Chat Help

Now that the Chat system is more fully integrated into the site, you may be wondering just how the hell to use it.

It's pretty simple once you know how: here are the basics.

Firstly, when you click on a link, you'll see this:

Type your nickname into the nickname field - this can be anything, it does not have to be your account name on the website - and then click connect.

You don't have to type in a password unless your nickname is registered on the chat server. More about nick registration later.

Now you should see something like this:

You'll notice it says there are a bunch of idlers. "Idlers" are people who have not spoken for a little while; that happens sometimes on IRC. Just say hey anyway; anyone who's paying attention will answer you. How do you do that? Well, see the rectangle at the bottom of the chat applet? Type in there, then hit enter.

Decided you don't like your nick or you accidentally hit connect without setting one? Not a problem!

Just type /nick YourNewNickname where "YourNewNickname" is, obviously, your new nickname. Voila!

Curious about other channels now you're on? Type /list.

You might have noticed a bit of a pattern. That's because there is one. All client->server commands on the chat server start with a "/" - this is pretty common on chat systems all over the internet, so you might have encountered it before.

You might recall we mentioned something about nick registration earlier. What is it? It allows you to register your nickname so nobody else can use it. This ensures nobody can pretend to be you while you're not around. To do so, you just type something like /ns register password email@address. The email address is not used for validation, but is used to determine how many nicknames you can register, as well as ensuring we have a contact point for you - not everyone on the chat uses the website to get there!

You might be wondering what "/ns" means. "/ns" is short for "/nickserv", and NickServ is the nickname registration service. There are other services - ChanServ (known as `|^- in channels, but still referenced via /cs or /chanserv - HostServ (allowing vanity hostnames visible when people /whois you), and MemoServ (allowing people to send you memos when you're not online). There's also BotServ - but we'll cover that elsewhere.

You can get help on any of the above services by typing their shortform name /ns, /cs, /hs, and /ms respectively followed by the word help. Any commands they tell you about can be found out about by typing help and the name of the command.

If you need any further help, leave a comment here or ask Dagorath on the chat server!

help, Chat