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Not at this level of technology, perhaps, but close.
Wookieepedia's IRC channel (chat room) is where the Wookieepedia meetings (Mofferences) are held. Between these, the channel serves as a place for general chit-chat about Wookieepedia, as well as a method of quickly notifying admins about vandalism in progress or asking questions.
Topics
In general, #wookieepedia IRC is intended for chatting about #wookieepedia. It's not a role-playing channel, and it's not exactly a general-purpose Star Wars discussion channel. Wookieepedia is the topic.
Off-topic discussion is generally allowed with the consent of the administrators, except in the case of official functions such as Mofferences. The rules below will help clarify this.
Rules
The rules for #wookieepedia IRC are simple:
- Don't be a Sarlacc. You will never be asked to be "nice," and personal attacks are unpreventable on IRC. But as a guideline, don't go out of your way to irritate others. Vicious abuse is grounds for sanctions.
- No whining. Users who ask for something from another IRC user and are refused it should not stoop to complaining, which is grounds for sanctions. It is acceptable to be persistent, but in a mature manner.
- Real-world politics and/or religion may only be discussed with unanimous consent. If someone doesn't want to talk about them, drop the subject.
- Wookieepedia IRC's official language: English. We don't care if it's British or American, as long as it's not "L33t" or "TXT." Abbreviations are fine, but keep it within reason.
- No spamming. The meaning should be obvious. Don't say the same thing six times because no one is responding to you. Don't keep yammering on about a subject nobody cares about.
- No role-playing. By and large, regulars in #wookieepedia find roleplaying in IRC to be annoying and dumb. You are not a Jedi, or an Imperial commander, or a Sith, or a Mandalorian. If you act like you are, you will be kicked.
- Ops=admins. In general, the people with @ symbols (or however your client denotes ops) are Wookieepedia administrators. If they're around, then there is an official presence to consult and there are people enforcing the rules. There are exceptions, as not all administrators feel the need to "wear a badge" in IRC, and some ops may not be admins, but system processes or helpful bots.
The standard sanctions for dealing with violators of IRC policies are as follows:
- Warning. Directed at the violator by an operator.
- Kicking. Should only occur when policy violations, spamming, trolling, and similar transgressions are sufficiently obvious and continuous that all operators agree.
- Channel mute. All users are voiced except the violator, allowing said violator to grow frustrated and quit on his or her own.
- Kickbanning. When all else fails. Anyone with more brains than a bantha will never get to this point.
How to join
For advanced users:
For others:
You can either use the standard Wikia web client in your web browser, or install a specialized chat program called an IRC client. These are available for a variety of platforms.
Alternatively use the form below to log in to our IRC channels: <irclogin />
Web client
- Wikia has a CGI:IRC gateway for the #wookieepedia channel at irc.wikia.com/starwars that lets you join the chat room from a normal web page. Just put in your username and choose "#wookieepedia" (selected by default) from the drop-down list.
Windows
- mIRC is the classic Windows IRC client. The main drawbacks of mIRC are the fact that it's not free and that the configuration options are more extensive than a lot of users are used to. (Only partial UTF-8 support - see below)
- Trillian handles IRC. It's a little complicated to set up, but if you don't want to use the very easy CGI:IRC linked by Angela, then Trillian is a handy program to have anyway for the other things it does. (No UTF-8 support - see below)
- Miranda IM - a multi-client, like Trillian, but rather minimalist and open source. (UTF-8 support requires patching - see below)
Linux
- Pidgin is a multi-client that comes preinstalled with Ubuntu and several other Linux distributions.
- Kopete is a multi-client, the KDE counterpart of Pidgin.
- Konversation is a KDE application with interface similar to X-Chat; it is an IRC-only client.
- irssi is an IRC-only client that uses a text-mode user interface.
- BitchX is an IRC-only console application client.
- EPiC is an IRC-only client for Unix systems that is descended from the ircII client, it uses a text-mode user interface.
Mac
- Snak handles IRC rather nicely, and is one of the few Mac-only clients that still work flawlessly.
- X-Chat Aqua is a full featured IRC client for OS X that is easy to setup and use.
- Colloquy is an open-source IRC, SILC and ICB client for Mac OS X.
Crossplatform
- Opera web browser has a built-in IRC client.
- ChatZilla is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser.
- JWChat - had some script errors in Firefox, but clicked "Stop script" and it worked fine after that.
- X-Chat is perhaps the most well-known IRC client for Linux, included into nearly every distribution, which has recently grown in popularity on Windows as well. Note that the official Windows version (as opposed to Linux) is shareware, but unofficial free Windows builds are available, for example, here.
- Quassel is cross-platform, distributed IRC client, meaning that one (or multiple) client(s) can attach to and detach from a central core
Setup instructions
To log in, you need to configure your client. After you log in, it is rather straightforward. The parameters are:
- Server: irc.freenode.net
- Channel: #wookieepedia (note the correct spelling)
Your web browser may be preconfigured to open IRC links in some IRC client, so you can try clicking this link:
Most IRC clients, in particular mIRC, Miranda and X-Chat, have "Freenode" in the default network list, you only need to select it. After you are connected to the server, type /join #wookieepedia in the reply box and press Enter. If not, just add.
Custom instructions for specific clients to come.
UTF-8
The #wookieepedia channel uses the UTF-8 encoding, just like Wookieepedia proper. This should not pose a problem with English, as UTF-8 is backwards compatible with ASCII-127, but non-Latin scripts (such as Greek or Cyrillic) may be rendered improperly in UTF-8-incapable clients.
Known issues:
- mIRC: partial UTF-8 support since version 6.2; it can display UTF-8 messages sent by others properly, but always sends messages in the system encoding. No UTF-8 support prior to 6.2.
- Miranda: requires a patch. The archive contains a file named irc.dll, which should be extracted to Miranda's plugins directory.
- Trillian: no UTF-8 support for IRC, although it's present for AIM/ICQ.
Mojibake
The Cyrillic string "тест" (Russian for "test") is used as an example.
| Cyrillic displayed as | Meaning |
|---|---|
| тест | Proper UTF-8 support |
| òåñò | Sent in an encoding different from UTF-8 |
| тест | Sent in UTF-8, received in a different encoding |
| ???? | The client supports UTF-8, but the font contains no Cyrillic characters |