How a User Joins a Channel

You join a channel by using a chat client, a program that runs on your computer and sends and receives messages to and from the server. (The Exchange system administrator uses a chat client to log on to a chat community as a Chat Admin or Sysop and execute IRC and IRCX commands, as well as in-band commands.)

The first time you run the chat client, you may be prompted for the following information:

• Real name
• E-mail address
• Nickname
• IP address
• Whether you want to operate in invisible mode

• Note   What you are prompted for varies, depending on the chat client you are using.

Provide the required information, and then select and connect to a chat community.

From this point, you should know the name of the channel you want to join. You use the channel name in the IRC Join command, which you type in the command line:

/join #channelname

Note   Many chat clients require that you precede IRC commands with a forward slash.

If you aren't sure of which channel to join, you can type the IRC List command in the command line:

/list

The resulting list shows all channels currently open in the chat community. In the list, following the channel name, you will see the number of people currently on the channel, and the channel topic.

After you join the channel, you will see people "talking." If you join a conversation already in progress, you may want to watch for a minute or two before joining the chat, to see how the conversation is progressing.

To start talking, type your message. When you're done with what you have to say, hit the [return] key.

When you are ready to leave a channel, type the IRC Part command:

/part #channelname

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