Lately there has been quite a bit of discussion about barriers for new volunteers, especially in regards to dev work. One of the most cited barriers is the heavy usage of IRC. The Wike page http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/IRC unfortunately only says which server to use and links to the dw and dw_kindergarten channels.

Having used IRC for 9 years now (not consistently, but from time to time), I then decided to type at least a short introduction which i hope will be useful.

( Connecting to and using IRC )

I typed this up without a lot of planning, so tell me if any of this needs to be changed. I hope it'll help someone and please, if you have any questions, just ask them.