An Introduction to IRC

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. That can be...less than revealing. It's a way to communicate over the Internet, in text, and in real time. It's more of a conversation--or more to the point, a chat--than a letter. Also, it allows group discussion. Generally, people congregate, instead of talking in a dialogue. IRC channels are the "chat rooms" of the Internet, and generally end up being a lot more useful than those of online services.

IRC is divided into different networks. These developed for many different reasons. Perhaps there were differences between the people who ran one network, so they split. Or maybe people wanted to start their own, for their friends. The "rules" are often different on different networks--both technically, and politically. The key point is: if someone is on Network A, and you're on Network B, you can not talk to them.

By very definition, a network most have multiple centers. In this case, the different nodes are servers. All the servers on a network are (usually) linked together, allowing someone on one server to converse to someone on another, as long as they are both on the same network. These different servers have different Internet addresses, different conditions for use, different owners, and differing "weather" (sometimes, servers will be "lagged" to one another--if someone says something on one server, it won't show to people on another until much later than they said it, sort of like a badly dubbed film. This gets annoying pretty quickly, so people try to stay on servers that aren't lagged. You can tell how lagged you are to someone by /pinging them. This gives you a second count between something you say and something they say. If multiple people are 5 or more seconds lagged to you, it's a good idea to find out what server they're on and switch over to it.).

Thousands of people use IRC at the same time. Obviously, it isn't feasible to have one giant conversation between all of them. As such, IRC networks have different channels. Think of a channel as a room, and networks as houses. People in the same room can talk to one another, but only if they're in the same room in the same house. Most channels are available to everyone on a network, regardless of what server they are on. This analogy has its limits, though: you can be in many channels at the same time (for that matter, you can be on different servers at the same time, too!). You only see comments people send to a certain channel, and only if you are in that channel.

Sometimes, you don't want everyone in a channel to see a comment. There are private messages. These allow you to talk to someone directly, as long as they are on the same network as you.

IRC has many different people, and some are more powerful than others. Above everyone are the admins. These are people who have total control over servers, and collaborate on running the network in general. They can ban you from the entire network. This is called a G:line (Global-line). Each server also has IRC operators, or IRCops. They can ban you from a specific server (k(ill):line), and also can control specific channels. Channels have operators, or ops. The original op of a channel is the person who starts it. How do you start a channel? Simply join one whose name doesn't exist yet. However, ops can delegate their power. They can op other people, as well as kicking people out of their channel, or even banning them. They also can set other options, like how many people can be in the channel, and if a password is needed or not.