Introduction: Hacks #12-16

Users and channels are the main components in the conceptual model of IRC. Users are the people you talk to, and you can also talk to channels, which contain groups of users. Channels are often built around a particular topic or theme, and one of the problems for any IRC user is finding the right channel to join. This chapter shows you how to find suitable channels by filtering entire channel lists from a network or how to search on a more global scale and find all relevant channels on any public server in the world. To satisfy the curious, there are also hacks to show you how to find users in channels and to try to guess where in the world a particular user is located.

One of the fun hacks in this chapter shows you how to generate interesting statistics. This lets you bring life to the community in your channel by displaying their photos, along with amusing information such as who talks most, who is least popular, and what time of day the channel is busiest.