Internet Relay Chat subculture

IRC subculture refers to the particular set of social features common to interaction on the various Internet Relay Chat (IRC) systems across the world, and the culture associated with them.

Overview

Internet Relay Chat is an Internet-based chat system that has existed in one form or another since 1988. Networks are connected groups of IRC servers which share a common userbase. Channels are the "chat rooms" on said networks. IRC channel operators (commonly referred to as OPs or chanops) are the individuals who run any given channel.

While there are many different IRC networks, and across those networks there are countless IRC channels, there are some unifying features common to the social structures of them all. Many of the features of the IRC subculture mesh with other Internet subcultures, such as various forum subcultures. This is especially prevalent in IRC channels or networks that are directly related to other Internet phenomena, such as an IRC channel created by and for the users of a particular Internet forum.

Communication on IRC

IRC has much in common with a regular 'real life' conversation. It is real-time many-on-many communication that is not logged by the server for posterity (many IRC clients do offer a logging feature, but the logs are generally then not publicly available). Users on IRC usually refer to a channel as a 'room' and users 'saying' something (instead of posting it) to reflect the similarity with face-to-face communication.

Because IRC is a text-based communication medium, the obvious limitation of this metaphor is that the participants of a conversation on IRC do not actually see or hear each other, so alternative ways must be employed to convey the information that would otherwise be gained from facial expressions, tones of voice and other audio-visual clues. It is common practice among IRC users to use emoticons, pseudo-html tags (for example ...) or actions (such as *smile* or *grin*) to achieve this.

Orthographical and grammatical mistakes are generally not frowned upon as much in postings on IRC as they are in other kinds of internet forums, given the informal and temporary nature of them. If the conversation is going at a decent speed, it is not practical to correct every typo.

ocial Structure

Often users will visit the same channel regularly and form strong emotional ties to the other regulars of that channel.

Having certain privileges on IRC is often considered a status symbol. The server administrators (those with physical access to the IRC servers) and the IRC Operators appointed by them thus have the highest status. Within the individual channels the channel operators then have a higher status than the regular users. Sometimes it is channel policy to 'voice' users in order to denote them as helpers or channel regulars.On many networks a channel service keeps a record of levels that operators on a given channel have, which imposes an even more differentiated structure. Being given the operator status on a channel, or being promoted to a higher level operator is generally considered a social reward, while being kicked or even banned from a channel is considered punishment.

Common themes

As in most Internet subcultures, a very common IRC phenomenon is that of hazing newbies. This is generally channel-specific, except on very small networks. For example, even if someone has been a user of EFnet for a number of years, and helps manage several channels, when they join a new channel, they will be treated as a "Stupid Noob" for a certain amount of time, varying as widely as one week to one year.

On many networks, and many channels, particular attention is paid to a user's "nick", the name they use to chat. If this name is considered sub-standard (ending in a number, all caps, etc), the user will often face ridicule. If the name uses a superior combination of all lowercase letters the user will sometimes be greeted with 'w3rd'. Also, many individuals pay attention to the particular IRC client an individual uses. mIRC is the most common client, and is often mocked or otherwise derided, as is the case with many mainstream applications.

Variations

While many aspects of IRC subculture are common across the entire community, many aspects are specific to particular networks, channels, or groups of channels.

pecific networks

Some networks have specific sets of etiquette, guidelines and quirks that vary from those of other networks. For example, atopical channels on general networks like EFnet tend to haze their new users more aggressively than topical channels on networks like freenode.

pecific channels

Some channels have specific sets of etiquette and guidelines that vary from those of other channels.

External links

* [http://cyber.eserver.org/reid.txt Thesis "Communication and Community on Internet Relay Chat"]
* [http://www.efnet.org/ EFnet information]
* [http://www.bash.org/ bash.org - A collection of IRC quotes]