IRC

What is IRC?

Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, is a form of real-time Internet text messaging chat. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfers via Direct Client-to-Client.

We use IRC for some meetings, general discussion and party communication because it's widely supported and client software is available for virtually all platforms. A comparison of IRC clients can be found here. If you do not have an IRC client, you can connect online here.

Many people leave their clients connected indefinitely to these channels, and will respond to questions eventually, so please understand that responses to questions may not be immediate. The channels are not monitored 24/7.

Our Channels

The Pirate Party Australia IRC channels are hosted on the global PirateIRC network, this is linked to our Australian domain and also to the official Swedish Pirate Party network, Piratpartiet (when their network is stable).

Our server is located at au.pirateirc.net, the port numbers are: 6667 (clear) and 6697 (SSL)

The basic means of communication in an established IRC session is a channel.

To join the official channel:

/server au.pirateirc.net

/join #ppau

You can also connect to the server at irc.pirateparty.org.au and irc.pirateirc.net. If at any time you are having trouble connecting with the PirateIRC.net server then join these ones, the channels are linked, so you won't miss anything.

List	Description	Admins
#ppau	Main Channel - Reserved for general public meetings and serious discussion pertaining to general matters of Party operation and policy.	Brendan
#ppausocial	Social Channel - Reserved for any offtopic discussion, (mostly) unmoderated discussion.	Brendan
#ppauit	Internet Technology and Systems Committee Channel - Reserved for discussion pertaining to the operation of the IT Systems Committee.	Brendan
#ppau-press	Media Relations Committee Channel – Reserved for discussion pertaining to the operation of the Media Relations Committee.	Mozart

We also have channels for specific topics and working groups.

List	Description	Admins
#ncsr	ALRC National Classification Scheme Review channel	Brendan

Other Channels

These are channels which exist, but aren't necessarily official channels, or a simply channels of interest.

List	Description	Admins
#bitcoin	A Bitcoin discussion channel for Pirates!	Brendan

Registered User

With IRC you can have a registered nickname, so that no one else on that server can pretend to be you.

To register, submit this, replacing PASSWORD with a password of your choice and EMAIL with a valid email address.

/msg nickserv register PASSWORD EMAIL

Once you have responded to the confirmation email you can now log in using:

/msg nickserv identify PASSWORD

Register a nickname and start talking.

User Modes

In a channel, users can have different 'modes', which allows a user to do more interactions to other users and moderate the channel.

The following is a list of commonly used modes.

Letter	Symbol	Description
o	@	User is a channel operator
v	+	User is a voiced user

Common Commands

Command	Description
/nick nickname	Changes your nickname
/join channel	Joins the specific channel. If it does not already exist, it will be created
/msg nickname message	Sends a personal message (PM) to somebody on the network - this will typically start a seperate private chat window with the other user
/ignore nickname	Ignores the user, and stops them from being able to write you messages. However, this user can still see your messages.
/away	Sets your status to away, to notify other users you are not available
/part	Leaves the current channel
/me action	Shows you performing an action, for example /me dances will be shown as ***Username dances
/whois nickname	Shows a little more information on the user, such as their name and which channels they are in