IRC Meeting 1

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a discussion tool used by HFOSS communities. For a reference on IRC basics, see http://www.ircbeginner.com/ircinfo/ircclass.html.

To Connect

• Start an IRC client. If you don't have a client installed, there are many free options since many IRC clients are open source. A good client choice is Hexchat. You can get it here: Hexchat Downloads. Hexchat clients are available for Windows or as flatpacks for many Linux versions.
• Connect to freenode with this command:

/attach webchat.freenode.net/

• Join the foss2serve channel with this command:

/join #foss2serve

• Another approach is to use Web-based IRC. This is especially useful if you are having difficulty getting an IRC client to work (which sometimes happens due to firewalls). A good option is: Webchat on Freenode If you use this option, just create a Nickname and enter "#foss2serve" (without the quotes) as the channel.

Goals

IRC Meeting 1 has the following goals:

• To provide an opportunity for everyone to introduce themselves, and start to get to know a few of their fellow participants
• To allow people who have never used IRC a chance to use some basic features and see some features demonstrated
• To briefly discuss HFOSS projects
• To provide participants with an opportunity to discuss progress on stage 1 activities

We expect that some people in the course will be quite familiar with IRC, others will have only passing familiarity, and some to have no prior experience at all. We ask that everyone participate, whether this is completely new or completely familiar.

The discussion will be informal, but to provide some structure, we will loosely follow this agenda:

Agenda

• Introductions - We'll go through the list of attendees and have each person say something about themselves. A sentence or so is fine.
• Basic IRC features - team members or others present can demonstrate a few basic features. Some that might be covered include:
  • Chat
    • Just type and press enter to say something
  • IRC Commands - start with a "/"
    • /help - provides a pointer to command info
    • /nick - set or change your nickname
    • /me <action> - indicate that you are performing an action
      • example: /me waves hello
    • /away and /back - mark yourself as not available or having returned
    • Start your comment with someone's nick followed by a colon to direct your comment to that person
      • example: jamie: did you understand?
    • Type someone's nick in a comment to get their attention
      • example: please check with jamie
      • IRC clients will typically signal, e.g., by flashing the IRC icon
    • GUI IRC clients may provide menus in place of many commands
    • A more complete list: http://www.ircbeginner.com/ircinfo/ircc-commands.html
  • Meetbot - will create a log of the entire meeting and also a summary of the meeting
    • Commands to the meetbot start with "#" and mostly control what appears in the summary
      • #startmeeting <meeting topic> - start meeting
      • #topic <topic> - start new topic
      • #info|#agree|#action <details> - note info, decision, action item
      • #link <url> <description> - note & describe link
      • #endmeeting - end meeting
    • A more complete list: http://meetbot.debian.net/Manual.html
  • Questions about IRC - anyone who has questions about IRC can ask them at any point during the IRC
• HFOSS Projects - in the weeks ahead we'll be asking you to select an HFOSS project to investigate and to which you might potentially contribute. We'll use this IRC for a short discussion of the projects, perhaps including a few words about student participation in these projects in the past.
  • see HFOSS Communities
  • You can also sign up for an HFOSS project on the wiki
• Good of the order
  • Please remember to log your progress in the spreadsheet - your feedback is always valued

At each IRC meeting, several POSSE team members will facilitate. We've asked people to sign up for different times to accommodate schedules, but also so that everyone will get to talk some without the conversation getting too confusing.

Please jump in and try things! The main goal of this meeting is to learn and have some fun playing with IRC.

Minutes

• The IRC meetings will be recorded and processed by a MeetBot.
• The meeting logs and summaries will be at http://meetbot-raw.fedoraproject.org/foss2serve/ under the date of the meeting.
  • Because the meetbot was not running on 2017-05-22, the minutes for this meeting is available at (the rest are available at the link above): File:POSSE IRC 2017-05-20T09-02-EDT.txt
• They will also be on the wiki page for the individual POSSE.