For those that don't know, IRC stands for 'Internet Relay Chat'. Most of the information on this page will deal primarily with IRC commands and tricks to manipulate their use.

Most of this info will work best while in TalkCity.

IRC commands allow you to perform functions such as maintaining control of a channel and the users on it. The following list of basic IRC commands should help you get started. There are also mIRC commands you can look at.

While in a chat room, type the following in the normal message writing area.

/me
Example:
/me dances around the room
Result: you say something about yourself in a third persons point of view
poethorn dances around the room

/msg
Example:
/msg poethorn where are you from?
result: private message someone
poethorn(to you) where are you from?
If you are in TalkCity this will allow you to private message someone no matter what room they are in.

/topic
Example:
/topic Meeting New Friends
result: creates a new topic for a room
poethorn has changed the topic for the room
Meeting New Friends
Need ops for the room to do this.

/who
example:
/who
result: tells you who is in the room
people in this room: poethorn, TipTup, ulTRAX, Derek70, WebBabe, LadyTCC, Greeneyes27

/whois
Example: there are lots of ways to use the /whois command
/whois poethorn
result: gives you info on a persons nic
poethorn is EZGuest36
/whois *poet
result: this will tell you all the people in TalkCity who has poet at the end of there nic
- WebPoet
- darkpoet
- imapoet
and so on....
/whois *poethorn*
result: this will tell you all the people in TalkCity who have any variation of that nic.
- poethorn1
- ^poethorn5
- P0etHorn
and so on....
/whois *Ma.
Result: this will tell you all the people in TalkCity who are from Massachusatts
- poethorn
- BostonGirl
- bedpan9
and so on....
/whois *boston.
Result: this will tell you all the people in TalkCity who are from Boston
- BostonGirl
- bedpan9
and so on....
Make sure to put a period with the last two examples or it will say that it is unknown. Also ... with some browsers you may need to add another asterix at the end.
The asterix key has been a great help to me, not only can youi tell if people are in your general area, using them acts as an undefined character locater.

/ignore
Example:
/ignore poethorn
result: this will not allow someone to private message you or even show up on your screen during normal chat
/ignore -poethorn
result: this will unignore people you have ignored

/join
Example:
/join #New2WebTV
Result: this will allow you to join a specified channel (room)

/part
Example:
/part #New2WebTV
Result: this will make you leave a specified channel (room)

/list
Example: mIRC command
/list
Result: lists currently available channels (rooms)
You can also tell mIRC to list only channels with a minimum and a maximum number of people.
Example:
/list -min 2 -max 50
Result: lists only the channels available with the amount of people in them between the minimum and maximum count you specify.
If you specify a #roomname then mIRC will only list information for that channel.
Example:
/list #New2WebTV
Result: gives you information on the specified channel ... eg: topic, room count ... ect.
If you specify wildcards then mIRC will list all channels containing your wildcard.
Example:
/list *music*
Result: this gives you a list of all channel names with the word music in them

/query
Example:
/query poethorn Hi bro ... whats up?
Result: opens a query window to someone and send them a private message, equivalent to WebTV's wisper box

/nick
Example:
/nick poethorn1
Result: changes your nickname to a new nickname, need room ops to do this

/quit
Example:
/quit needs to use the phone
Result: this will disconnect you from IRC and will give an optional message as the reason for your departure
poethorn needs to use the phone
WebTV uses this as a defalt to just 'poethorn has left the room'.

/away
Example:
/away off to the bathroom
Result: leaves a message explaining that you are not currently paying attention to IRC, whenever someone private messages you or does a /whois on you they automatically see whatever message you set. Using /away with no message turns it off

/invite
Example:
/invite poethorn #WSHForce
Result: invites another user to a restricted room, need room ops to do this

/kick
Example:
/kick #New2WebTV poethorn
Result: kicks specified user off a given channel, need room ops to do this

/mode
Example: this is a powerful command that gives channel operaters control of a channel and the users on it, here are a few examples
/mode #New2WebTV +o poethorn
Result: gives someone ops status in a specified room, to give ops to multiple people add the number of o's for the number of people your giving ops to, then space the nics after.
Example: /mode #New2WebTV +ooo poethorn ulTRAX HydroHelper2
To de-op someone put a - symbol before the o's instead of the + symbol
/mode #New2WebTV +b poethorn (or user address ... eg: poethorn@webtv.net)
Result: this bans someone from a specified room, unbaning is the same as above but use the - symbol instead of the + symbol before the b
/mode #New2WebTV +i
Result: makes a channel invite only, you now must use the /invite to let others join your channel.
You should get the idea of how these work now. Here is the list of ModeChar effects.

ModeChar Effects on channels:

b <nickname> ban somebody, <nickname> in nick!user@host.com form
i channel is invite only
l <number> channel is limited, <number> users allowed max
m channel is moderated, only ops can talk
n external /msg's to channel are not allowed
o <nickname> makes <nickname> a channel operater
p channel is private
s channel is secret
t topic is limited, only ops can change topic
k <key> set secret key for a channel

ModeChar Effects on nicknames:

i makes you invisible to anyone that does not know the exact spelling  of your nickname
o IRC-ops status, can only be set by IRC-ops with OPER
s receive server notices
v gives a user a voice on a moderated channel

There are many more IRC commands but this list should help you get started.

  There are a couple of ways of doing this. The easiest way is to simply use one of the IRC commands from above:
/join #New2WebTV #CityPub #Gen-X and so on....

The other way is to do it manually with the Server, Port and Channel boxes found in some IRC's:
In the Server feild put: chat.talkcity.com
In the Port feild put: 7000
And in the Channel feild put the room names like above: #roomname #roomname #roomname and so on....

Have fun chatting in as many rooms as you want ... but don't get too confused.
NOTE: Accessing to many rooms at once may close the server down, it may also slow your terminal down or even power you off ... my suggestion would be not to chat in more than 7 rooms at once unless they are'nt very busy rooms.

Hold the "Alt" key down and hit the Space Bar as many times as you want to indent.

Normally it would look like this:
poethorn Hi room, How is everyone?

Using the "Alt", Space Bar trick makes it look like this:
poethorn                     Hi room, How is everyone?

Text bombs are a way to fill chat rooms with lines of text, pushing the messages up and off the screen, along with slowing the victoms terminal down.

Push and hold down the "O" key for 30 sec. or so then hit enter. Here is an example of what it will look like:

oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
oo-
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

As you can see it can be very annoying, and the longer you hold the O down, the bigger the bomb will be.
NOTE: I suggest not using this in a busy room like New2WebTV or CityPub, you will most likely get kicked from the room and possibly banned from the service. Instead, use it as a private message to single out your prey.

Personally, I hate it when a CCC, TCC or a CSA kicks or bans me from a room. Well, here is how you get back to the room when you get booted:

When you get booted from a room an alert pop-up comes up that says, "You have been kick out of #roomname for whatever. Have a nice day" or something like that. On the alert there is a button that says "OK", dont click it, instead, power off your unit and then power it back on and you should be able to enter the room again. What this will do is allow WebTV to give you another IP number, making TalkCity think your a different user.

It is really easy to obtain a log of a chat session for future reference. All you have to do is hit the "Find" key on your browser and type in any word you see on the chat screen, then hit return. Now when you see the word highlight on the screen, hold down "Cmd" and hit A now while still holding down "Cmd", hit C. You can now go anywhere and paste your chat session by holding down "Cmd" and hitting V