Help:IRC

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is used frequently by Dota 2 Wiki editors, moderators, and administrators to coordinate their wiki efforts. The #dota2wiki channel hosted on freenode is the channel used most frequently.

Access to the channel is free for all users, and those who are not regularly active on the wiki are encouraged to join the channel to collaborate with others.

Additionally, users on the channel with "voice" (usually represented by a '+' or 'v' sign in front of their names) are staff members (mods/admins). Feel free to contact them in private if you have any concerns or need help.

Rules

 * 1) Please always follow admin/mod instructions.
 * 2) The #dota2wiki channel is primarily meant to help users edit, and discuss wiki-related matters. While idle chatter is not prohibited or discouraged, it should not interfere with users actively trying to have wiki-related discussions.
 * 3) Do not troll, denigrate, or otherwise insult users in the channel.
 * 4) Do not flood the channel or cause spam of any type. If you need to post a long blob of text, use Pastie.
 * 5) Do not impersonate admins, mods, or other users.
 * 6) Do not cause bot spam (the use of bot commands repeatedly, not necessarily by the same user, to the point where the conversation becomes meaningless or hard to follow).
 * 7) Speculation about upcoming content releases is permitted, as long as it doesn't get out of hand, e.g. declaring said speculation as factual information. Spoilers related to upcoming releases, even when unrelated to Dota 2, are not permitted. Read the topic to find out the current standing regarding releases.
 * 8) People disrespecting any of these rules will be warned, kicked, muted, or banned, depending on the extent and repetitiveness of the offense.
 * 9) Be nice and have fun!

Discussion
Discussion in the channel is also publicly logged. Logs can be viewed here.

Any decisions made or "agreed to" in the channel should not always be considered definitive. The number of users who contribute to the wiki but do not use the channel is high, and thus the discussion can exclude these contributors. Because of this, discussions that are of interest to everyone should take place on talk pages instead.

You can find a list of editors usually found on this channel here.

Popular clients

 * ChatZilla (Firefox extension) – available on all platforms (free) – see also: guide to running ChatZilla without Firefox
 * HydraIRC – Windows (free)
 * XChat – Windows (€15.99) or 30-day trial, Linux (free)
 * X-Chat 2 – Free version of X-Chat for Windows.
 * mIRC – Windows ($20 or 30-day trial)
 * Irssi – Windows, Linux (free)
 * Colloquy – Mac OS X (free)
 * Smuxi – Windows, Linux, Mac OSX (free)

Alternative
Freenode provides access to their IRC servers through their webchat service. You can connect directly to the channel here.

Also, the Opera web browser has an integrated IRC client since version 7.50.