WyldRyde IRC Network » FAQ

How To: Get Users Into Your Chat Room

Jeff Weisbein — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:15:27 +0000

One of the most common questions I have seen over the years I have been on IRC is “how do you get more people in your chat room?”. There are many approaches you can take to help grow your chat room – some better than others. I’m here to share with you some of the best and most effective ways to help your chat room fill up with chatters.

The first thing I typically recommend is to do a /list when you connect to WyldRyde and see what some of the larger channels on the network are and join them. Of the channels you join from the /list become acquainted with the current chatters in the room. Ideally you want to become friends with these people so they will want hang out in your channel too.
Do not spam your chat at any point! You do not want to come across as spammer because that automatically give you a bad reputation and you will never get anyone in there or worse it may be closed down due to spamming. As I mentioned in tip number one, become friends with the people in the chat room because occasionally a chat room owner will let you share your chat room in theirs so people will find out about it.
If you have a website – use it! Our new flash chat will be available soon so be sure to embed your chat room on your site! In the mean time feel free to setup a Mibbit Widget.
If you have a twitter account - use it! Share your chat room’s name and our address: irc.wyldryde.org so people can come find and join you.
If you have become friendly with someone on WyldRyde and would like to invite them to your channel you can use the /invite command (/invite nick #chatroom). Note: Please do not use this command to spam or flood users with invites if we receive reports that you are doing it we will be forced to look into the issue and possibly close your channel down after several complaints and warnings.

There are 5 easy ways you can promote your chat room on WyldRyde! I should also mention that we will be starting a new tradition – chat room of the month. What we will be doing is featuring a new chat room every month! Each month we will pick a new channel to recommend and write a blog post about the channel itself and/or any website or community it is associated with. The chat will be featured on the sidebar of WyldRyde.org and we will also tweet out the blog post which talks about the recommended chat room. We plan to start this very soon so keep an eye out!

If for whatever reason you do not want your chat room featured on WyldRyde, please just let us know and we will be more than happy to adhere to your request.

How To Setup mIRC

usrbingeek — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:39:09 +0000

mIRC is easily the most popular IRC client for Windows. With it you can connect to WyldRyde and chat in many channels. You may also use it to run very simple to very complex scripts that can even allow you to setup mIRC as a full featured IRC Bot.
How To Setup mIRC for Windows:
(Editors note: This tutorial was written by Firebucket.)
NOTE: mIRC is NOT free, but WILL run after 30 days of use, if you have not registered your copy. It will just become nagware, meaning you’ll have to wait 30 seconds before you can click OK on the Registration Reminder when starting mIRC

Download and install mIRC
mIRC is avaliable from http://mirc.com (or http://mirc.co.uk).
1. Download the setup file and run it.
2. Follow each step, but make sure you select ‘Full’ from the Choose Components part of the installation wizard, not Upgrade.
3. mIRC will now install and then an icon will appear on your desktop; if you specified the setup to create an icon.
Configure mIRC
1. When you first start mIRC, and get past the Registration Warning screen (just press Continue when that appears) the mIRC Options dialog will appear.
2. Fill in your First Name, Email Address (you don’t have to provide one), a nickname you would like to use and an alternative nickname.
3. Now we have to select WyldRyde as the server we want to connect to.
4. Select ‘Servers’ from the Category Tree-menu on the left-hand side.
5. Then scroll to and click on ‘WyldRyde‘ in the ‘IRC Servers’ list, then click Select.
6. Now we can connect! Click ‘Connect’ in the mIRC Options dialog, under the ‘Connect’ option in the tree menu.
7. The mIRC Favorites dialog will appear when you connect. This is pointless as none of the chatrooms/channels in that list are on WyldRyde. Untick ‘Pop up favorites on connect’ at the bottom of the dialog, and then click OK.
Registering your nickname and joining channels
Well, you’ve made it! You’ve successfully connected to WyldRyde. Time to register your nickname, so no one else can use it! The nickname I’m using for this tutorial is ‘Tutorial1′, but you can use whatever you like, as long as it isn’t already registered. (You’ll be notified if it is already taken)
So, to register your nickname type:
/msg NickServ REGISTER password email
Replace ‘password’ with a unique password and ‘email’ with your legitimate email address. Make the password difficult, but make sure you can remember it, as you will need to identify yourself every time you connect to WyldRyde.

You are now registered
Now that you’ve got that out of the way, why not join a channel and start chatting? If you want to talk about a certain topic, or just hang out, it’s probably best to look at the channel list.
To view the channel list, type the following and hit enter:
/list
The channel list will start to populate. Double click on any channel you wish to join, and you will enter that channel.
Reconnecting and Identifying
Missing IRC and want to reconnect again? No problem!
1. Start up mIRC again, and click either the Connect icon () in the toolbar, or click ‘Connect’ from the mIRC Options dialog, like we did earlier.
2. Once you’ve connected, you’ll need to identify your nickname using the password we made during registration.
  To identify, type:
  /ns identify password
  Be SURE to replace ‘password’ with the unique password we created during registration

Note: You can set mIRC up to identify you automatically, and join channels when you have identified correctly, but there are posts on this forum to assist you with those things. Check out the related topics section below.
Related topics:

How To Setup X Chat (Free IRC Client.)
mIRC Script for Identifying & Joining Channels on Connect
Using mIRC to connect to multiple networks.
Other IRC Clients

Why is gay a censored word?

usrbingeek — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:56:40 +0000

Unfortunately, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals are often subjected to homophobic remarks and harassment online, as in real life. We do not want anyone to feel disrespected, insecure, unwanted or unsafe.
Homophobic remarks such as “thats so gay” or “this is gay” are the most commonly heard. Even since these slurs are often unintentional they can still hurt LGBTs. Most people do not recognize these consequences, but the casual use of this language can carry over into more overt harassment.

Related topics:

Why was I censored?

Can people see my host or IP? Can I see others?

usrbingeek — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:37:54 +0000

On WyldRyde all our users’ IP addresses and host masks are privatized upon connection to prevent others from determining your IP address or full hostmask.
Only WyldRyde Staff and YOU can see your own IP address and full host. So when YOU “/whois your-own-nick” you will see it. However, when others whois you they will only see a privatized IP address or hostmask.
Other users may still see your ISP (e.g: privatehost-E6919581.hsd1.vt.comcast.net) but they won’t be able to determine your IP address and make a direct connection to your computer from the information they get from your /whois.
Do not be tricked into allowing others to see your IP address or full host:

Never type “/mode your-nick -x” as it will allow others to see your IP address or full host mask.
Do not accept DCC chat or file transfers requests as either will allow a direct connection to your machine and will allow someone to determine your IP.

There has recently been a lot of questions and insistences by a few that Colloquy can determine the IP addresses of everyone. This is absolutely not the case. Colloquy performs a dns of the vhost address, and if it’s a real domain name, it provides the IP address that the domain name is associated with. It does not provide the actual IP address that the user is using because it cannot, nor can any client, get the IP address of any privatized hostmask or IP.

When shouldn’t I help in #help?

usrbingeek — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:39:24 +0000

We really appreciate everyone who hangs out in #Help and is eager to try to help others but there are some instances when you shouldn’t get involved and instead allow the WyldRyde Staff and official helpers (halfops and higher) deal with the problem.
Some examples of serious issues where it would be best for you not to get involved would be anything involving physical threats against others, child predators, suicide threats, or anything that could affect the personal safety of any user.
Under these circumstances and any other serious problem focus on getting a staffers’ attention and then remain absolutely silent so the staff can completely focus on helping those in need.
You also don’t want to take the chance of giving anyone incorrect or conflicting information.

How to make an IRC Bot for Macs

usrbingeek — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:12:14 +0000

Jordan Singer has posted a nice video tutorial that will show you step by step how to install and setup IRBot for the Mac.

It’s worth noting that if you can run mIRC in VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop you’ll be better off as IRBot is pretty limited in its features. Lots of mIRC scripts that are useful for bots can be found in our mIRC Scripting forum.

Should I group my nick with my significant other?

usrbingeek — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:37:51 +0000

No, we strongly recommend that you do not group your nick with another nick that belongs to any other person, even your wife or husband.
Over the years we’ve witnessed too many instances when a boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, or husband had grouped nicks or shared their password with their partner and then they used them improperly.
In a few cases they were used to trick others into believing they were their partner or they used them to gain access to or ops on channels they weren’t supposed to have access or ops on. We’ve even seen people use them to get their partner banned from channels or the network.
More commonly we’ve seen passwords changed and the partner refusing to give the nick and channels back after breakups.
If you should group a nick with another person or share your password with someone else you should be aware that you will not receive help or support from the WyldRyde Staff if something should go wrong as a result of grouping your nick or sharing your password with another person.

How do I apply to work at WyldRyde?

usrbingeek — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:29:55 +0000

WyldRyde doesn’t offer any paid staff positions.
In fact, ALL WyldRyde “Staffers” are volunteers and dedicate their free time to helping WyldRyde and its users.
There is no application process to become an official volunteer, they were asked to become “staff” after we noticed their dedication and willingness to help other users in #help and other channels.
If you’d like to help out please familiar yourself with #help’s rules by typing !rules
Related topics:

I’m banned from a chat/channel I never joined, can you remove it?

usrbingeek — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:45:11 +0000

Nope, we can’t remove the ban!
Even if you never joined a specific channel, you might find yourself unable to join it because of a ban that is in place.

The channel may have banned users from your ISP, area, or country.
They might be banning people that run a script you’re using.
They might have banned someone that lives with you or visited your house such as your roomate, brother, sister, wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, dad, mother, grandmother, grandfather, etc.
If your connecting at work or school, they might have banned someone else from there.
They might only be allowing specific individuals in the chat and no one else.
They might even know you and just don’t want you in there!

All of these are valid reasons as a channel may ban anyone* they wish and they don’t have to give an explanation or reason!
It’s up to you to find out why you’re banned and to ask the channel’s owner to remove it. But, keep in mind that if they don’t want to remove it there is nothing you can do.
No matter what the circumstances are the WyldRyde Staff will not get involved in channel bans or channel politics so don’t ask the Staff to help you get unbanned.
Please see I am banned from a channel for no reason? for some tips and advice on how to deal with this situation.
NEVER attempt to “evade” bans in any way, because ops can always tell, and a longer ban will follow, maybe even a network ban!
Related topics:

*WyldRyde Staffers may not be banned however WyldRyde Staff will part a channel if the founder asks them to leave it.

Why was I censored?

usrbingeek — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:22:47 +0000

Foul or vulgar language may not be appropriate for all channels and some may even activate a mode which will automatically censor all language that is not suitable for children and replace it with “”.
The person who is using foul language and is automatically being censored doesn’t see their words replaced with “”, however everyone else sees “”.
This automatic censor mode is mode +G. G stands for G-Rated chat.
To enable it, channel operators may use the following command:
/mode #channel +G
It may be disabled by channel operators with the command:
/mode #channel -G
To prevent malicious users from easily finding ways around the censor, WyldRyde does not share or publish the list of the censored words. However, if you see words being used in a G-Rated chat that you feel should also be added to the censor list please /join #help and ask for a WyldRyde Admin.