Sometimes thousands of users are connected to one server network, and it would of course be very confusing if everybody would have to read everybody else's messages all the time. So virtual "rooms" called channels are created where all users in that one room can communicate. Now if you join one of them with a # before its name, lets say #IRChelp - it is the same room in that ONE house (=IRC Network), you can just enter it via various corridors (=IRC servers), but the channel #IRChelp on ChatNet is NOT the same as the channel with the same name #IRChelp in that OTHER house down the street, Undernet for example.

   Also the fact that someone is connected to the same IRC channel, server or network as you does NOT AT ALL necessarily mean that they are using the same IRC client program and/or OS as you, not even a computer if they connect to IRC via WebTV, so there's more to IRC than what you see on your monitor! Another way to connect to IRC is via java-based IRC access webpages. more and more IRC network homepages offer this.
 

   Scripts in the sense used below are pre-made set up's for IRC clients, and they make your client operate in a (partly automated) manner which the script author intended it to. Some parts may be offensive and annoying to other IRC users, some scripts also contain "war" tools,even nuke devices.(Click Here to see Nuke/Protection Page)