so what is this irc thing, anyway?

irc (internet relay chat) is a really old chat protocol from the nineties. at the time, large media was deemed too expensive to transfer, and voice chat wasn't even a thing yet. irc has remained dead simple throughout the years, to the point where you can have a pretty okay time using it over a raw tcp connection.

that doesn't mean it's stuck in the past, though. current irc servers run modern irc software, reflecting the current usage of irc over the years. new standards exist that add nifty stuff like multiline messages, typing notifications, chat history, and sometimes even automatic file upload handling.

wait, chat history? how does chat work without history?

originally irc didn't store messages anywhere. once the message appeared on the connected users' terminal screen, it would be gone, and it would be the clients' job to persist it for scrollback.

similarly, irc doesn't really have a concept of "accounts". when you connected with the nickname alice, you couldn't go on a different computer and connect as alice, because that nick was already online. this was fine enough in the days where everyone was sharing the same computer, because you could look to see which unix user they're connecting from, but it does raise a few interesting questions:

how can i connect from my desktop and laptop without having two nicks?
how do i prevent someone from stealing my name when i'm not online?
scratch that — how can i see messages i wasn't online for?

all of these problems were solved with the invention of bouncers — clients that would stay on for you all the time, and that you could connect through to reserve your nickname and see what messages you weren't around for. bouncers are still useful for many servers today, as not all of them have builtin chat history. this server, however, does, and simply registering with the accounts service will have your account never be truly logged out, if you wish.

what's some practical information i should know?

irc doesn't have a way to mention someone. if you wanna ping them, just mentioning them by name would be fine, as their clients are likely to notice that and send a notification themselves.
the nick colours you see in everyone's names are not configurable, and depend entirely on the client you use. there's no setting to change them, they're just there to distinguish nicknames.
your account settings are exposed via a pseudouser named NickServ. try running
```
/msg NickServ help
```
to get started. registering a nickname means someone else can't nick to it without entering your password, and if you run
```
/msg NickServ set always-on true
```
you'll be able to see messages you weren't online for.
you can join channels with /join #foo. if a channel by that name doesn't already exist, it will create it for you, but it'll disappear if everyone disconnects from it. to persist it, talk to the ChanServ pseudouser.
if you see a ~ or @ prefix before a nick in a channel, that means said nick is an operator of the channel, and has permissions to change the topic, alter permissions, kick users, etc.
always feel free to ping or message me at nbsp or email me at aoife@enby.space for any issue, whether technical or social.