Chat etiquette

Don't worry too much about typing errors or spelling mistakes, we all make them and as long as people get the meaning of what you're saying then the occasional typo doesn't matter. It is more important to keep the chat flowing than to make people wait by editing what you want to say before you press enter. (There are exceptions - for example, misspelling 'now' as 'not' changes the entire meaning of the sentence "I am now happy") Try not to say too much on one line, people will think you've disappeared because you can go quiet for a long time. If you do have a small speech to make, one idea is to split it into several lines, putting ... (three dots) at the end of each line to indicate you haven't finished yet. For example:

I went to see the doctor the other day...
he ran some tests...
and after waiting for a couple of hours...
he told me I'm allergic to doctor's surgeries!

It might also be a good idea to prefix continued lines with three dots as well, so that people can see that a line is supposed to follow on from something typed in earlier.

I went to see the doctor the other day...
...he ran some tests...
...and after waiting for a couple of hours...
...he told me I'm allergic to doctor's surgeries!
If you want to direct a comment at a specific individual, put their name at the beginning of your entry. Example:
 John: I agree entirely
This is especially useful if several people are typing at once and the comment you are replying to is no longer the last one in the window.

If you don't understand what someone meant, re-read the last few lines of chat. They may be replying to a comment you missed because you were typing.

Don't type everything in capital letters - PEOPLE WILL THINK YOU'RE SHOUTING. You can use caps (and other methods) to stress a word, as in the following examples:

we had a REALLY nice time
we had a _really_ nice time
we had a *really* nice time
we had a really nice time
I'll show you how to add colour to your text later, in the colour text section.



IRC Chat Shortcuts

Some of these are familiar as they are used in email messages as well

:-) - smiley face (tilt your head to the left to see it properly)
:) - small smiley face
:-)) - very happy smiley (Two smiles!)
:-( - sad face
;-) - wink
lol - lots of laughs (i.e. I though that last comment was funny)
rofl - rolling on the floor laughing (i.e. I though that last comment was very funny)
roflmao - rolling on the floor laughing my ass off (I think you get the idea by now)
r u - are you
brb - be right back
bbl - be back later
afk - away from keyboard
ltns - long time no see
ic - i see
<G> - grin
<S> - smile
<EG> - evil grin
<BEG> - big evil grin

Different people use different shortcuts - these are just some of the more popular ones. The smiley faces are called "emoticons", and there are hundreds of them out there. Some people have compiled lists of these, I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to search the web and find them. Not many of them are actually used, but some of them are hilarious!



Chat tricks

Prefixing a message with /me puts your nickname at the start of the message and highlights the whole message in purple.
For example, enter this (below)and everyone else will see this (below)

Pressing up arrow will bring back the last thing you typed, so if you want to say the same thing in more than one window (usually a farewell message) then you can type it in once, retrieve it with up arrow, and then cut and paste the text into the other windows.

If your IRC windows are a complete mess, and you can't see what's going on, click this button. It rearranges all the windows so they don't overlap, and is quicker than selecting the same command from the menu. There is also an option on the Window menu to auto-tile the windows whenever a window is opened or closed. I've found it saved me a lot of time and extra clicking!


Chatting privately

Sometimes people prefer to have a more private chat, away from the gaze of everyone else in the channel. You can do this by double-clicking on their nickname. This opens up a second window, called a query window, in which you and the other party can talk to each other without anybody else getting involved. You can open as many private chats as you like, the only limit being the number of windows you can fit on your screen and the number of conversations you can follow at the same time. Our personal limit is about 8 windows before we get confused, and that includes the main channel window and the status window.

If someone opens a private chat to you, you won't see the window immediately. What you will see is a button appear on your switchbar. You have to click on this button to open the window and reply to the other party.

Note that in some channels it is considered rude to open up a private chat without asking permission first, yet in other channels this is considered perfectly normal behaviour. Some channels have a web page which is advertised in the channel topic, check out the web page indicated as it can sometimes give you invaluable information about that particular channel's rules and regulations.

If you have two or three chat sessions going at once and you tile the windows (see above), bear in mind that the windows will probably move around the screen. If you have gotten used to talking to John in the bottom-left window, it may not necessarily be the bottom-left window once you have re-tiled them. Check before you type a message in.



Typing something in the wrong window

If you have two or three chats going on at once, it is really easy to type something in the wrong window. This will usually be followed by a 'huh?' from the person you sent the message to, then a swift apology from yourself. Don't worry about doing this as it can happen to all of us, but I pity the poor lady who was chatting to someone privately about various body-piercings she had, and a particularly personal message about this appeared in the main channel window, for all to see. I only wish I could have seen the look on her face.....



Chat logs

mIRC has an option to record all your chat sessions to files on disc. Click the Options icon, and then select the Logging tab from the dialog box which appears.


The file is named nickname.log or #channel-name.log and is a plain text file. Keeping chat logs is very useful as an aide-memoir, but check them all regularly and delete any ones you don't want. mIRC will keep a chat log for every window you open, even if you only said Hi and the other person didn't respond. Also bear in mind that chat logs for channels can get very large very quickly.

Automatically log: This is where you select whether to log chat transcripts from channels, private chats (queries), both, or neither.

Strip codes Control codes are used for setting colours in text strings and so on; they only make the log file harder to read later.

Lock log files If you check this then you won't be able to open the log file in another editor (e.g. Notepad) while mIRC is still writing to it.

Timestamp logs This will put a timestamp next to each entry in the log file.

Trim log files to:You also now have the option of getting mIRC to automatically trim log files to a predetermined maximum size.

Date filenames: Log files can be date-stamped, so if you talk to John on the 12th January and the 13th January, the log files will be called John990112.log and John990113.log.



Leaving a channel

There are several ways to leave a channel, the best way is to say goodbye to everyone, wait for them to say goodbye to you (see if they're paying attention to what you're typing!) and then close the window. Alternate ways of leaving a channel are:

  1. press the disconnect button (it's the second one from the left on the toolbar) New for mIRC 5.3: - the connect and disconnect buttons are in the same place - when you're disconnected the left-hand button is the connect button and when you're connected the left-hand button is the disconnect button
  2. close mIRC completely
  3. close your internet connection

Of course, if you've finished with the internet for the day then you'd do all these anyway, but leaving the channel first and disconnecting from the IRC server is the 'politest' way of leaving. If you quit mIRC or the internet without disconnecting from the IRC server first, then it will keep trying to see if you are there. It does this by sending out a signal to you and waiting for a reply - this is called a PING and a PING RESPONSE. If the server gets no PING RESPONSE it will assume you are not there and disconnects you from the server.



Help! I've got a problem!

No I can't possibly hope to know what problems you may be experiencing once they are in a chat with other people, but here are some of the more common things that can confuse you the first time they happen (note, some of these problems and answers deal with topics which occur later in the tutorial):

I got disconnected!

It happens. Sometimes your connection to the internet drops, sometimes the IRC server has a problem, sometimes it is something else. All you can do is try to reconnect to the internet and IRC. New in mIRC 5.4 - there is now an option in General Options called 'rejoin channel on connect' - this will rejoin all the channels you were on before you were disconnected.

Nobody's talking to me!

Say hello first. Or you could be in a moderated channel. You need to be a channel operator or have voice mode before you can talk in the channel. Usually voice mode is allocated by a friend; if you don't have any friends in the channel then you can't speak. Moderating a channel is a good way of making it a bit more 'elite'. You can, however, engage in private one-to-one chats in a moderated channel, you just can't say anything in the main channel window. If you stumble across a channel where absolutely nobody is saying anything at all, then it could be a moderated channel with no ops and no 'voiced' people. The only way to fix this is to get everyone to leave the channel so it ceases to exist. The channel is recreated with no modes when people rejoin. But you try getting 23 people to leave channel simultaneously when you can only talk to one at a time....

I don't like the people in the room!

Leave. Whatever you do, don't get into a huge argument with people (unless, of course, you want them to think you're narrow-minded and self-centered). When two people on-line argue, everyone else in the channel laughs at them until they get themselves kicked or banned. So it's just not worth it.

I can't keep up with the chatting!

It takes practice. If the channel you are in is very busy, try a quieter one. Channels with over 40 or 50 people can be very difficult to keep track of, especially if everyone is talking in the main channel window. Once you are in one or two private chats with people you can ignore the main window (or even leave the channel altogether) and concentrate on the chats you want to participate in.

I can't type fast enough!

You will, don't worry. The more you chat, the faster you get. Also, don't always worry too much about capitalisation or punctuation (unless it's necessary). They slow down the typing and as long as people get the gist of what you're saying then you're doing ok.

People keep trying to send me files!

Never accept any file from anybody unless you have requested it and you know the person who is sending it to you. If you do accept programs from people, virus-check them before running them. If you accept photo files from people, don't be surprised if the pictures weren't quite what you expected.

Somebody sent me a file and now I can't find it!

If you're using mIRC 5.3 and above, look in c:\mirc\download, otherwise look in c:\mirc. If the file isn't there open up the DCC options dialog box and see which directory you've specified.

I've opened up too many windows, now nobody will leave me alone!

Tell everyone you're chatting to that you're new to this, you've got too many windows open, and can you chat later? Almost everyone will say 'ok' and leave you alone for a while. Don't panic too much about not replying to someone for a few minutes. If I'm having a chat with someone and they go quiet for a while I will assume they:
can't think of anything to say to me
are busy talking to other people
are not paying attention to IRC (they're surfing or e-mailing)
have crashed

Am I anonymous on IRC?

Not quite. You can hide behind any nickname you like, but every piece of data you send goes through the central server. It is not impossible for Server-operators (as opposed to channel operators) to monitor the traffic going through the server (in a similar way to how telephone chat lines may be monitored). If they suspect that something strange or illegal is going on, then they know who your ISP is (it's part of your whois information). They can contact the ISP who can check which modem you're dialling into, and can then check which number you're dialling from. After that, they've got you. However, don't get too paranoid about this; there are thousands of people using IRC every minute of every day, and it is rare for a particular conversation to be monitored. But it can happen. The same is true of DCC chats and file exchanges, although chances of you getting caught (and prosecuted for) doing something naughty are very very slim.