GeekShed IRC Network
Featured Channel: #LordKaT
Oct 25th
#LordKaT is the community hangout and IRC parallel to LordKaT’s video gaming, geek, and tech content site http://Live.LordKaT.com, which streams 24/7 as a Twitch.TV partner. The channel was founded by LordKaT on September 1, 2008. (Yes, that’s the right date. #LordKaT is a channel that migrated over from WyldRyde, so the channel is older than the GeekShed network.)
What happens in the channel?
In chat, we participate in scheduled live broadcasts, available at http://www.LordKaT.com after the show as Blip.tv videos or audio podcasts. Our current lineup includes these shows:
- This Week In Games (now in its 3rd year)
- Tuesday Tech Talk
- How To Do It (tech questions answered live)
- Turducken Is Tasty (sports talk)
- LordKaT Plays and Free Play Friday (video game streaming)
- LordKaT Live! (live Skype call-in community talk)
- A Dungeons & Dragons campaign live on-stream
- Wat (very late Friday nights we peek into that dark, disgusting, hilarious corner of the Internet)
Apart from shows, our community chat and unscheduled live streaming is a variety of gaming and community tech talk. From our mafia playing Team Fortress 2 at our own server to hard-core geek programming of a MUD server or adding new features to Live.LordKaT.com, there is often hilarious commentary from the stream regulars and casual small talk in the chat—all of which might sometimes go one step too far, leaving you laughing and feeling a part of the fun.
What are the channel policies?
We welcome everyone, but our content and discussions are intended for mature audiences. Visitors to Live.LordKaT.com are free to speak their minds, even in dissent, as long as their comments are honest, human, and respectful of others.
Active members of the community are recognized as friends and members of the LordKaT Mafia. Our community recognizes those who stand out through old-fashioned personal networking and contributing to the community. There is no application process for rank in channel. We get to know everyone through the time we spend hanging out together.
Anything else you want folks to know?
Our community extends well beyond our chatroom. Be sure to check out these additional resources:
- LordKaT’s Live Site, which embeds LordKaT’s stream from http://www.twitch.tv/lordkat
- Our mafia forums
- LKMafia Steam gaming group
- The collaborative data mine of the LordKaT Wiki
- Our community’s self-authored blogs (new bloggers are always welcome!)
- The frenzy of tweets surrounding @LordKaT
Want to have your channel profiled on the GeekShed website? Check out the requirements and use the online form to apply.
—posted by Tengrrl/Bunny
Two New Servers
Oct 4th
We have two new servers on the GeekShed network. Subwolf has donated Sheba, a server in a Chicago, Illinois data center, on behalf of his site Subwolf.org. Allan has donated Tyrol, a server in Irvine, California, on behalf of JupiterColony.com. Server Intrepid has been retired, after many years of fine service to the network.
We’ve updated the server map to show these changes. As always, we recommend that you choose one of the round robins to connect to the servers closest to your location for the best connection.
—posted by Tengrrl/Bunny
Featured Channel: #EricJess
Sep 29th
#EricJess is friendly, welcoming community where people discuss a wide range of topics. The channel was founded by Eric Jess in June 2010. Eric maintains a community forum and a website for the channel (where he streams live video, when his computer isn’t broken). Eric shared the following information about his channel:
What happens in the channel?
There’s always something going on in our chatroom. We mainly talk tech, as geeks do, but there are all sorts of other discussions as well. We often fall on the discussion of Harry Potter for some odd reason and bacon—unfortunately, as bacon is on my dislike list. But we discuss all sorts of other topics as well. Nearly anything goes.
We are here talking during all hours. We help people with any problems they may have, and we usually have an active stream on all the time (technology allowing), with many guest streamers.
What are the channel policies?
We try to have an answer for everything, including how to become channel staff and how to earn voice. If you feel you were banned from #EricJess incorrectly, you can make an appeal online.
Anything else you want folks to know?
Well of course there is more! We have a active social network and do giveaways as much as possible. We are a family here and learn and grow with each other!
Want to have your channel profiled on the GeekShed website? Check out the requirements and use the online form to apply.
—posted by Tengrrl/Bunny
Are You Using Our Round Robins?
Jun 1st
This is an archived post. Please see the February 17, 2015 post for details on the current round robin configuration.
As we explain on our Servers page, you often achieve the best connection by connecting to the server geographically closest to you. To do this, you can find the closest server on the map and then connect to servername.geekshed.net – for example, enterprise.geekshed.net would be a good choice if you were in Europe.
Geographical Round Robins
You can also choose a pool of servers that are near you by using our round robin addresses. The biggest round robin pool is also the most general one (and the one most clients use on their prepopulated server lists): irc.geekshed.net. That round robin includes all the GeekShed servers.
If you want to choose a smaller pool, you can use one of these round robins, based on your geographical area:
- ap.geekshed.net if you’re in Asia or the Pacific
- ca.geekshed.net if you’re in Canada
- eu.geekshed.net if you’re in Europe
- us.geekshed.net if you’re in the United States
Special Connection Round Robins
We also have round robins based on pools of servers with special capabilities. If you need these features, use one of these options:
- ipv6.geekshed.net if you want an IPv6 server
- lightirc.geekshed.net if you’re configuring your copy of the LightIRC client
You may also notice that if you’re using GeekShed’s free BNC service, you’ll be connected to bnc.geekshed.net. That’s the pool for our BNC service.
—posted by Tengrrl/Bunny
[Photo: Robin mom by photofarmer, on Flickr]
Planned Maintenance for Thursday, May 31
May 29th
The data center for Intrepid, one of GeekShed’s servers, is migrating our data to a new server around 9 PM EDT (1 AM UTC) on Thursday, May 31. There will be a short interruption in service during the migration and reboot.
We’ve removed Intrepid from the network’s round robins to allow connections to the server to naturally decrease this week.
If you connect directly to Intrepid, please choose another server or use one of the round robins (e.g., us.geekshed.net) until the maintenance is completed.
We’ll have things back up and running as soon as possible after the migration. If you have any questions on Thursday, you can check in #help.
—posted by Tengrrl/Bunny
Updates to Website Command Pages
Apr 21st
You may not notice it right away, but we’ve been busy making the website a little easier for you to use. We’ve added details on the Fantasy commands, and we’ve added the capability to link directly to a specific command on the website. Keep reading for the details.
Fantasy Commands
First, if you use Fantasy commands in your channel, we have good news for you. We’ve added a complete listing of the Fantasy commands to our online documentation. Now you can browse through the commands and easily find additional information on everything from !AKICK to !TKB.
Remember that you have to turn on the Fantasy option to use Fantasy commands. Find all the details on the new page.
Link Directly to Specific Commands
Second, we’ve added internal links to the commands on all of the documentation pages so you can give someone the address of a specific command.
Here’s an example. Previously, if someone asked for the command to add ops to permanently to their channel, you could send them to the ChanServ page and tell them to scroll down to the AOP command. Now you can send them directly to the AOP command.
These naming conventions were used to set up the internal links:
- The link is the command name as listed in the bullet item (so, for instance, AOP).
- The link for Fantasy commands does NOT include the exclamation point (so, for instance, TKB).
- The link will show as one word with no spaces (so, for instance, SETGREET).
- The link is always in all caps (so, for instance, BADWORDS)
To give someone the link to a specific command, use this general format:
http://www.geekshed.net/commands/[Kind of Command]/#[Command Name]
Just replace the info in the square brackets with the pertinent details and remove the square brackets too to get address for the command. Here are some examples to give you the idea of how the system works:
- http://www.geekshed.net/commands/chanserv/#AOP is the ChanServ AOP command.
- http://www.geekshed.net/commands/fantasy/#TKB is the Fantasy TKB command.
- http://www.geekshed.net/commands/nickserv/#SETGREET is the NickServ SET GREET command.
- http://www.geekshed.net/commands/botserv/#BADWORDS is the BotServ BADWORDS command.
If you know the general command, this system should make it relatively easy to figure out the links you need if you’re trying to help someone find details.
—posted by Tengrrl/Bunny
Welcome to Felicia Day and Geek and Sundry!
Apr 1st
Have we got a great April Fool’s Day present for you! GeekShed got a lot geekier today.
Join us in welcoming Felicia Day of Geek and Sundry to the network, along with the cast and crew of the great Geek and Sundry shows.
The Geek and Sundry Subscribathon is underway today, and the official chat is taking place in channels across GeekShed. You can see what’s going on by checking out their related Google+ Hangout.
How can you welcome the Geek and Sundry crew? Visit their site, subscribe to them on YouTube, and check out their channels!
Did you know that when you look up “GeekAndSundry” in Wikipedia, it asks if you meant “gunfoundry”? Someone needs to make them an official Wikipedia page.
—posted by Tengrrl/Bunny
Planned Maintenance for Tuesday, January 24
Jan 21st
The ISP for some of the GeekShed equipment is changing this week, so we’ll have some downtime for a few of the bots and specific services on the site and in IRC. The Services bots will NOT be affected.
The majority of the sites and servers will be unaffected. You may notice downtime, however, for the Twitter bot and MagicalTrevor.
The absence of MagicalTrevor means that if you happen to be unlucky enough to forget your password on Tuesday, you will need to wait for an oper who can help you. The half-ops in the channel will not be able to reset your password during the period of downtime.
Because we are at the whim of the ISPs involved, we cannot be more specific about when the downtime will occur. We only know it will happen Tuesday. Please know we’re sorry for the inconvenience, and we’ll have things back up and running as soon as possible after the ISP switchover. If you have any questions on Tuesday, you can check in #help.
—posted by tengrrl
10 Most Visited Tips for 2011
Dec 31st
Ready for a little quiz? According to our website analytics, listed below are the ten questions you had about using GeekShed IRC during 2011. Do you know the answers, or do you have to click through for details?:
- Grouping a Nick: Why and How?
- Setting Up Greeting Messages
- How to register a channel on GeekShed
- How to Use the Ignore Command
- Can I Make A Private/Secret/Restricted Channel?
- How do I add User Count Badges?
- Setting a Channel Entry Message
- Why should I register my nickname and how do I do it?
- How do I redirect one channel to another?
- How do I Add a BotServ Bot to my Channel?
Thanks to everyone for a great 2011 on GeekShed. If you have any questions you’d like us to write about, just post the details in the Comments and Suggestions board on the GeekShed Forums.
—tengrrl
New SSL Certificate
Dec 31st
We’ve finally splashed out on a Wildcard SSL certificate for the geekshed.net domain. We have applied this to the site, a few subdomain sites, and all of the IRC servers.
What does this mean for you? Well, the most notable change is that all of our IRC servers now have an SSL certificate which is trusted by all sensible operating systems. If your IRC client ever throws up a certificate error when you are connecting to GeekShed, you may not be connecting to our servers – rather, possibly, a malicious imitation.
This is applied to the BNC server(s) also, however it won’t be shown as valid unless you remove the first . from the server you connect to – e.g. lucifer.bnc.geekshed.net goes to luciferbnc.geekshed.net.
You can find out more about using SSL on GeekShed at http://www.geekshed.net/2010/03/what-is-ssl-what-benefits-does-it-offer-and-how-do-i-use-it/
GeekShed relies on the generous donations of its users in order to implement features such as this, which benefit all of our users. Why not consider making a donation today?
What does this mean for you? Well, the most notable change is that all of our IRC servers now have an SSL certificate which is trusted by all sensible operating systems. If your IRC client ever throws up a certificate error when you are connecting to GeekShed, you may not be connecting to our servers – rather, possibly, a malicious imitation.
This is applied to the BNC server(s) also, however it won’t be shown as valid unless you remove the first . from the server you connect to – e.g. lucifer.bnc.geekshed.net goes to luciferbnc.geekshed.net.
You can find out more about using SSL on GeekShed at http://www.geekshed.net/2010/03/what-is-ssl-what-benefits-does-it-offer-and-how-do-i-use-it/
GeekShed relies on the generous donations of its users in order to implement features such as this, which benefit all of our users. Why not consider making a donation today?