Did you know that WPMU has it's own IRC channel? Well, it does! Come join us at #wpmu on freenode.net

For total IRC newbies

What is IRC, some pages with basic IRC commands, some basic jargon and full list of IRC acronyms.

How to connect to IRC

Connecting from a web browser

Some modern browsers (e.g. Opera, Mozilla Suite) natively support the irc protocol and come with an IRC chat client included; try clicking on irc://irc.freenode.net/wpmu to join the #wpmu channel on IRC. If that didn't work, check the following methods.

Connecting from an IRC client

To connect, launch an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client (http://www.irc.org/links.html contains a list of IRC clients). Connect to a freenode.net server (freenode.net will work fine; or, choose a server for your country). Additional information can be found at the http://freenode.net site. Use the command /join #wpmu to join the channel.

Trillian

In Trillian right click the middle connection circle representing IRC, select connection manager. You will then see the following:

Now add FreeNode to your server list. Select freenode.net from the server list, or type it directly into the group box; keep the default port as shown above.

Once you've typed this first page, click the 'Perform buffer' tab and select the 'On connection, perform this commands'. In the box type:

   /nick WikiName; /join #wpmu
    

Hit connect and you are done.

• Trillian is slick and intuitive. The only issue I had was their "hide" button (the green one which looks like mininize). It hides message window from both desktop and taskbar, and there is no obvious way to get it back. Here is the trick: click on trillian icon on taskbar - you'll get your contact list. On the right side there is dark area - hidden drawer (if you hover mouse, tooltip will say it). Click on it and it will open the drawer with all your hidden message windows. You can make drawer wider by dragging on the edge, although there are no affordances which might suggest that; leave it open.

GAIM

When you start GAIM for the first time you should see an Accounts button. Click it. Create a new account for freenode; protocol IRC, Screenname your wikiname, Server irc.freenode.net (if you are in Europe use irc.eu.freenode.net), everything else default. Then click on the "online" checkbox in the Accounts window. Wait patiently, and you should eventually see a Contact List window, and a ChanServ window. In the the lower window in ChanServ, type /join #wpmu. Bring the #wpmu window to the front, and chat away!

Other IRC Clients

I welcome folks to edit this page with specifics for additional IRC clients.

General instructions for new people, should work on any IRC client - commands start with /, anything else goes to the channel (chat room):

• Type /nick WikiName
• Type /join #wpmu
• Say hello!

Cross-platform:

• ChatZilla is included in Mozilla and is very easy to install and get going with
  • Also available as an extension for Firefox - install from addons.mozilla.org or Chatzilla homepage.

• XChat - multiplatform (Linux, Windows, OS X): a good choice on Linux. Versions 1.x works well on windows (v2.x crashes a lot)

Unix/Linux:

• Google:Kopete
• irssi (text-mode client)
• Konversation (KDE client)

Windows:

• mIRC - old standby, shareware - Google:mIRC
• Visual IRC 2: The best one I saw for novices on windows: http://www.visualirc.net/
• Hydra IRC http://www.hydrairc.com/ is a new, user-friendly, and powerful client

PalmOS:

• upIRC - recommended, shareware but demo is very usable: http://www.smittyware.com/palm/upirc/. Works well on Treo 600s

MacOS:

• Fire (MacOS)
• Conversation - "The Easy IRC Client for MacOS X" - Probably most easy-to-setup and user-friendly irc client for MacOS. Recommended.