Beginners' Guide to IRC

To chat to people on IRC is quite trivial: type your text, and it appears on the screen. To do more complicated stuff than this, you use commands. All commands begin with /.

There's only one commonly used command, and you can still get along without it. It is the /me command. It allows you to present text as an action performed by your online persona. For example, if your nickname is Razorbill, typing:

/me flaps his wings and clicks his beak!

appears on screen as:

Razorbill flaps his wings and clicks his beak!

This is the same as the : command on MUCKs.

Other commands include:

• /join channel - join the channel named channel, such as #feathers or #chat. Don't forget that all channels begin with #.
• /part - leave the current channel. This does not remove you completely from IRC; the channel can still be rejoined.
• /quit message - quit IRC, with the message message. People in the channels you were in will see (depending on who you are and what your message is) something like: Razorbill has quit IRC (Off to hunt fish.)