FAQ about AW IRC Chat Channel (How to get there, who the operators are, Mibbit, Discord, etc.)

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MacAllister

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Moderator edit: July 2019.

Starchat ops announced the Starchat service was shutting down on July 17th.

We have moved to Espernet - irc.esper.net

Check out the Starchat is shutting down July 17! We have moved to Espernet server. thread for more details.

Please substitute irc.esper.net for all instances of irc.starchat.net in this and other FAQ threads.
 
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Pthom

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Here is a list of the chat room operators. If you have a hankering to chat and discover the chat room is closed because an operator isn't in there, by all means, PM one of the following (it'd be good to check to see if they're online when you do) and have them open up the room for you.

Moderator edit:
Here's the updated list of chat ops as of 01 Aug 2017:

KitCat
JMC2009 (JMC in AW chat)
Abielle
TypoToffee
Sydneyd
zanzjan
dpaterso (Derek in AW chat) - Europe time zone
10trackers (IOtrackers in AW chat) - Europe time zone
 
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SaraP

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Fot those of you who want to chat but don't wish to or can't use Java, there is an alternative.

It's called Mibbit and it works on a browser, which means you don't need to download anything.

Here's the step-by-step howto:

1) Go to www.mibbit.com and click on MibbitWebChat.

2) You will see a window with three boxes with little input boxes on them. In the first box, click on Server.

3) This should make a new input box appear for the server address. Type in irc.starchat.net.

4) Next change the nick on the nick input box to whatever new nick you want. We recommend you use your AW nick but this is not necessary. Now you have two options. You can acess the AW chatroom from the Mibbit main window or from Starchat.

5a) From the Mibbit main window, after you've typed in the server address and your nick, in the channel input box type in #absolutewrite. After those three boxes are filled out, click on Go. Mibbit will open two new tabs on the single tab of your browser. One is for StarChat and you can ignore it for the most part, the other is for the AW Chat Room. Now you can chat away!

5b) To access the AW chat room from StarChat simply leave the channel input box empty and click on Go. This will open up the StarChat tab only. Within this tab, type /join #absolutewrite. This will open the new tab for the AW chatroom. You are now ready to go!

If you wish to join the chat for the Crit Circles, simply type in #awcritcircle birolsangels instead of #absolutewrite. You can also be present in both rooms at once. In this case, simply type /join #<the other room you wish to join>. This can be done either from the room you are in or from the StarChat tab. A new tab will appear for the second room.

Sometimes people speak via PM in Chat - also referred to as backchannel. In Java this will appear as a new window, while in Mibbit it appears as a new tab. If someone PM's you, the new tab will appear on its own. If you wish to PM someone you have two options:

a) Type /msg <nick of the person you want to PM> <message>. As it is explained in the FAQ, if I want to send a messsage to Pthom (whose chat room nick is Peter), saying "psst! Your epidermis is showing!" I would type /msg Peter psst! Your epidermis is showing!

b) When you click on the person's name on the list on your right, a small list of options appears. The first one is PM. When you click on that, a new tab appears and you can then type what you want.

Mibbit has two big advantages for me. One is that I can be in chat and browse away on AW from another tab. Whenever someone says something, the Mibbit browser tab starts flashing the message *People said stuff*. This means that for the times when the room is more quiet, for example during a word war, I can be notified of something happening without having to open the tab just to look. If I am working on something else, say, writing, the browser tab on Windows will also start flashing.

The other advantage is that the name of the tab turns blue when something happens in the tab while you're not looking at it. Very useful for example when you're talking to someone backchannel while chating in the room at the same time.

I recommend you also take a look at the other chat room info on this part of the forum. At this time, the chat room is moderated which means you can only chat when there is a Chat Mod around (also known as Op - operator). Though this does not happen 24/7, we are trying to have the room open as much as possible. If you log on the chat room and find there are no Ops around, you can try PM'ing one here on AW, or try again later.

Hope this info is helpful and you will join us soon.

*Thanks to KittyPryde for leading me to Mibbit.


IMPORTANT UPDATE: Although Mibbit was klined - kicked out of Starchat - for a very long time, it appears to now be working just fine. I have tried on two different occasions, separated by a good number of weeks, and all seems to be in good working order. Given the ease of access and just plain fun of Mibbit, if you don't want the trouble of downloading and installing an IRC client, I strongly suggest you give Mibbit a try.

See you soon!
 
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dpaterso

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Handy list of IRC software:

As mentioned above, Mibbit is a browser client... go to http://mibbit.com/chat which should show this sign-in screen:

mibbit-signin.jpg


Select the yellow Server link and type irc.esper.net into the Server: field.

Type your chosen nick into the Nick: field.
Note, if you have a registered nick, you would enter: nick password
...nope that doesn't work, neither does nick,password -- I would have sworn it did at one time, but it doesn't now, I have to enter /ns id password (where password is my own password) after I sign in with just my nick.

Type #absolutewrite into the Channel: field.

Then select the Connect button.

Which should take you to the #AbsoluteWrite chat channel.
___________________________________________

Myself and several AW chatters use IceChat:

http://www.icechat.net

Check out the "quickstart" page, http://www.icechat.net/site/help/icechat-quickstart-guide/
___________________________________________

Firefox was formerly a plug-in started from within Firefox, but this stopped working with Firefox Quantum. However there's a standalone version which doesn't need to be started from within a browser.

I found it here: http://chatzilla.rdmsoft.com/xulrunner/

I selected the (Windows Installer) version and this downloaded fine, and installed okay when I clicked on it in my Download folder.

A Chatzilla icon wasn't added to my desktop but when I selected Start > Programs, I could see Chatzilla, and ran it from there. (I've since right-clicked on the Chatzilla entry, selected copy, then pasted a shortcut to my desktop).

Once you run Chatzilla, you can enter a couple of commands to reach the #absolutewrite chat channel:

/server irc.esper.net

/join #absolutewrite

/nick yournickname where yournickname is your preferred nick in chat.

Or -- consider editing Chatzilla's preferences so these commands and other info like your username are run and supplied automatically. It's just a few simple steps, you only have to do them once.

Select menu Chatzilla > Preferences

In the General tab, you can add your nick into the Nickname: field.

Select the Startup tab:

Scroll down to Locations, select the Add button, enter irc://irc.starchat.net into the Prompt input box, select OK, then select the Apply button.

irc.starchat.net should appear under Global Settings. If it doesn't then you may have to stop Chatzilla, then restart it again.

Select the irc://irc.starchat.net entry.

Select the Lists tab:

Here in the Auto-perform field you can add a list of IRC commands (without the / in front of them) to save you having to enter them manually every time you run Chatzilla.

Select the Add button, enter join #absolutewrite into the Prompt input box, select OK, then select the Apply button.

If you have registered your nick and have a password, you have the option to add it here also, e.g. select the Add button, enter ns id password into the Prompt input box (where password is, obviously, your own password), select OK, then select the Apply button. Also note, this password should match the nick you added into the Nickname: field in the General tab noted above.

When I stopped Chatzilla, and then restarted it again, I connected to irc://irc.starchat.net and joined #absolutewrite automatically.

Any problems with this, drop me a PM.

Just noting my personal preferences when using Chatzilla in case it helps you: the default white background hurts my eyes, I selected menu View > Color Scheme > Dark Motif and the background changed to black. Each to their own. The default text size was also too small for me, I held down Ctrl and hit + a couple of times to up the font size.

___________________________________________

Another popular IRC client is mIRC:

http://www.mirc.com

Check out the "getting started" page, http://www.mirc.com/install.html

mIRC has a 30-day trial period, then you're prompted to make a donation if you continue using the software, I believe, but this isn't mandatory. Correct me if I'm wrong. Edit - Kate has corrected me, mIRC insisted on credit card details up front, this could be a change, this could be something I just didn't see before.

-Derek
 
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dpaterso

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FYI we also have a Discord channel* in case of IRC blips.

Clicking on this link will get you an invite to @absolutewrite, https://discord.gg/ehbHGWC

If you don't already have a Discord userid then you'll have to sign up, it's not too difficult.

Or if you've already been there and want to skip the invite screen and just get back to the channel, there's a longer link that you can bookmark like I did, one click and I'm there.

* Discord actually calls it a server, I'm just sticking with "channel" because it's familiar terminology. Sub forums within the server/channel are called channels. <dizzy>

And also, everyone seems to know x100 more about Discord than I do.

-Derek
 
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