Hiya!

we've been thinking about this for a while but we have finally reached the tipping point where we just had to do it.

IRC is here! You can now connect to starlightnet.work:6697 using your favourite IRC client, making sure to enable TLS :)

Only the #public channel is, well, public, whereas everything else has +M set, so you'll need to register with NickServ.

We decided to use https://ergo.chat as our IRCd as we really craved thoes IRCv3 features that some of your clients may already support, like:

• Chat history (up to 1 week)
• Multi-client (no bouncer required!)
• Typing indicators (you can, of course, just opt not to send these)
• Emoji Reactions
• Automatic Login/Authentication using SASL (if your client supports it)
• Multiline! Finally!

And much more exciting stuff, all of it backwards-compatible with basically all clients under the sun.

IRC!? I never used that before!

don't worry! getting started is dead simple

The IRCv3 people maintain a table of clients for many platforms and what features they support. Most of the time you won't need to look too closely unless you already know you're looking for one specific feature.

Regardless, it's still a great place to start looking for a client, just browse around until you find one that works on your device, and then follow their instructions to connect.

Make sure to replace whatever example they give you with:

• starlightnet.work
• TLS: Yes / Enabled
• Port: 6697 (this will be the default in many cases when TLS is on)

When you connect, you should be dropped into #public and can start talking right away!

If your client supports Chat History, you'll also see up to the last 1000 messages.

Getting access to other channels

Channels apart from #public are locked to only registered users, or clients which an operator has explicitly given permission.

To register, start a direct message with NickServ, usually by doing /msg NickServ.

You can then send it HELP REGISTER and it'll tell you how to register your nickname with a password.

NOTE: You don't need an email. In fact, we didn't even configure email.

Then, you can use /list to list all channels.

Modes???

IRC works with "modes" set on both channels and/or users.

You can see a list of all modes by sending /help modes, and it'll explain what all the channel and user modes mean, as well as what the @, ~ and other symbols in front of people's names mean

I don't wanna login every time!

No worries! If the client you chose supports SASL, then you can configure a username + password.

The username + pass will match what you sent to NickServ, so you don't need to maintain both of them separately.

For example, if you have taken a liking to halloy, it will look something like this:

[servers.starlight]
nickname = "alexia"
server = "starlightnet.work"
port = 6697

[servers.starlight.sasl.plain]
username = "alexia"
password = "ThisIsntActuallyMyPassword"

And then just re-connect! It will now always be logged-in.

Bouncers like Soju are out-of-scope for this tiny guide, tho

We hope you have fun! :3

This is one of many steps to get away from Discord, and we personally really enjoy the minimalism that comes from using IRC.

In the future we also want to look into hooking Ergo Ircd up to Forgejo's oAuth endpoints, such that we can authenticate using the Forgejo accounts which we already verify :)

Other ideas include hooking up the Minecraft Server chat to an IRC channel, and perhaps even bridging it with the existing Discord community.

TAKE ME BACK TO THE INDEX!