If you hadn´t met one before, u have now, the IRC-o-HOLIC

A couple of simple Q & A about IRC for all you newbies:

Q: What is IRC?
A: IRC is an international network making it possible with the right software (IRC-client) to "talk" to other people all over the world via their keyboard in real-time.

Q: Is there a lot of people there?
A: Yes, mildly put. A normal day would see about 100 000 simultaneous users all over the world

Q: Is everyone clogged in to one space?
A: No, IRC is similar to Newgroups (UseNet) and is divided in to multiple "Channels" or "Cafeets", commonly around 60 000 channels, all with diffrent "topics".

Q: Who decides what channels there should be?
A: You do. Anyone can start a new channel with any topic, channels can also be private, invisible or invite-only if you want privacy with you new-found friend/s. If you start a channel you are automaticlly the channel operator, the OP. Being an OP gives extra priviliges such as giving/taking OP from others in the channel, setting channel topic and kicking/banning disturbing users.

Q: Do I use my real name on IRC?
A: No. Not normally. You use a "nickname", a nick. You can choose any nick you like as long as it is not occupied by someone else. If you want to be Cyber and someone else already is, you can add a _ or a number in the nick like: Cyber_, _Cyber or Cyber2 and you will be pretty close anyway.

Q: What is flooding?
A: Flooding is a massive output of nonsence text in a channel at a rapid pace. Normally you are kicked and banned from the channel if you flood.

Q: How do I get this IRC-client (software)?
A: Press the Icon at the bottom of this page to link to a site where you can download mIRC, the best IRC-client around. The software is almost self-installing and explaining. All you got to do is to connect to a IRC-server.

Q: What´s a IRC-server?
A: The IRC-server relays your text all other IRC-servers in the world so that everyone can see what you are writing. It also administers all IRC-commands for forming, removing and maintaing the channels.

What´s more to IRC?

There are a heep of features in IRC and in the mIRC-client that you can take advantage of as you go. You can let mIRC watch for your favourite pals and tell you when they come on IRC, you can use DCC to chat and send files without going through the IRC-servers or you could retreive information about someone via CTCP. mIRC come with very good help-files and there are always someone nice around to ask if you join a major channel.

A few good advice:

1. Don´t flood.
2. Don´t display you real name or e-mail address, at least not if you are female (there are weirdos everywhere)
3. Be aware! Not everyone is who they claim they are
4. Be polite
5. Don´t start flame-wars, any bad behaviour of yours can backfire on you and since most ISP:s and OP:s don´t have time to sort who did what, your actions can have consequences for everyone using the same ISP as you.