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IRC Help

1) What is IRC?
2) I've never been in IRC before. What should I know?
3) What kinds of chat rooms does tarvalon.net offer?
4) How do I join a Tower chat room?
5) What are some basic chat commands?
6) What do I do if I am having a problem during chat?
7) Do I need to refer to Senior Members (Aes Sedai/Gaidin) by their titles in IRC, like in the Tower?
8) What are some recommended programs for entering IRC?

1) What is IRC, and how does it work?

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. Through the IRC Network, people access chat rooms to talk in 'real time' to people all over the world. It is split up into networks on different servers.

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2) I've never been in IRC before. What should I know?

• Users of IRC generally access it through a client program.
• Chat room names start with a #. For example, the main Tower chatroom is called #wheel.
• When a user joins, they are known by their 'nick,' which they may set by typing the nick command. (In the Tower chat rooms, this is generally one's Tower name.)
  For example, if Bela (that faithful horse renowned) wished to join chat, she would type (after figuring out how to accomplish typing):
  /nick Bela
  This will give her the nick of "Bela."
• There are operators (ops) in chat who are indicated by an @ next to their name. For example, @Yenie is the nick of Yenie Sedai, the Tower's IRC Director. An operator's responsibility is to make sure that things are running smoothly in the chat room.
• Private messages (pm's) may be sent between members one-on-one by double-clicking on the other person's name in the display list. A new window will be made, and you may correspond privately.

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3) What kinds of chat rooms does tarvalon.net offer?

TarValon.net has three different chat rooms.

• Our main chat room is #wheel, in which any general chat may go on. If one were to refer to it by movie ratings, it is a PG-13 chat room.
• We have a tavern called #wanderingwoman, which is for ages 18+ only. Anyone of age may use the Wandering Woman Tavern when they wish to speak of adult topics with other Tower members also eighteen and older.
• In #oldewarderandhen, one may access the Tower's scheduled games and activities, such as the Tower radio shows and White Nights (a logic and trivia game sponsored by the White Ajah).

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4) How do I join a Tower chat room?

In order to join through the mIRC or HydraIRC programs, you may access information (complete with prettiful images!) here, written by Adolla Sedai.

If you do not wish to download a program, you may gain access to chat through the Tower's java applet. p>If Bela accesses Tower chat through our java applet, she will wait for the java applet to load and log onto the server (sorcery.net) automatically. Then, she will type:
/nick Bela
This will set her nick as Bela. Then, she will join the Tower chat room(s) by typing any/all of the following:
/join #wheel
/join #wanderingwoman
/join #oldewarderandhen

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5) What are some basic chat commands?

What Bela Types	What happens
/join #wheel	Bela joins the chat room #wheel
/me neighs threateningly at TheDarkOne	Everyone sees * Bela neighs threateningly at TheDarkOne
/quit I am the true Nae'blis!	Bela quits the chat room. Everyone sees * Bela has quit (Quit: I am the true Nae'blis!)

Other commands may be used through the Tower IRC Bot, TheDarkOne. (An IRC bot is a program/set of scripts which performs special functions in a specific chat room.) The commands are located here. In the chat room, typing !commands will prompt TheDarkOne to supply this address for you.

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6) What do I do if I am having a problem during chat?

Talk to one of the ops either in the chat room or by pm; they should know what to do, or where you should go for help if your specific question requires other assistance.

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7) Do I need to refer to Senior Members (Aes Sedai/Gaidin) by their titles in IRC, like in the Tower?

It depends upon the specific Senior Member's preference. Using a title ("Sedai" or "Gaidin") in a nick indicates that one wishes to be addressed by one's title, a privilege reserved only for Senior Members of tarvalon.net. If Bela attains the rank of Aes Sedai (which would be rather hard for her, but there is likely a theory somewhere on the internet), she has the option of using her title in her nick.

So, if Bela's nick is "Bela," everyone is able, in chat, to refer to her as simply "Bela." However, if she has the nick "BelaSedai" or any incarnation thereof, this is an indication that she wishes to be referred in chat as "Bela Sedai." (And why not, really? It's awfully hard for a horse to become Aes Sedai, and one should believe that she's earned the distinction.)

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8) What are some recommended programs for entering IRC?

• Windows: mIRC; HydraIRC, Trillian, or ChatZilla.
• Macintosh: Snak, Colloquy, IRCle.
• Unix: XChat.
• Multiple Platforms: KVirc

If you have any questions which have not been answered, please contact Yenie Sedai, director of IRC, or Miriya Sedai, IRC Assistant. You may also post in the Ask the Aes Sedai forum.