IRCza Help/FAQ


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Q.:What is IRCza?
A.:IRCza is natural language artificial intelligence chat robot for IRC. IRCza is a standalone application, but it is part of ICQza package. IRCza and ICQza share same AIML engine.
Q.:What is ICQza ? What is AIML ? What is IRC ?
A.:To learn about ICQza and AIML please read General FAQ first. IRC stands for "Internet Relay Chat" .You can find excellent introduction to IRC at http://mirc.com/irc.html.
Q.:If I already have ICQza, why do I need IRCza ?
A.:IRCza and ICQza are similar, they just designed for different networks. IRCza has slight advantage if you want to put a robot right on one of pages of your web-site. Click on one of "WWW" links here to see how it may look like.
Q.:Why would I put a robot in my IRC chat room ?
A.:Because it's fun ? :-) Ok, seriously there are numberless reasons to do that, but probably main one is: IRCza is very good for "promoting" of a new chat room (in IRC chat rooms also called "channels"). All new chat rooms suffer from lack of visitors, so usual scenario is: new visitor arrives, says "Hello?", listens for dead silence for a minute, leaves and never comes back. With IRCza your chat room will never be empty and robot will keep new visitor entertained at least until next visitor arrives.
Q.:If I make changes in configuration of AIML engine of IRCza, will it affect ICQza ?
A.:Yes and vice-versa. ICQza and IRCza shares AIML engine, dictionaries, etc.
Q.:I can't connect IRCza to my favorite IRC chat room ! What's wrong?
A.:Switch on "IRC Trace" in IRCza and you will see "who says what" in IRC client-server transmissions. Most likely it's a typo in room name, user name or password. Some IRC servers do not allow two connections from same IP address, some have other strange features, anyway you will see it in IRC trace.
Please note - some IRC servers "do not like" simultaneous connections from the same IP address, so if you are connected by other IRC client (such as mIRC, or web-based client) connection for IRCza may be delayed or even rejected completely - to conduct "clean experiment" bring down or disconnect other all IRC clients.
In-general ability to connect depends on numberless local , LAN/Firewall (if present), ISP, and server settings. If you having problems connecting - ask other IRCza users in mail-list (see bellow).
Q.:You use IrCQ IRC network (server ircqnet.icq.com) for IRCza test page and Web Presence page. Why ?
A.:Well, because we ran into this service first :-). There are many IRC/Web interfaces, if you think you know something better than IrCQ - share your opinion in Project Mail List and maybe next version of IRCza will use your solution.
Q.:Can I use IRC server different from ircqnet.icq.com ?
A.:Sure, you can use any IRC server you like.
Q.:Where I can find IRC server to connect to ?
A.:There are thousands of IRC servers out there. Search the Web for "IRC server" or for "irc://", or just look here: http://mirc.com/servers.html.
Q.:Can I run two instances of IRCza simultaneously to serve two rooms ?
A.:Yes, you can run as many IRCzas as you want (within limits of performance of your PC of course ;-) ).
Q.:I think I'm behind a firewall. Does IRCza support proxy?
A.:No, current version of IRCza doesn't support proxy.
Q.:If I use IRC server irc.someserver.com will people still be able to talk to my Bot by using just Web Browser ?
A.:If you use IRC Server different from ircqnet.icq.com on the page Active IRCza Bots "WWW" link is not going to appear for your robot. People still will able to talk to it by IRC client such as mIRC (something that understands "irc://..." URLs), but not thru Web Browser. If you want to encourage visitors to use other IRC/Web client you can mention URL in "Supported Web Site" field in Web Presence.
Q.:Is IRCza free ?
A.:No, it is a shareware. The "smart" ("robot") part of IRCza is available at no cost (by the way it is available thru ICQza as well) , but to obtain full networking functionality you have to register. Basically it's the same policy like for ICQza Plug-Ins (please read Registration FAQ). If you already registered ICQza Plug-Ins you can use the same key against IRCza.
Q.:Can I use IRCza as IRC client ?
A.: Yes. You can select whole room ( or "channel") in the user list, type your message, press "Enter" and all users in this room will receive your phrase as a public message. You can select individual user in the user list and he(she) will receive your words as private message. You even can switch off "Bot Active" and robot is not going to answer to incoming messages. Well, we still recommend to use "conventional" IRC Client (such as "mIRC") - IRCza does not provide some convenient features such as console commands, room list etc. Also IRCza currently operates in mode "one server-one room", but majority of IRC clients allow you to talk in several rooms simultaneously or even connect to more than one server at a time.
Q.:How IRCza initiates conversations?
A.: When user joins the room IRCza may greet him with phrase defined in "IRC Response Options" dialog as public message, private message or both. Please be careful with public massages - do not let the robot to flood room by messages like "Hi John; Hi Lisa..." - public greetings is suitable for "low populated" rooms, but if you use robot in room where new visitor arrives almost every second it would be wise to switch public greetings off.
If you want to initiate conversation with the user who was in the room before robot came you can select the user in the user list, type something like "Hello, would you like to talk to a machine?" in the message field and press "Enter" - if user responds to your private message the robot will pick up conversation. Just make sure the "Bot Active" is switched on.
Q.:Does IRCza answer to all messages?
A.: If robot is active ("Bot Active" is on) IRCza will respond to all private messages. It also will reply to all public messages if there is only one human visitor in the room (Think about it like "IRCza always responds in one-to-one conversation mode") . If there is more than one visitor in the room IRCza will answer or not to public messages based on settings in "IRC Response Options" dialog. If selected:
"Answer to any phrase" - robot will reply always. Please use it wisely - do not flood rooms
"Keep silence" - robot will not reply to public messages at all.
"Reply only with direct answer" - robot will not reply if it does not have "perfect" response, for example if the robot does not know the answer for "qwerty" it won't say "What time is it there?" to keep the conversation going.
"Reply in average..." - robot will reply to randomly selected phrases with given probability.
Robot also will reply to all public messages containing defined substrings if "Always reply if question contain any of..." is on.
Q.:What is "Reply to BotMaster with public message" ?
A.: As you know you can test your robot by selecting robot in the user list and sending message - like usual private message, but technically in this case your message does not go thru IRC network. If option "Reply with public.." is on the robot will send copy of reply to your message to room as public message. This feature is useful if you want to "spice up" the conversation in the room by simulating "the perfect user" :-)
Q.:How can I issue IRC command ?
A.:In "Sent" field type IRC Command Prefix (by default just "/" and command itsef, for example /nick MyNewName and send command as regular message. You can change default IRC Command Prefix in dialog "IRCza Miscellaneous Options" .
Of course to execute IRC command you must be physically connected to IRC server.
Please note - IRCza was not designed to deal with "raw" IRC commands - this feature was implemented by request of IRCza botmasters to cover some "non-standard" situations, so currently user interface of the program may not reflect real state of IRCza as IRC client.
Q.:Why sometimes IRCza connects with the nickname different from the one I typed in in "IRC Connect" dialog ?
A.:There are two possible reasons, first - some IRC servers (old ones) do not allow nickname longer than 8 characters. Second reason - if nickname you try to connect with is already taken (let's say it was "TheRobot") IRCza changes it (to "TheRobot_1" , "TheRobot_2" , etc.) and reconnects again until logical connection is properly established.
Q.:I still didn't find the answer for my question...
A.:Read Project Mail-List Archive. If you still didn't find an answer - join join Mail List and ask experts. Actually, we recommend to join Mail-List even if you don't have a question right now :-) .