IRC stuff

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Contents:

Introduction to this document
What's new
Documents
Misc resources
Other sources of information

Introduction

This is a summary of IRC related resources on the net. It is, by no means, comprehensive, and you might find newer material at other places. I am, however, confident that this is the most complete reference collection for information regarding IRC. If you have additional documents, or find outdated material here, please email me Makis (flyer) the necessary information to correct it. Any suggestions, complaints or comments are welcome.

What's new

Version 2.1

A section with various IRC logs from big events.
A few new channels with WWW pages.
This "What's new" section.
Various bug fixes from 2.0.

Documents

General purpose documents

IRC RFC: RFC: 1459 by J. Oikarinen and D. Reed. May 1993.
IRC faq: Not very good, but has a lot of links to ftp sites etc. A text version is available here, but don't get it, the hypertext version is better.
IRCprimer1.1: The best IRC introduction I have seen. If you haven't read it get the PostScript or plain text version and print it and read it. Another unofficial hypertext 1.1 version of the primer can be found here. Nap is working on a new version of the IRCprimer. An early 2.0-Alpha version can be found here. For the latest news about the IRCprimer, look here.

Reference material - IRC protocol

IRCII help tree: IRC II-Command-Help V1.3, done in 1992 by Thomas Witt (`Bach')
IRC rfc1459: Definition of the IRC protocol - describes how the client communicates with the server. It is worth a look if you're interested in how things work behind the scenes.
Server documentation: All documents that comes with the server package.
CTCP protocol: An old description of the Client To Client Protocol.

Policy and Administration

EBIC Coordinators: A list of EBIC coordinators sorted by country. A plain text version is also available.
EBIC Rules: Rules for how to establish new servers, alter links, handle cracked servers etc. A plain text version is also available.
Global rules: A set of rules ratified by EBIC July 6th 1994.
USBIC Proposal: Drafts for the USBIC proposal.
Europe backbone map: A postscript map of the European IRC backbone. From April 1994
IRC-Server Status: A very cool perl script to display IRC server statistics, mostly Scandinavian servers

Sociology and Psychology

Electropolis (PostScript): Read and understand why you are ircing. It's well written but a bit theoretical. A plain text version is also available.
To be in Touch: A post by freeside to the FutureCulture mailing list, dated Jun 25 1993. Discusses net relationships and IRC.

Misc documents

IRC server list: All servers as seen by uiuc.
Countries on IRC: An attempt to identify all countries where IRC is or has been used. From July 1, 1993.
IRC for classroom use: An example of how IRC can be used as an educational tool in the classroom.
IRC growth study: A mathematical study of the growth of IRC. From 3/92 to 4/93.
Hints: Some helpful hints for interacting on IRC, a text version can be found here.
Usage histrograms over a day: Statistics on how the number of users are distributed over a day. From Nov 25, 1992.
rfc1324: A discussion on computer network conferencing.
Tao of IRC: It's supposed to be funny and filled with ancient wisdom, haven't read it.
The Great Love Byte: Article on IRC in The Sunday Mail, January 2, 1994.
The Quake of Jan '94: A story from the Associated Press on how IRC was used after the big quake in California.

Misc Resources

IRC Stats

Demon's Server stats
funet IRC stats

IRC channels with WWW pages

#Amiga: Commodore is dead but #Amiga lives on.
#AppleIIGS: Believe it or not, people are still using Apple IIGS's. Learn more about a few of them on GSHacker's WWW page.
#CS: For the Czech/Slovak channel. A slovak version is also available.
#Danmark: The Danish channel, by Bjarke.
#drugs.: Hardly qualifies as an IRC WWW page although it has a lot of links to documents about drugs.
#England: Nickie's excellent #England page. Iztok also has a #England page.
#Esperanto.: Home page for the Esperanto channel. Also in Esperanto.
#Estonia: Estonia from Helger Lipmaa. Netscape ``enhanced''. Some material in Estonian.
#EU-Opers: European IRC Operators. Links to various operator information.
#Germany: The country and the channel in Deutsch.
#france: The country and the channel from Xeryus.
#guitar: VuduChile's #guitar page.
#hottub: Arsenio's loving tribute to #hottub.
#India: Tidbits about the country and the channel by Aatank
#Macintosh: tHINGLES' page for the #Macintosh channel.
#muenster (Münster): The friendly German town, not the cheese via Urs (Teddy) Janßen
#p/g!: #p/g! is an abbevation for Grace Under Pressure, got it ? Actually #p/g is a place where Rush fans hang out.
#russian: Marat Fayzullin's #russian page
#Slovenia: Still under construction. Maintained by Iztok.
#Sweden: A hangout for the Swedes among us.
#truthdare: Truth or Dare.
#Twilight_Zone: A pocket in the Gernsback Continuum
#UNIX: freeside's collection of #UNIX regulars. The first WWW page for an IRC channel, and still one of the best.
#WWW: StratMan 's collection of #WWW regulars. Moved to Visigoth's server due to problems with Strat's server.
#Zircon: The best X11 IRC client.

Undernet channels

#Wasteland: RedRum's page for the Undernet operators channel. (In the U.K.)

Other sources

IRC Channels by RedRum: Updated regularly, almost as complete as my list. Maintained by RedRum.
IRC Channels by Vesa: Lacks a few channels. Maintained by Vesa.

Pictures of IRC users

There are a lot of pictures floating around out there. These are some of the archives I have run across. If you have additonal sites that carry IRC pictures, please let me know. This section needs to be improved.

The IRC picture database: Chef's excellent WWW database with pictures of people using IRC.
The IRC Gallery: Pictures of IRC users from all over the world.
IRC Images: Nickie's gif gallery - one of the first and still one of the best gif collections out there. Has a lot of pictures of people on channel #England.
Funets picture archive: Scandinavian IRC users.
Norwegian picture archive: Norwegian IRC users.
irc.tuzvo.sk/irc-foto: Slovakian IRC users.
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/cedras/IRC/gifs/: Undernet IRC users.

Meta list of other IRC users' home pages

Hera are some links to various lists of other IRCers home pages that I've found. Note that many IRC channels with WWW pages have links to their regulars' homepages. This section is a bit outdated for the moment.

Nap's collection of IRC addicts' home pages: A bit short.

Logs from big events

This section is new and I haven't done much research about it. Please inform me if you know where I can find more interesting logs. A lot of this was blatantly ripped of from David Barberi's excellent Chats page. He deserves all the credit.

Other sources

http://sunsite.unc.edu/dbarberi/chats.html: I got most of my links from this page. Check it out !
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/communications/logs/: Look for new logs here.
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/unix/irc/logs/: Might be worth a look too.

Other Sources of Information

If you've got time to waste, follow these link. I did, and the best things I found are in this document.

Other hypertext IRC pages

There are many IRC pages out there, these are the ones I know about. I have listed them in the same order as I tend to use them.

Nap's IRC library: Has some nice links and is maintained regularly.
IRC's Homepage at LUT, Finland: It is a bit unstructured but has a lot af documents.
IRC's Homepage at Funet, Finland: Well structured and good.
Introduction, Infos and Archives for IRC: LynX IRC page. Has slow links but it is well worth a look
RedRum's IRC page: New and interesting, although not much new
IRC at Paranoia: Small but nice. Has links to a few other WWW pages about IRC.
IRCNO page: Home page of the Norwegian IRC organisation, in Norwegian
Veggen's IRC page: In Norwegian, small.

IRC related newsgroups

alt.irc: A LOT of noise and flaming.
alt.irc.announce: No traffic at all, perhaps it doesn't exist any more.
alt.irc.hottub: Supposedly for the #hottub channel, very silent.
alt.irc.ircii: Low volume, reasonable noise/information ratio.
alt.irc.opers: An alternative to operlist, operlist is better though.
alt.irc.questions: Just created, still a bit silent, good noise/information ratio.
alt.irc.recovery: I am an IRC addict...
alt.irc.undernet: Covering the undernet, very silent but has a good faq.

IRC related mailing lists

IRChat: IRChat is an emacs lisp interface to IRC. There exists a mailing list mainly for developers. Mail irchat-request@cc.tut.fi for more information.
IRCD-three: Discusses protocol revisions for the new 3.0 ircd release. Join by mailing ircd-three-request@kei.com. Archives are available here. Old posts can be found here.
IRC-EU: European IRC operators mailing list. Join by mailing listserv@grasp.insa-lyon.fr with "SUB irc-eu FirstName LastName" in the message body. Archives are avaliable here
Operlist: Discusses irc server code, routing, and protocol. Join by mailing operlist-request@kei.com. Archives are available here. Old posts can be found here.
VMSIRC: For discussion of irc on VMS systems. Join by mailing vmsirc-request@vax1.elon.edu with "subscribe" in the message body.

Other sources

Mailing-list archives: Chef's excellent mailing-list archives on the web. Most of the interesting archives are already included above.

IRC related ftp sites

The first sites listed here are official distribution sites. The sites at the end often has scripts and other things that are a bit "underground", don't be surprised if these sites have been moved or closed.

cs-ftp.bu.edu - irc/
ftp.funet.fi - pub/unix/irc/
coombs.anu.edu.au - pub/irc/
ftp.kei.com - pub/irc
ftp.acsu.buffalo.edu - pub/irc/
slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com - pub/irc/
ftp.nvg.unit.no - pub/irc
eru.dd.chalmers.se - pub/irc/
deathstar.resnet.upenn.edu - pub/irc/
sfi.santafe.edu - pub/SIG/irc/
imageek.york.cuny.edu
ftp.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de

DALnet info

DALnet is an alternative IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network, designed to minimize the problems of lag, netsplits and political disputes that plauge EFnet, the 'main' IRC network. It is currently a working IRC network, with a steadily growing population of users.

DALnet: lefler's DALnet page.

Undernet hints

A few starting points for information about the undernet. Please note that undernet.org is in the U.K. (England/Great Britain)

The Undernet: RedRum's Undernet page. A short intruduction to the Undernet with links to more Undernet documents.
ftp://undernet.org/undernet: Main undernet distribution site
Undernet IRC faq: A hypertext undernet FAQ.
Aaron's IRC page: Small and undernet oriented
Joker/Mailer's IRC page: Undernet oriented and in French, ick)

NOTE! I am in no way responsible for the material presented in the documents refered to here.

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