. History

Beginnings

The TalkingIRC Network's history starts in September 2002 with the BOFHNet network. Originally, the network was administered by BOFH, ace, and a couple of other hackers from the Net. Shortly thereafter, fmillion (who used to go by the name Aladdin) joined the administration team. For the next year and a half, fmillion and BOFH worked together to run the BOFHNet network. In April of 2003, there was a falling out between ace and BOFH and ace left the BOFHNet network as an administrator. Therefore, the two primary administrators were BOFH and fmillion.

During the year 2003, fmillion coded an IRC client known as BOFHNet IRC . This software made it possible for those who are blind or visually impaired, and who make use of synthesized speech to use their computers, to much more easily chat on IRC networks, particularly BOFHNet. Towards the end of the year 2003, the Freedom Chat project had begun. This project allowed users to chat on the BOFHNet network using a much easier piece of software. For quite some time, BOFHNet ran peacefully with Freedom Chat being the software that allowed simple access to chat.

The BOFHNet split

During the summer of 2004, there were some serious user issues taking place on BOFHNet. Administrators were fighting, users were wreaking havoc, and many nasty words were being thrown around. Aladdin decided at that point to leave the BOFHNet network. Thankfully, in the end this did not hurt his friendship with BOFH in a significant way, but it was a hard situation for everyone. Aladdin set up his own IRC network and named it Freedom Chat, after the software program he'd written. He also re-coded Freedom Chat to ensure it would only be used on his new network. He ran this network independently for some time. Since the Freedom Chat software utilizes special features and bots provided by whichever network it is on, it is important that it not be used on other networks in its current state. Thus, Aladdin coded an authorization system to ensure that Freedom Chat would only be usable on the network he ran it on.

TalkingIRC

After ace had left the BOFHNet network, he took the few users who supported him, plus his friends, and hosted them on other servers where he would usually have some type of position in the staff or just be a normal user himself. Before ace ran BOFHNet with BOFH, he had hosted a few networks, including BrandonAndRob, Arcticland, Inforgiven-Chat, and Free-Chatline. He did not like being just a normal user without privileges, so he hooked up with his friend snow_dog in June of 2003 and started a network called Tundra-Com. In October or November of the same year, Tundra-Com, which was also a shell reselling company dropped the shell business and switched its name to TalkingIRC.

Freedom Chat Joins TalkingIRC

In January of 2005, Aladdin joined the TalkingIRC chat network. By this time, sadly, BOFH had passed away after a long battle with cancer, and BOFHNet was continuing operation under the administration of his wife Michelle and various other helpers. When Aladdin merged his standalone Freedom Chat server with the TalkingIRC network, several changes were made to the client that mandated an upgrade. At the time version 1.6 was released. About two months later, ace dropped the TalkingIRC name completely and adopted Freedom Chat as the name for the entire network and its software. This move was opposed by a few of the regular users. Aladdin has regained his Administrative position on BOFHNet and can be found on both networks.

Back to TalkingIRC

In September of 2006, it was decided to drop the Freedom Chat client and persuade users to start using mIRC along with tIRC, which is a script designed to make mIRC accessible. Since tIRC is now able to interface to the two major screen readers, plus Microsoft Agent, there is no reason to continue development of the FC client. It was unstable, buggy, and more of an inconvenience to the Administrators than a help.

Along with dropping support for the client, the Freedom Chat network also switched its name back to TalkingIRC, registering the talkingirc.net domain.

Fmillion Leaves tIRC

In June of 2008, Fmillion was stripped of all administrative privileges and his server was banished from the network due to long-standing issues between him and the rest of the administration. When Fmillion joined the TalkingIRC network in January of 2005, he brought with him users from his stand-alone server, Freedom Chat. With the discontinuation of the Freedom Chat client in 2006, most of the users left the network; however, a few of the regulars stayed behind, including Jerry, who became close friends with ace and mo. Jerry and Fmillion had different beliefs regarding how an IRC network should be run which resulted in frequent, fierce debates between them, other administrators, and the users. Ace and mo tended to agree with Jerry on most issues. Due to ace being close friends with Fmillion, he tried his best to compromise. Fmillion came close to leaving the network many times over the years. Finally, in June of 2008, ace, with support from the rest of the administrators, forced Fmillion to leave the network. The details are too personal to describe thoroughly. Fmillion's IP address was also temporarily Z-lined. Ace still hopes to remain in contact with Fmillion outside of TalkingIRC.

Shortly after these issues, fmillion (fuzzy) returned to TalkingIRC as a regular user, and was granted channel privileges on the main network channel. It is not known at this point whether fmillion will ever re-join the administration team, but most of the issues between him and other opers have started to settle. Fmillion still maintains a close friendship with ace.

Common Uniquenesses of TalkingIRC

The most obvious thing you may notice when chatting on TalkingIRC is how our staff and users are very open. We do not like censorship, and we will not practice it on TalkingIRC in any channel that we, the administrators, run. (Users may decide to censor their own channels, however.) It is not uncommon for very heavy subjects and heated debates to occur on TalkingIRC. Also, a lot of inside jokes are used, some of which may be deemed offensive by those not "in the crowd."

TalkingIRC also allows its users a pretty wide range of freedom. Users basically have complete control over their channels, and can decide anything they want in that respect, providing it does not violate the network-wide policies. Users may decide, at their own discretion, to censor their channel, restrict it to certain topics, kick users without reason or whatever else they feel like doing. Remember, if you're not in an admin-run channel (most notably #talkingIRC), don't be surprised if you're not treated "fairly" - take it up with the channel's owner, not us. We will always try to be fair in main channels.

While we believe that profanity and sex are only offensive if a person chooses to take it as such (and it need not be taken as such), we still understand some people do not wish to experience this type of content for various reasons. Do keep this in mind if you decide to chat on TalkingIRC. There are some channels that are deemed "clean". Be advised though, we use profanity in fun, not to be offensive.

How To Get Started

To join the TalkingIRC Network, please visit the TalkingIRC Web Site . In your IRC client, simply type /server irc.talkingirc.net or /server irc.talkingirc.net +6601 for SSL. If you're blind, consider checking out tIRC, whose links are accessible via the sidebar.

For those of you who do not wish to download a client, please use our Java program which will connect directly to our server by visiting the Chat Using Your Web Browser page. Please note that this client will not work well with screen readers; thus, it is primarily for our sighted users.

Also, we ask that all users read the TalkingIRC Policies before connecting, and that you abide by them whenever you are on the network.

Please always, always remember to read the Message of the Day (MOTD) when you connect to the server, for it may contain important information about upcoming server downtime or any other critical news.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoy TalkingIRC and do visit often! Anyone is welcome to come visit, whether visually impaired, disabled, or not. Bring your friends, bring your relatives, join us, and have a great time!