA OFFICIAL FORUM FIXED. ENJOY!
...
-!- #toriflash 2 ola espaniola
-!- #gururpg 2 [+ntr] Welcome to idlerpg, to register type /msg IRPG-Guru REGISTER <char name> <password> <char
class> || http://idlerpg.net/ for more commands and info.
-!- End of /LIST

the server names are the things with a '#' symbol in front, the number that follows is the number of people in that room. After the number you might see square brackets '[]' surrounding some seemingly random letters. These represent the channel modes, don't worry too much about that just yet. Finally, there is the topic which can be set by people with special privileges in that room. For example, one of the channels is called '#toriflash', when I copy/pasted that line there were two users in the room and the topic is 'ola espaniola'.

If you see a channel you want to join, the command is very simple, /join #channel, the channel with the most users is most likely going to be #toribash, so you could type, /join #toribash

That should take you into the channel, where you will hopefully see people chatting away. Depending on your client, you should see a list of usernames representing everyone who is also in this channel. For most clients this is in list form to the left or right of the main chat window.

Chatting is simple, just type what you want to say in the command line and hit enter. Remember, like in toribash, if you start with a '/' the server will try to interpret it as a command and your text will not be displayed in the chat window.

Useful commands

We have covered some, but this might be helpful as a quick reference:

/server - your client will connect to a server. Format: /server irc.toribash.com
/connect - identical to /server.
/join - if you follow this command with a channel name (don't forget to include the '#') you will join that channel. If the channel name does not exist, it will be created and you will be moderator (or 'op') of that channel. Format: /join #toribash
/leave - leaves the channel. Format: /leave #toribash you don't have specify a channel, but if you only want to leave one specific channel when you are in multiple channels you should include it.
/part - same as leave for those of a more sophisticated bent.
/partall - leaves all channels.
/quit - quits from the IRC server. You can also add a message, meant to be used to specify why you quit, but more often than not it is used to get in the last word in an argument before slamming the door. Format: /quit I have better things to do than this. will display YourNick has left the room (quit: I have better things to do than this).
/away - sets your status to away or afk. You will need to set a message which will be displayed if anyone tries to privately message you or if they use the /whois command. Format: /away Making a cup of coffee
/me - you will probably be familiar with the /em command in Toribash. This works similarly. Format: /me is about to become a black belt will display * YourName is about to be become a black belt
/msg - allows you to send a private message to another user. Format: /msg TheirNick hello, how's it going? where TheirNick is the screen name of the person you wish to pm.
/privmsg - Identical to /msg, sometimes only one or the other works.
/whois - displays information about a user. /whois TheirNick, would display



Nick: TheirNick
Username: [email protected]
Real name: What_They_Have_Entered_As_Their_Real_Name
Server: irc.toribash.com (Toribash IRC)
Currently on: #toribash @#kick ~#olda ~#modteam
Idle for: 2 hours, 21 minutes
Online since: Mon 21 Jul 2008 11:41:30 BST

This will also display any away messages.

/help - usually displays a list of common commands, if you type /help list it might give information about the list command:

Provides a complete listing of all channels on the network.
If a search string is specified, it will only show those
matching the search string.
-
Syntax: *LIST <search string>
Example: LIST
*********LIST *ircd*
-
Some additional flags are also supported.
>number *List channels with more than <number> people
<number *List channels with less than <number> people

Other commands to be aware of


/ignore - stops a certain user's messages from being displayed in the chat window. Format: /ignore TheirNick
/ison - tells you if certain people are online. Format: /ison Nick1 Nick2 Nick3. If any of the users are online their Nicks will be echoed back to you. For example, if Nick1 and Nick3 are connected to the irc network:

/ison Nick1 Nick2 Nick3
Nick1
Nick3

/motd - displays the server's message of the day. Nothing to get excited about, It has read "- Welcome to the Toribash IRC Network!" since 2007 and most clients display the "Message of the Day" upon connection.
/time - returns the server time.
/whowas - works the same as whois, but for use when someone has left the server.
/kick - Forces a user from the channel (only ops can do this). Format: /kick TheirNick.
Etiquette

Most people know how to be polite, all the same rules of ettiquette within Toribash apply in IRC. Different channels can have quite different standards of manners, but if you aim to be more polite than the average user you shouldn't go too far wrong. Here are some guidelines:
Last edited by CMon; Aug 12, 2008 at 02:11 PM.