This is a guide for experienced editors who want to start helping editors in the live help IRC channel #wikipedia-en-help connect. The process can be technical and more than a little confusing to get set up if you're not familiar with IRC, so this is intended as a start to finish guide for how to get set up. Wikipedia:IRC/wikipedia-en-help explains the guidelines and management of this channel.
Feel free to drop me a message on my talk page if anything is unclear or you encounter any problems.
IRC clients edit
While there are many different IRC clients - including browser clients - I and many other helpers use HexChat, so that is what this guide will use as an example IRC client. Most of the steps should be reproducible in others though.
- Download the client from here and install it, leaving options as their defaults (unless you know that you want something optional).
- After installing, run the program (available as an option after installation on Windows).
- On first run the program will open a Network List page.
- Type a nickname (your Wikipedia username is a good choice) to identify you. Having the next few options be that name with underscores after is a useful convention; if you time out and have to rejoin before your previous login has been kicked out you'll login with the underscore(s) temporarily, or if you log in more than once at the same time.
- Freenode should be selected in the Networks list, select it if not. Click 'Edit...' after Freenode is selected.
- Click the Autojoin Channels tab so we can add a couple of channels that the software will automatically join when you open it.
- Click Add and type #wikipedia-en-help then enter, then click Add again and add #wikipedia-en-helpers. There are other channels listed at Wikipedia:IRC#List of useful channels which you can include here too if you want.
- Check 'Connect to this network automatically' and click Close.
- Check the 'skip network list on startup' box to avoid this dialog box opening every time the software starts.
- Click Connect - you're in! From now on opening HexChat should join the channels you specified in step 7 automatically.
Cloak edit
By default you will be greeted as a helpee when you join #wikipedia-en-help, which can be confusing for helpers if you're actually there to help! To get around this, hide your IP, and make sure you're the only one logging in with your username, you can request a cloak. This will also automatically 'voice' you in the help channel, which gives you a little + before your name, signifying you as a helper. The meta page should explain well enough how to obtain a cloak.
After you've gained a cloak you can set up HexChat to automatically log you in with it prior to joining channels. To do this go to HexChat (top left) > Network list > Edit... and select SASL (username + password). Enter your password in the box and the software should log you in prior to joining any channels.