The idea: Many of us have been 'talking' on the message boards. The logical progression was a movement to real-time chat. Well, Java applets are annoying and unreliable...so IRC was the next idea. For the past few weeks, a handful of Darians have been gathering on DALnet #Daria+ to talk with each other. The chats are usually on Tuesday and Friday nights, around 9:00 EST. The chats usually last in the range of 3-4 hours if a lot of people show up. So you don't have to be there EXACTLY at 9:00. They will adhere to a regular schedule as we gather more people.

The problem: The channel's sorely lacking in visitors. There's only so much that a small group of people can talk about. We'd like to see more people arriving to chat.

The solution: Come on and join us for Daria chat!

1) Get an IRC client.

There's two main clients that most people use: mIRC for Windows, and ircle for Mac.

mIRC is the top client for Windows. It's easy to set up and use, and has excellent documentation and online help.

ircle is the best client for Mac. This is also accompanied by good online help.

Both of these are shareware, and you ought to register them if you're going to use them. There are other clients available for both platforms. These are available at www.irchelp.org.

Whatever you do, make sure you read the manuals that come with your IRC program. They will help you immensely in becoming familiar with the interface of your IRC program, and little tips and tricks that will make IRC a more pleasand experience for you.

2) Find a server and channel.

The channel part's easy. You want to log on to #Daria+. The tricky part of this is that you want to be on an DALnet server. If your server's another network (EFnet, Undernet, etc.) you'll still go to a chat roon called #Daria+, but it won't be the right one.

Here's a list of some DALnet servers. There are many, many more than this- there's a list at- you guessed it- www.irchelp.org. It doesn't really matter which server you choose, since all of them will let you get to #Daria+, but to reduce lag (the time it takes for your message to transfer) try and pick a server that's close to where you're located.

California: spider.ca.us.dal.net
Indiana: hebron.in.us.dal.net
Maryland: qis.md.us.dal.net
Missouri: stlouis.mo.us.dal.net
New York: empire.ny.us.dal.net

If you're wondering why we aren't still on EFnet as before, it's because we had a problem with people taking over the channel. DALnet has allowed us to implement some security measures that EFnet didn't allow. If you're having trouble getting settled with DALnet, once you get in #Daria+ talk with either K-A-I-N or Ivanovna. They can help you out.

3) Learn some basic IRC commands:

*Don't worry about those little switches that say t, s, m, etc. next to them. They really only apply if you're an op (operator). Since there have been some problems with that in the past, op status is not given out liberally.

*In most examples on here, *** stands for the nick of the person you are referring to. The *** can be any user's name that you want. For example, if you wanted to do a whois, you would replace the *** in the command /whois *** with the user's nick: /whois DariaFan would display information on DariaFan.

*When you precede any command with a slash (/) you tell IRC that you are going to enter a command. However, many of these commands are included in the pulldown menus or button palettes of IRC clients.

Typing /help --> gives full help now for IRC

Typing /join #*** --> Joins any channel specified. To join #Daria+, type /join #Daria+.

Typing /list --> will list all channels that are currently active and a digit behind that number represents the number of individuals currently on the channel.

Typing /names --> will list all channels currently active with a listing of the names of the users who are on each channel.

Typing /whois *** --> Will display information on any specific user.

Typing /who #*** --> Will display the people that are currently on a specific channel. To check who is on #Daria+, type /who #Daria+. Remember, you must include the pound symbol.

Typing /msg *** --> Will send a private message to the person specified. For example, /msg DariaFan.

Typing /dcc send *** file --> Will initiate a DCC file transfer with whoever you specify. If someone sends you a DCC request, type /dcc get *** file.

Typing /ping *** will ping any user you want, or /ping * for everyone in the room. Being Pinged is nothing to worry about- all that ping does is tell the person how long it's taking you to receive messages that you send.

Typing /ctcp *** version --> Will display the person's version of a IRC client program they are using.

Typing /ctcp *** finger --> Will display information about a person and their computer.