A Beginner's Guide to Getting on IRC

Day 1,162, 20:49 • Published in Canada Canada • by Ministry of Education Canada


IRC (Internet Relay Chat) provides a way of communicationg in real time with people from all over the world. It is an online chat room system that is used by practically every group in eCanada, including the Government, the CAF, TCO, political parties, and also those who're just looking for some fun 🙂

In this guide, we will be explaining how to use QChat. QChat is a nice client for beginners because it is extremely straightforward, simple and doesn't require you to download any software.




This is the easiest part of IRC, since there is a very useful browser-based IRC client called QChat. To connect to eCanada's IRC channel, all you have to do is:

1. Go to this page: http://qchat.rizon.net/?channels=eCan&uio=d4
(Bookmark this webpage! It'll be useful to have.)
You will then see a page that looks like the below image


2. Type in your nickname, then press 'Connect'. You'll be brought to a page like seen below.


Click here for a larger version.

3. You're done 🙂 Now it's just time to chat!

Now there will be two tabs at the top of the screen: the Stats tab, and the #eCan tab. The Status tab is all server stuff, which is useful to keep open, but you don't need to pay attention to it.

The biggest part of the screen is where all the chat info will be when people start talking. To the right of that is the list of active users. Below both of these is the line you use to enter text. Type information in that box and hit the Enter key on your keyboard to send a message to the room.

I hope you enjoy your time socialising with others on IRC 🙂

The rest of this guide is about registering your nickname on IRC. This isn't mandatory, so you don't have to if you don't want to. Registering your nick just provides better security, and can give you access to some channels which are private.









An important thing to do is to register your nickname, which will prevent other people from using it. It's not mandatory, but it really helps with security. You will need to have registered your nickname if you want to enter private channels, though.

Go to the Status tab, by clicking on the Status button at the very top-left, to start the process.



There will be a lot of information displayed; don't worry about that. You will use this tab to enter commands, because it is safer than entering commands in a channel. In a channel, if you enter a command and make a mistake, it's broadcast to the enter channel. This can be very bad, as some commands require you to enter a password.

So, to register your nickname:

1. Make sure you're using the nickname you want to register. If you're not using the nickname you want to register, use this command to change nicknames:
/nick yournickname

2. Type the following command to register the nickname:
/msg nickserv register PASSWORD EMAILADDRESS

This command tells nickserv (the nickname system) that you want to register your current nickname, using the password 'PASSWORD' and the email address 'EMAILADRRES'. Note: Yahoo email addresses don't work for some reason, so try another email account.

3. If you have entered it correctly, nickserv will respond with the following message:
"A passcode has been sent to EMAILADDRESS, please type /msg NickServ confirm to complete registration"

4. Check your email, you'll have received an email from the Rizon Admins about the registration. The email will instruct you how to complete the registration. Copy the text in quotes in the email (example text is shown below) and paste it into the Rizon tab. Makes sure there are no spaces before the / or else it won't work properly.
Example text: /msg NickServ confirm JiBber1sh

5. Nickserv will respond with the message:
Nickname YOURNICKNAME registered under your account: _____________
Your password is YOURPASSWORD - remember this for later use.

Registration is now complete 🙂



Now you will be able to identify to your nickname, which proves that it's really you using the nickname. Everytime you get on IRC, you can use the following command to identify to your nickname:
/msg nickserv identify PASSWORD

You should then get a message from NickServ similar to "Password accepted - you are now recognized", which means you are identified.





These three things are only the very basics of IRC; there are many other things, but we are keeping this guide simple to make it easy for beginners. If you have any questions about IRC, or are having any problems, please feel free to send me a message or create a new topic in eCanada's IRC Support forum.

Alternatively, there are many other places you can get IRC help or information from. Just search for what you're looking for on a web search engine (Google, Bing, etc. etc.) and you should find it. You can also just send a message to someone and ask 🙂 Thanks for reading!

Regards,
The Minister of Education,
Kronos Q