Wikipedia:IRC channel

For those you who are interested in real-time chat, there is a possibility to chat with other Wikipedians on the Internet Relay Chat network. The name of the channel is #wikipedia located on the network Freenode, irc.freenode.net . There is also a more active channel about wikis in general called #wiki on the same network.

You can also post a message on the Village pump. Or you can try to contact a wikipedian directly via instant messaging: see Instant Messaging Wikipedians.

How to connect

Mozilla and mIRC users can simply point their browser to irc://irc.freenode.net/wikipedia

All you need is an IRC client installed on your machine (installation of a Java client on the Wikipedia server is being considered). A list of clients respective to your operating system is given in the IRC entry.

Once downloaded and installed perform the following steps (most IRC clients also provide graphical interfaces to common commands):

1. Use the /server command to connect to the server, eg. /server irc.freenode.net

2. Choose a nickname /nick <nickname>, eg. /nick JohnDoe. [[Nickname]]s can be up to 8 characters long. You can use letters and numbers (no spaces or symbols).

3. Join the channel, type /join #wikipedia. Channels are the equivalent of chat rooms on irc.

4. For help type /help. Commands on irc have to be preceeded by a '/', channel names by a '#'.

5. Optional: You can register your nick with the nickserv service - only you will be able to use it. Type /msg nickserv register <password>, eg. /msg nickserv register foo. When logging on later on type /msg nickserv identify <password> so that nickserv can identify you as the owner of a nick. For more help type /msg nickserv help.

6. Read the help and readme files of the client you installed for more information.

External Link

• A guide to IRC (http://www.geocities.com/athens/3615/iirc).