Talk:Internet Relay Chat/Archive 1

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Contents

[edit] Section about IRC search engines

I think the Search Engines section has way too much irrelevant discussion about the databases/programming languages used for IRC crawlers/websites. Any objections about removing it? -- intgr 17:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, I'm not quite sure it's appropriate for Wikipedia to link to so-called "IRC search engines" that only index XDCC/Fserve (eg, warez) on an article about IRC. These include Packetnews, IRCDig and IRCSpy. -- intgr 17:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I added back IRC Images (http://irc.tnet.no/). This site indexes images instead of files, channels, users or whatever. The one who removed it stated that this was not an IRC search engine, but how do you define that? Surely, if you include XDCC indexers etc (PacketNews is one), then IRC Images must come under that definition, they're both a type of content/media! And PacketNews and a bunch of other similiar ones are included. Techefnet 12:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modified version of ASCII

I have removed the statement that the IRC protocol uses "a slightly modified version of ASCII", since neither I nor other experienced users could think of what it refers to. 149.254.192.204 21:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] |BUDD|

The current page says that IRC was created by |BUDD|, while other pages (including earlier versions of this one, I believe) tend to say that it was created by Jarkko Oikarinen. Whichever might be the case, would it be possible to explain who this |BUDD| is? 129.240.106.220 01:05, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I see it was already reverted. Thanks! 129.240.106.220 01:07, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am assuming that |BUDD| was Jarkko Oikarinen, because most users on IRC tend to use aliases to go under. I Could be wrong, more research is required on my part :P --Brenton Scott 16:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, Jarkko's nick was WiZ. In the early days hardly anyone used special characters in their nicknames. People even managed to use their given names and avoid getting collided, but hey, there were only a few hundred IRCers on earth anyway. --lynX

[edit] Destruction

Hello I got to this page from the Wikipedia:Replies to common objections, which mentions (somewhere in the middle of the page) "destruction like that which has come to the IRC network, defenseless against true malice". I guess that this refers to some historical or ongoing problem -- does someone want to write about the social history of IRC, and in particular address the problem mentioned above? I really don't know anything about IRC so I can't help here. Happy editing, Wile E. Heresiarch 00:22, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'll add it to my to-do list on my user page. I don't know when I'll get to it, but if no one else gets to it, I guess I will, eventually. :-)
cprompt 00:30, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It probably refers to the known incidents in IRC history where denial of service attacks were able to terminate entire networks: I believe the largest such so far was the shutting down of DALnet after a series of DDoSes some time in 2003 (IIRC). --Shallot 01:28, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] B1FF

Some source and clarification for the B1FF claim might be required, as IIRC the Jargon File states that "he" was actually the work of several different people at different times.

Humorously enough, the famous "idiot user" B1FF, who was allegedly a BITNET user, was actually a well known IRC operator.

This comment is a complete non-sequitor...I'm removing it until it's explained a bit better. -- RobLa

[edit] OPN/freenode

how do i get on irc.openprojects.net?? Lir 11:29 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

is anyone even there?

openprojects IRC is dead. Try irc.freenode.net (geared towards programming projects), which seems to be similar to openprojects, although I never used openprojects. -- Olathe November 23, 2003
For the record, openprojects and freenode are actually the same thing -- they changed their name for various reasons. - Lady Lysine Ikinsile 10:07, Jun 8, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Non-proprietary nature

I removed this:

* IRC operators do not discourage connection by other, non-IRC clients, as the commercial instant messaging services often do.

By definition, any client that connects to an IRC server is an IRC client, even if it is not the primary function of the program. I think what the author of that snippet intended to say was that IRC operators do not endorse any single client, whereas some commercial instant messaging services, (probably most notably AOL Instant Messenger) require you to use a client created by them.

cprompt 14:10 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] @find file sharing

I deleted this chunk of text because it goes into a level of detail on one tiny aspect of IRC which isn't even in the standard IRC set of commands. It might be useful to add back in, but some thought should be applied with how to reinsert it. It might make sense as a section titled "Exchanging files using IRC". -- RobLa 09:22 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] IRC commands

The @FIND command is used in IRC to look for and interchange archives.

To use the command, one must go to a depot channel, where this command is allowed.

In the depot channel, a user can type the @find command, followed by the search string (singer and/or song title). The wildcard characters * and ? can be used in the search string.

If an archive is found on a channel user's machine, the command will return a list of matches. Grabster returns a unique match list.

To request the archive, the user must type in the depot channel "!nick" and the archive_name.

The @nick command can also be used on the depot channel to obtain information about a user and his or her files.

See also:

For sure, I included it in the article "At find", but somebody put it in the IRC article. IRC file interchange it´s very important nowadays, like a IRC response to Napster and compatible interchange clients.
What about the @find peer-to-peer command ??. Where can one include it ??. I will create a new article about it, because it´s vital for peer-to-peering.
I've put that in depot channel now. --Shallot 00:02, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Could someone please point me towards some resources where I can read about the technology used by "At find" and Grabster, since all I can get out of Google are links to this page :) Cheers! -- Dbaser 10:52, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Charsets

One of the sentences made little sense :

Its biggest disadvantage is the lack of a well-defined character encoding for the messages, making it unsuitable for modern communication requirements.

What does "modern communication requirements" mean ? I can chat using IRC just fine at the current time, so all requirements for communication in this incredibly modern time (right now) have obviously been met. This should be changed to "...making it unsuitable for insert task here". -- Olathe November 16, 2003

I believe that's in reference to lack of explicit UTF-8, UTF-16 and unicode goodies. If you are willing to live with 7-bit US-ASCII, then life is great. If you want more, prepare for interop problems. -- RobLa 03:05, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I have edited the article to be more specific about that. Thanks for the info. I will be deleting this question chain due to it being out of date after at least a week from now (since the problem in the article is fixed), unless there are objections -- Olathe November 23, 2003
Yes, irc can handle 8 bit values (both according to a side comment in rfc1459 and the behaviour of actual ircds in use) but does not define what they mean (there is even a hint that some users may be using 7 bit ascii variant encodings though its not stated explicitly but all modern clients use ascii superset encodings). So unless the two clients use the same settings non-ascii text will be garbled. Plugwash 15:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] #wikipedia

I wonder, is there an official channel on IRC for the wikipedia, there must be! --Alex

Wikipedia:IRC Channel MadEwokHerd 00:52, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] "Internet Relay Chat" versus "Internet relay chat"

It sure seems like "Internet Relay Chat" needs to be fully capitalized. "Internet relay chat" could refer to any method of using the Internet and relays to enable chat. "Internet Relay Chat" is the very specific form of Internet relay chat referred to in this article. -- RobLa

RFC 1459 uses "Internet Relay Chat". The German and French Wikipedia use "Internet Relay Chat". "Internet Relay Chat" is the term used almost exclusively; it refers to a specific protocol. It is never used to describe any other chat system. I moved the article to reflect the more common capitalization. --cprompt 23:40, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] WebChat

I've removed WebChat since it's not actually a large network (it only appears to be because their irc server software has about 30000 fake Service Agent users, while checking each local user count per server gives about 7000-8000 real users making it a medium-size network) --Simon Arlott 15:16, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

When I just checked, WebChat had 18,000 real users (and about 15,800 agents).

--It has no agents; I'd be curious to see how you determined there were 15,800 agents. Nbougalis 04:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC) (a WebChat administrator)

[edit] channel/user modes

I removed the following text because a) I'm not convinced it's useful, and b) it'd have to be accompanied by an explanation of what modes mean (why are they single letters? what does p/+p/-p mean?) and I'm *really* not sure that's useful -- WikipediaIsNotAManual?

  • b (ban) : ban a hostmask from the channel and prevent him from coming back
  • i (invite) : channel can only be joined if invited by an operator
  • k (key) : set a password for the channel
  • l (limit) : limit the maximum number of users in a channel.
  • m (moderated) : only operators and voiced users can send messages to the channel
  • n (no outside messages) : users need to be in the channel to write to it
  • o (operator) : to grant or remove operator status of a user
  • p (private) : channel does not show up in WHOIS
  • s (secret) : channel does not show up in LIST
  • t (topic) : channel topic can only be changed by an operator
  • v (voice) : grant or remove voice status of a user

And several "non-standard" modes which are nonetheless supported in many IRC server implementations:

  • a (protect) : keep a user from being kicked from the channel
  • c (colourless) : stop coloured text from being sent to the channel
  • e (exception) : allow a hostmask that would otherwise be currently banned to join the channel
  • h (half-op) : to grant or remove partial operator status of a user (can kick, ban, but not op)
  • q (owner) : grant or remove owner status of a user
  • r (registered) : channel registered with a service such as ChanServ

Note that in many implementations, +p/+s are the same thing, and include the functionality of the other. There may be other channel modes depending on the server implementation.

Similary, users can set modes on themselves, both the standard ones:

  • i (invisible) : render user invisible
  • o (operator) : irc operator flag (cannot normally by set by a user)
  • s (server) : allow reception of server notices
  • w (wallops) : allow reception of wallops

And extensions:

  • r (registered) : registered with service such as NickServ
  • x (IP mask) : IP address is encrypted

Many other varied channel and user modes are used by different implementations of the IRC protocol, and no real standard exists.

-- Lady Lysine Ikinsile 16:15, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

I have written some stuff on the idea itself, less manual-like Betterworld 00:31, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I could put those "modes" in a subpage of the IRC article, if you wish. Denelson83 20:50, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The external link should do it --Betterworld
Actually, on almost all IRCDs, +p and +s are mutually exclusive, and both hide from /whois. The real difference is a +p channel shows in /list, but with a name of "*" and no topic, so all that's seen is the number of users in it. A +s channel doesn't show in /list at all. Goplat 18:28, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Except on hybrid-6 (and therefore ratbox, and I think +CS might be doing it this way... but who knows about them :-) where +p has changed into a completely unrelated function, much to the confusion of users and clients alike. In any case the current article doesn't seem to mention either +p or +s. —Kate | Talk 18:43, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)
I would really like this put back. Or a modes page made--Adam1213 Talk + 06:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
"(And contrary to a popular belief, user mode of +r does not stand for 'retarded' but 'restricted'. Unfortunately, if I may add.)" seems very unencyclopedic. Does this belong here? In any case, I've used ircds where user mode +r is given after a "/msg nickserv password", to mean "registered with NickServ", or similar). ozzmosis 16:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Miscellanea

I removed this section because I think that like the above it's not really ... very informative.


Miscellanea
Because major IRC servers support clients from different parts of the globe that interact in real time, UTC time is generally used for international meetings.
IRC has been described (by a quote from Bash.org) as "multiplayer notepad."

I hope I'm not removing too much here, but I'm trying to make a useful and coherent article rather than just a long one -- and I do think there's a lot more that could be written. -- Lady Lysine Ikinsile 16:35, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Grnet

Grnet was added by SimonP with no explanation why. According to SearchIRC it only has about 200 users so it's not a large network. -- Simon Arlott 12:00, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

  • According to netsplit.de it has about 5000 users, which is still not a large network. -- Simon Arlott 12:02, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think this just shows that we may need List of IRC networks. --Shallot 13:10, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Services

I want to point out that I disagree with what the IRC page says about 'services' being implemented by bots. By definition, bots are automated =clients= and services are (nearly) always implemented as servers. The actual services agents that you see (ChanServ, NickServ, and so on) are just the user interface. For example, when services wants to kick someone out of a channel, it tells the IRC network that 'ChanServ' did it because the network needs some sort of identity to pass on, but there is no actual 'ChanServ' client, so it cannot be a bot. (By the way, I'm was one of the coders on DALnet's services, was Technical Director of DALnet, and am currently the CTO of a company thats product line includes an IRC services implementation.) -- JoelKatz

Well, being as this is a wiki, you could always be bold and change it yourself :-) —Lady Lysiŋe Ikiŋsile | Talk 01:22, 2004 Jul 17 (UTC)

[edit] the '!' type of chan is missing

The basic means of communication in an established IRC session is a channel which users can join and then send messages to, which are then relayed to all other users in the same channel. Channels which are available across an entire irc network are prepended with a '#', while those local to a server use '&'. The prefix '+' is supported by some servers for 'modeless' channels - those without operators.

What is missing is the ! prefix, you can have !chan on some neworks as well as #chan &chan and +chan, though before someone starts to link wp:bb i didnt add it because i only know that it exists, not it's specific nature and how it differs from the rest. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 14:40, 2004 Jul 22 (UTC)

Common is only #channel. +channels and &channels are pretty specific, so are !channels. You might want to read http://ircnet.irchelp.org/channel.html, which reflects what it really means and why this is so. iio will also tell you more about other specifica, which do not necesseraly need to apply to all networks or ircnet server versions. What kind of features are supported by a server is also mentioned in the 004 Numeric upon connecting to any server. (Though 004 is an extension also and not supported by all irc servers. sigh - the IRC Protocol is a single mess. use silc instead. :)

Actually, &channels are standard (RFC1459). +channels and !channels aren't (unless you count IRCnet's RFCs), but this is mentioned in the article. By 004 do you mean 005? This includes CHANTYPES=, and while it isn't yet standard, will hopefully be at some point (there is an internet-draft describing the draft specification). —Kate | Talk 14:53, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)
Is irc itself actually standard anyway? rfc1459 only describes it as a draft protocol and i belive has at least one place where its description differs from that used by all irc servers. Plugwash 15:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] searchirc

After I trimmed the external links section to only include articles which are useful to someone reading about IRC (as opposed to those useful to users of IRC, which is what DMOZ is for), someone added back the "searchirc" link. What does this link add to the content of the article? The implied precedent there (that any random site about IRC can be added to the article) is not a good one. —Kate | Talk 23:08, 2004 Aug 4 (UTC)

I don't actually know how useful this site is, as they've blocked my user agent, but I agree that the external links section should only contain links to sites which expand on information relevant to the (already comprehensive) article. A cluttered list of links is only going to demotivate a person from actually following the links therein. Austin Hair 04:30, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] It should be added that IRC is pronouced as "irk"

IRC, is commonly pronouced as three, independent letters in a row, like acronym fashion. Though several documents that speak of IRC in its early days, explictly use the pronounciation "irk." — 64.233.204.182

Depends where you are; I've been using IRC for a decade and have never heard anyone call it "irk". We don't tend to pronounce initialisms like that much in the UK anyways, though. — OwenBlacker 15:39, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)
I live in the US and have never heard it called "irk". I heard mIRC called mirc once, and GUI pronounced "gooey", but both sounded rediculous. — Anonymous
Hehe funny.. When in 1989 the first german IRCers met, they were shocked to find that they were pronouncing IRC in different ways. The people in Munich used to say irk whereas the guys in Erlangen were pronouncing it letter by letter as in eeh err tze. So this discussion is as old as IRC itself. I remember we agreed on the irk variant back then, but heh.. who cares about what we agreed upon.  ;) VRML was supposed to be pronounced vermal (still most call it letter by letter) and WWW just dubdubdub but hey some stuff just doesn't make it. --lynX 14:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smaller, more niche based IRC network

i added "Smaller... blah blah blah" into the articale, as a way for wiki's who want to submit smaller, niche based , high quality networks.

Please do not remove this, as the above little subsection gives the user more choices in the kinds of networks he/she wants to visit.

AND it does not break the wiki rules.

-NightDragon

Yes, it does. Wikipedia is not a link repository, and it's also not proper to include external links in the article body outside the external links section. --Joy [shallot] 09:51, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Then care to explain to me why some not-so-big networks are on there?
--NightDragon 03:05, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
According to netsplit.de, the user counts for the networks in the article are currently as follows:
  • EFNet: 99628 users, 42025 channels
  • IRCNet: 90317 users, 53393 channels
  • QuakeNet: 135018 users, 177729 channels
  • BRASnet: (no listing)
  • DALnet: 28815 users, 15571 channels
  • EnterTheGame: 9023 users, 8525 channels
  • Freenode: 16027 users, 6579 channels
  • GameSurge: 36239 users, 48123 channels
Obviously "not-so-big" is subjective. But these networks all have several thousand users online. Certainly it is not necessary to list every server in the world in the context of this encyclopedia. TrbleClef 06:30, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
ISTR BRASnet also being on netsplit.de stats, but anyway, their site shows a graph saying they now have over 60,000 users. --Joy [shallot] 10:30, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Where's Undernet? lysdexia 21:43, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
us.undernet.org and eu.undernet.org --huwr 05:50, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Multicast?

"IRC is one of the few technologies equipped with a real one-to-many strategy."

I can't fully agree with this. Only the server-to-server communication can be considered multicast (spanning tree). Each link connected to the irc server (either a client or another server) can be transferred identical data, but nothing is in place to have the packets multicast (at least not in the original RFC and common implementations). If a network (meaning a collection of linked servers) has 1000000 clients, and a message is to be sent to EACH client, the network will ultimately transmit the same data AT LEAST 1000000 times. The servers share the burden amongst themselves.

I guess the statement is true, but I find it slightly misleading.

Reply by SymlynX 11:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC):

The word multicast is not limited to IP Multicast. IRC implements multicast on the interserver level. The intention is for clients to connect to their topologically closest server. Of course if you don't engineer an IRC network that way, you can completely lose out on the advantages of multicast, which is one of the few strengths IRC has compared to other chat technologies. PSYC is a protocol which not only does interserver multicast, but also comes up with a plan for P2P and multipeer multicast as you describe (only implemented by the psycion client yet, though) - yet for small chatrooms this approach is generally over the top and the interserver multicasting is just right.
By the way, when 1000000 clients sign up for an IP Multicast, 1000000 copies of a message are sent to reach each of those (unless some happen to be on the same LAN). The difference is only in how far those 1000000 had to travel. In the case of Jabber, each message went all the way from the originator's server to the recipient's client, creating a huge load on the network, whereas on IRC the message travels along the tree of servers and is only fan out to the local clients of each server. The way IRC has only one distribution tree can be inefficient or a bottleneck, that's why PSYC uses seperate trees for each conference (a channel or a user's presence notifications), but still IRC is one of the few popular protocols that actually does any form of multicasting.
IP Multicast is generally blocked in the commercial internet, so NNTP and IRC must be the most popular multicast protocols actively in use, or am I missing something? If you don't take synchronization in consideration, then BitTorrent and several other distributed P2P protocols are in the lead here, but synchronization is considered a requirement for the term multicast

[edit] IRC subculture

I believe some of the more subjective stuff here should be moved to the (underdeveloped) IRC_subculture article. There's a lot of non-technical stuff here re: leet users, common irc panks, etc, that may be better suited to the subculture article than the article about IRC itself. I'd like some commentary about that, as I'm certainly not going to go restructuring a major article like that without some support. Overand 23:05, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gaining prominence in "the fall of the USSR"

IRC gained prominence when it was used behind the Iron Curtain to report on the fall of the USSR during a media blackout.

I don't think this is correct. For one thing, the USSR didn't suddenly fall at any particular point in time - remember it was slowly and gently opened up bit by bit over a period of years, and one of the first things to change was more open media. I think the author is thinking of the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 when old school communists attempted to take control to reverse Mikhail Gorbachev's progressive reforms. I seem to remember my IRC-using nerd friends getting excited about it at the time. I'm changing the article but preserve the old text here just in case. --Gypsum Fantastic 09:58, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Abuse section

The abuse section seems irrelevant to this subject. Any program which allows user-to-user communication could be used for similar things. Should this really be here? --Para45

  • Yes, you're right. But unless there's an article about Internet chat abuse, I think it should stay. --Aurochs

[edit] Forms of abuse

The abuse section is very much related to this subject, or at least the one that has been deleted recently. I don't know neither User:A Man In Black nor User:Jigsy but I must agree with Jigsy that those points listed are important and verifiable by personal experience (anyone who knows IRC intensely, has had some experience of that kind). Actually the issues would be worth updating RFC 1324. Maybe there are some other publications? However, if this article goes so much into detail as explaining Timestamping vs. nick/channel delay it should as well in some way talk about these risks of abuse, and if you can't suggest a better way to present them, this is a start. Feel free to add a ((fact)), that's fair. Also a more encyclopedic tone wouldn't harm. Some of the examples are generic forms of online social hacking but some others are very very specific to IRC. It may not be very good marketing for IRC, but does IRC need any? Does anyone on IRC want new users that are uninformed of potential abuse? btw RFC 1324 is a nice historic document that may want to be listed in the article. Then again, there are huge amounts of historic documents about IRC... --lynX 06:00, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

So it happened again, this time with the excuse of it being original research. Does it take any original research to list such an obvious selection of things that can happen to a newbie on irc? --lynX

[edit] ircd 2.6 introduced named channels, not 2.5, right?

http://www.efnet.org/?module=docs&doc=22&type=text

[edit] communication model: definition?

Quote: "Because most IRC implementations use an acyclic graph as their connection model, there is no redundancy, and outage of a server or a link can cause a netsplit."

While the quoted text kindly includes links to a page for "acyclic graph", there is no information about "connection model". Is this a technical term? What are the well known connection models? What is the accepted better alternative to an acyclic graph-based connection model? I know that protocols can be either connection-oriented (TCP) or connectionless (UDP), in other words, that a connection either exists or does not. HTTP 1.1 maintains a connection across queries, but I'm not sure if this qualifies as a "connection model"; maybe a "connection strategy". Bored 15:02, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Now that I have read the "netsplit" article, I see that the "connection model" refers to more than just the client-server connection, but to the entire network of connections on IRC. This is not especially clear from the context, which is about protocols, not the emergent behaviour of the IRC network. I suppose the alternative is to connect each server to multiple other servers, not just one, maintaining secondary connections as a backup for the first connection in the event the connected server on that connection cannot be reached. In any case, not sure that this datum is much use. Better in an article on general network design. Bored 15:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd say it does belong here because netsplits are an IRC quirk, and it isn't currently possible to connect servers in such a way as to avoid this situation. It does look rather odd in the "Technical information" section though.. madewokherd 06:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Big Four / Network List

Why are there six networks in the 'big four'? The info is confusing.

Big Four are now the top four in the listed networks. Should not be hard to see who are actually the big four, because honestly they are the big four by atleast a factor of 2. Quakenet is 150k+, Undernet/Ircnet are 100k+, and Efnet is 70k+; the next highest are in the 30-35k range. Saying the big four changes (w.r.t. networks) is pretty silly given the statistics. TunkeyMicket 00:33, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed LinkNET and NewNet... both are <5000 users or have nothing of unique categorical interest, good addition to the general IRC network listing TunkeyMicket 03:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Removed silly Big Five reference, never been called the Big Five. Dal hardly has the user count the other four do. TunkeyMicket 19:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] EsperNet

Someone had included EsperNet in the "Big Four" when the article on it describes it as medium-sized. Any explanation? Smeggysmeg 22:10, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I think removing it was/is the right thing. madewokherd 19:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. - Image:Ottawa flag.png nathanrdotcom (T • C • W) 20:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dates/Years for the various versions

As one who has used irc on and off since 1990 it's fun to read how various things have evolved. Takes me back. But I miss information on when (as in what year) the various features and versions were introduced. For instance, I remember the +channelnames, but can't for the best of me remember when the #channel-name were introduced (somewhere around 1993 or 94, maybe?). I think this should be stated in the article. Giving the irc-version when stuff changed is fine and appropriate, but stating the years as well would be very informative. So, I miss more dates in the article. Shanes 03:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Add a list of IRC software

IRC Clients for Windows

http://www.ircreviews.org/clients/platforms-windows.html

There's already a List of IRC clients under See Also in this article. madewokherd 17:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IRC protocol in multiplayer games?

Maybe someone could add something about how the IRC protocol has recently been used in (massively) multiplayer games, like World of Warcraft. WoW's chat and channel system is based directly on the IRC protocol (technically based, not just inspired by). --Ifrit 11:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, after playing EVE Online for a while, I have also discovered that it uses IRC for in-game communication. --Ifrit 13:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Irc Is Also used in Unreal Tournament 2004