Status¶
In 2015 we were still using IRC. IRC – Internet Relay Chat – is a pretty old but robust technology for chats. It orginally works unencrypted. You need a designated IRC-client but there’s a web-browser-based solution out there, too:
webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=ism-global
We held our chats at a non-lefty host “Freenode”. Its political positions are founded in the open-source movement. There we have our own channel #ism-global .
How to use IRC¶
General¶
I’ve defined a welcome message explaining the basics: By entering our channel you get a short introduction.
Change your nickname¶
You can change your nickname by entering forward-slash, nick, and then your desired nickname. For example enter “/nick Waldo” (without quotation marks) and press Enter as it would be a normal message. Don’t worry, it will not be distributed to all participants but interpreted by the IRC-server. Unless your nickname is a registered one or already in use it will change immediately.
Speak to specific persons¶
Assume the person’s nickname you wanna speak to is “Liz” (without quotation-marks). Then you type “Liz: Hey!” (without quotation-marks). By mentioning some otherone’s nickname his*her nickname will be highlighted by most IRC-clients.
Some IRC-clients allow tab-completion: By typing the first few letters of a nickname and then pressing the tabulator-key it will automatically complete the rest. The tabulator-key is the one located on historical typewriter keyboards above the caps-lock key which is located above the shift-key. If there are several matching nicknames starting with the letter(s) you typed, pressing again tab will browse through them.
Speak to someone in private¶
If you want to send someone a private message – again, IRC is uncrypted – you write “/msg Walrus some private message” where Walrus is the nickname you wanna talk with. Thus a new tab opens. Therein you can send messages without typing the “/msg nickname” prolog. To end a private conversiation type “/unquery” without any parameters but in the right window.
Alternatives¶
- we.riseup.net/chat/channel/ism_global but needs a we.riseup.net accounts & is AFAIK web-browser only (that’s a contra-point)
- XMPP , but where? Not to mention to keep it simple for dumb users (like opening a web browser)
