What is IRC?
IRC is a method of communicating with people in real time. This means that you can 'chat' with them there and then rather than sending emails to them. The idea is that once you reach your IRC location, you enter a 'room'. Most rooms have a topic and tend to attract a certain type of user. For example, there are loads of 'teen' chat rooms for teenagers. Once in the room of your choice you will see a list of other people in the same room. As they type messages, everyone in the room can see the message and who wrote it. If YOU type a message, everyone will see what you typed and so you can ask questions, answer enquiries and so forms the basis for conversation!
How does it work?
Before you can enter a room, you need to have a nickname. This name must be unique at the time of logging on to the chat server. It can be your name but the chances are 'Fred' or 'Jane' may already be logged on, so people tend to choose some quite zany names that reflect themselves. Once you have your nickname, you can enter a room. You can sit and watch for awhile (known as 'lurking'), or you can start chatting. Most rooms notify others when a person joins or leaves a room so you might see something like this. In this example, my nickname is 'Chatter'.
**** Chatter joins 40's Advance ****
[Cutie] Hi Chatter!
[Redblood] Hello chatter where are you from?
** Cutie shakes Chatter warmly by the hand
**** Hounddog leaves 40's Advance ****
[Cutie] btw - I'm the op in here chatter - any questions please ask me
Now this can all look a bit confusing at first and in a busy chat room the messages can fly thick and fast! It's worth trying to keep up though as some great fun can be had! So what was all that about? Well to start with, we say a message saying that Chatter had joined the room called "40's Advance". Everyone in the room would see that message so they would know that chatter had just arrived.
Someone called 'Cutie' then said "Hi". The person who spoke can be identified by their nickname appearing in angled brackets. 'Redblood' then asks where chatter is from. This often happens and it can be amazing to see where in the world people come from. A word of advice. Just like any public event, you can get some 'strange people' in IRC chat rooms. Never tell people you exact address unless you know everybody in the room. I live in the suburbs of London in the UK so when asked - I just say 'London - UK'.
