IRC away nicks


  The problem

    Many people change their nicks when they leave the computer.  While this
    might sound a reasonable thing to do, it's a bad habit to get into.

  Explanation

    Changing your nick to nick_away (or nick|away, or nick^away, or whatever
    you want) indeed immediately informs everyone on the channel that you
    are away.  However it does have some disadvantages:

    1. You are abusing IRC.  There is an IRC command for marking yourself
       away.  It's called (surprise!) AWAY.  You can even specify an away
       reason.  Use it!

    2. You generate at least two lines of noise.  Once when you go away, and
       once when you come back.  It's not much, but when you encounter
       several people doing it, it's a bit annoying.  In a crowded channel,
       chances are that no one is interested in whether you're away.  If
       anybody cares, she/he can WHOIS or PRIVMSG you, and if you set
       yourself away (with /AWAY), she/he will see your away message.  There
       are channels out there where away nicks are rewarded with a kick or a
       ban.

    3. Now you are not available under your regular nick.  This is probably
       not a good thing, considering that there may be people who want to
       contact you but don't frequent any of the channels you do.  Nick
       changes are visible only on the channels you're on.  Implication:
       they are invisible in query windows.  PRIVMSG (/MSG, /QUERY) is
       stateless, it's just your IRC client what makes it look like
       stateful.

    4. Some l33t guys will choose nicks like: nick^f00d, longnick^aw or
       ln^s|33p (the length of nick names are usually very limited,
       typically from 9 to 16 characters).  Now it's not so obvious that you
       are on the channel.  Poor users won't associate ln^s|33p with
       longnick, unless they are familiar with your notation.

  Author

    Copyright: 2004, Peter BARABAS.  All rights reserved.