HOW TO BEHAVE ON IRC
Authors: Lea Viljanen (LadyBug) viljanen@kreeta.helsinki.fi
Ari Husa (luru) so-luru@tolsun.oulu.fi
Modified by: Troy Rollo (Troy) troy@plod.cbme.unsw.oz.au
1) Language
The most widely understood and spoken language on IRC is English. However! As IRC is used in many different countries, English is by no means the only language. If you want to speak some other language than English (for example with your friends), go to a separate channel and set the topic (with /topic) to indicate that. For example /topic Finnish only! would mean that this channel would be reserved for Finnish discussion. On the other hand, you should check the topic (with /list command) before you move to a channel to see if there are any restrictions about language. On a channel not restricted by /topic, please speak a language everybody can understand. If you want to do otherwise, change channels and set the topic accordingly.
2) Hello/Goodbye
It's not necessary to greet everybody on a channel personally. Usually one "Hello" or equivalent is enough. And don't expect everybody to greet you back. On a channel with 20 people that would mean one screenful of hellos. It's sensible not to greet, in order not to be rude to the rest of the channel. If you must say hello to somebody you know, do it with a private /msg. The same applies to goodbyes.
Also note that using IRCII's /on facility to automatically say hello or goodbye to people is extremely poor etiquette. Nobody wants to receive autogreets. They are not only obviously automatic, but even if you think you are being polite you are actually sounding insincere and also interfering with the personal environment of the recipient when using autogreets. If somebody wants to be autogreeted on joining a channel, they will autogreet themselves.
3) Discussion
When you come to a new channel it's advised you to listen for a while to get an impression of what's discussed. Please feel free to join in, but do not try to force your topic into the discussion if that doesn't come naturally.
4) }{|`~][\@^
IRC has quite a lot of people from Scandinavian countries, the above characters are letters in their alphabet. This has been explained on IRC about a thousand and one times, so read the following, do not ask it on IRC:
{ is an A with 2 dots over it (ä) } is an A with a small circle above it (å) | is either an O with 2 dots over it or an O with a dash (/)
through it (either ö or ø)
` is an e with an accent over it (é)
~ is an u with 2 dots over it (ü)
[, ], \, @ and ^ are the preceding five letters in upper case.
Of course (I'm being ironical here), the both the french and the german mappings are DIFFERENT.
5) ATTENTION!
Remember, people on IRC form their opinions about you only by your actions, writings and comments on IRC. So think before you type.