The Great IRC Café

[Kahr]

What is IRC?

What IRC is, can be explain in many ways. I read some official on Undernet trying to explain it like a TV Network. Riiiight... Now that just sounds silly. The easy, yet geeky, way to explain what IRC is; An IRC Network is a bunch of servers linked together with tons of clients from around the world connected to various servers.

Got it? If you know what I'm talking about, I'm sure you dun need an explanation on IRC. But, read on anyways, you might find it interesting.

Let's begin with an IRC Network. An IRC Network is like a large Café (yes, some of these café's are incredibly large with over a 100 000 daily visitors). This large Café is a place to meet people from all around the world, actually. As if you have a teleporter in your home, and you can teleport to that spesific Café, meeting tons of other people with that same teleporter. Cool, huh?

Now, IRC Operators are the people behind the scenes. They help run the Café, and make sure things go as they can. But when the Café grow as large as some of them do, then it's hard for the IRC Operator to keep track of everything. Some of the IRC Operators work like bartenders, trying to help directly towards the public. Others work as bouncers, throwing people out of the Café if they have broken any of the regulations of the Café.

Servers. Servers are, well, the door you take into the Café. Sometimes there are precious few doors to take, other times, there are tons of them, like in the really large Café's. Usually, it's wisest to take the door that is closest to you, but people chose whatever door they want into the Café. It doesn't really matter that much.

Rooms. Or Channels. Rooms/Channels (often beginning with #) are all the tables in the Café. You can pretty much go and sit by any table at all, where you meet many interesting people. Somehow, many of these people are able to duplicate themselves into sitting at several tables at once. This is just inexplainable. But anyone can do this. It's the magic of the Café's. Each of these tables are maintained by Channel Operators (as they are called in IRCish). These people can decide whether people are kicked out, or bannished from that table for set ammounts of time. Also, they can decide how the table work. Setting a table on Moderated means that only people who have a Voice (we will call it not being gagged) can talk. The people who do not have a Voice, are gagged and cannot speak. The owners of these tables do that for various reasons, and they are allowed to run the table as they wish. So if you don't like being gagged and not able to talk to the people around the table, feel free to leave.

Netsplits are something that occur more frequent on large Networks. We will call these netsplits, bullies. In reality, netsplits are when a server is split from the hub (and the other servers). In the Café, it means that a bunch of bullies come and take your (and often other tables) out of the Café and put it on the outside for a while. This means that you aren't able to speak to the people in the Café, but only to the people that were carried out on the table(s) you're on, and often other tables you aren't on.

Now knowing all these facts about the great IRC Café, you should be able to comprehend at least a little of what it is. You have the Café workers (IRC Operators), all the tables (Channels), the servers (doorways) and occational bullies (netsplits). When you are at home, and feeling that you might just be up to meeting some new people, feel free to use the teleporter into any of these (some large, some small) Café's, and sit down by a table (or duplicate yourself magically and sit by several tables at once). I have met tons of people on IRC, even years ago, that I still have contact with the day today. Sure, there are a lot of freakshows out there. People dressing up like women, trying to make you think they are. And of course vice versa, although that happens less. And there are also hackers (doorway brutes) that try to smash the doors so that all the people who entered trough that door are being taken away by bullies again. Well, there are actually a LOT of weird people, freaks and other inexplainable (although yes, they still are;) humans.

Take your time, download a teleporter of any kind (most used one is mIRC), and teleport your ass into one of these Café's. It's worth the trip. Sometimes to meet old friends (or meet new ones), or sometimes to make fun of all the weird people in the Café.

The only downside about these Café's are that you cannot order anything. Neither food nor drinks. But the upside is that it doesn't matter whether you are a smoker or not, because the air in the Café magically cleans itself before the smell, or smoke, reaches other people's noses/eyes.
_________________
"One Ring to link them all, One Ring to ping them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness sniff them"

[Asmo]

Eeeeuuuhh ...

Right!
_________________
Asmo

webmaster www.IRC-Junkie.org

[Kahr]

Haha, I was bored. Needed something to do.
_________________
"One Ring to link them all, One Ring to ping them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness sniff them"

[Asmo]

Yah dude, seriously :o)

Couldve put it as an article maybe, now its just burried down in the forum somewhere ;) Fun read though =D
_________________
Asmo

webmaster www.IRC-Junkie.org

[Kahr]

Hehe, it was only meant as a fun read.
_________________
"One Ring to link them all, One Ring to ping them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness sniff them"

[MexDownunda]

[Kahr]

[Mcmoo]

Haha next time someone asks me to explain irc i'll send em here.
_________________
To err is human, to mcmoo is uber cool!

[Kahr]

Hehe, nice.
_________________
"One Ring to link them all, One Ring to ping them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness sniff them"

[Stefano]

very intresting indeed looool
_________________
Administrator @ Beirut IRC Network
Webmaster @ Beirut Scripts
DJ @ Beirut Radio