This study looked closely, turn by turn, at logs from two public Internet Relay Chat channels. It examined how people opened two-person conversations when they joined a channel.
Two public channels#australia and #penpals, open chat channels with no fixed agenda.
LoggingEach channel was logged for an hour and a half, five days a week, for two weeks, with names and addresses anonymised.
Ten logsTen logs of interactions were chosen for close analysis.
Close analysisOpenings were compared step by step with how telephone calls open, and with small talk that builds relationships.
BWhat the study found
Joining a channelwhat the automatic join notice did
•In these logs, the automatic join notice called on nobody in particular to answer.A ringing phone calls for an answer. A broadcast notice that someone has joined leaves it unclear who should speak first.
•In these logs, a third of newcomers joined and left without typing anything.Most of that third were never addressed by anyone already in the channel. No response at all was the commonest response to someone joining.
•In these logs, users made many greeting attempts, and few became ongoing conversations.Users greeted widely in the hope that someone would answer, so chance played a large part in who talked to whom.
Greeting choiceshow greetings signalled closeness
•In these logs, the form of a greeting signalled social distance.Every nickname is on screen from the start. Greeting someone by nickname alone could claim familiarity, while a generic hello did the opposite.
•Users sometimes mirrored each other's spelling and typographic emphasis in replies.Emphasis included extra exclamation marks or stretched letters. Matching it could show alignment and build intimacy.
Getting startedturning a public greeting into a two-person talk
•The paper argues that starting a two-person conversation in a public channel is an achievement.It took three negotiated steps. One person had to notice another, start a greeting, and get a reply.
•Private chats could not be logged, so some unanswered openings may have continued privately.Openings in private chats may also differ from those in public channels.
CKey takeaway
People can open online chats with phatic communion, creative greetings that sort out who speaks first and how close they are. An automated joining event that summons nobody can make this hard.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was the Internet's first widely popular quasi-synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) system. While research has consistently demonstrated the interpersonal nature of IRC, and is now turning to more structurally-oriented topics, it is argued that IRC research now needs to systematically address links between interaction structures, technological mediation and the instantiation and development of interpersonal relationships within a framework that privileges IRC interaction and social explanations. This exploration of the openings of IRC interactions is positioned as a step in that direction. The openings investigated in the study are those that occur directly following user's entries into public IRC channels, termed the newly-joined users' Channel Entry Phase (CEP). It is found that turn coordination in the CEP is often ambiguous, has the potential to disrupt relationship development, and leads to considerable emphasis on interactive strategies for the clear ordering of opening phases.
Research brief
By Sean Rintel, Joan Mulholland, and Jeffery Pittam.
Takeaway: When people join an online chat channel, they greet creatively to sort out who speaks first. They must, because unlike a ringing phone, the automatic notice that someone has joined calls on nobody to answer. Many openings fail.
Why this matters
What was known
IRC research had shown the medium is interpersonal and had turned to structures such as turn-taking, but openings received little, mostly descriptive, attention. we still do not have comprehensive knowledge of how interpersonal relationships are developed in IRC(§Introduction, p. 3)
What this paper adds
A detailed account of openings when users enter a public channel, defining the Channel Entry Phase and its six possible progressions, and comparing them with telephone openings. We term this the Channel Entry Phase (CEP). Turn coordination in the CEP is found to be ambiguous, potentially disruptive to relationship development(§Introduction, p. 3)
Who it matters to
Researchers of computer-mediated communication and interpersonal relationships, and designers of new communication media. (§Conclusion, p. 48)
Research question
How do users open dyadic interpersonal interactions on IRC when they enter a public channel, and how do the structures of these openings link technological mediation to the instantiation and development of interpersonal relationships?
Method and data
Design
Qualitative Conversation Analysis-informed Discourse Analysis of naturally occurring IRC logs, comparing openings with Schegloff's telephone openings and Laver's phatic communion.
Setting
Two public IRC channels with no fixed agenda, #australia and #penpals, logged with the ircII and mIRC clients. Ethical consent covered public channel logging only, with all nicks and addresses anonymised.
Participants / data
Ten logs of IRC interactions analysed, drawn from a logging period in which each channel was logged for a one and a half hour period five out of seven days per week for two weeks.
Analysis
Detailed description of opening structures (Channel Entry Phase progressions) and the interpersonal ramifications of choices within them, such as greeting tokens, nicks and adornment.
Findings
Nobody is summoned. When someone joins a public chat channel, the server announces the arrival to everyone present, and nobody knows who should speak first. In conversation-analytic terms, the contrast with a phone call is this: #
“an answer is conditionally relevant to the summons of a telephone ring but is not conditionally relevant to the broadcast AJE”
Silence was the commonest outcome. In our logs of two public channels, the commonest response to someone joining was no response at all. A third of newcomers joined and left without typing anything, and most of them were never addressed by anyone already there. #
“fully one-third of the users in the logs joined and left without producing any utterances, and the majority of that one-third were not addressed by existing public channel members”
Greeting many, hoping for one. Users made many attempts to start conversations compared with the number that continued. They greeted widely in the hope that someone would answer, so chance played a large part in who got to talk to whom. #
“the data show a high level of initiation attempts in contrast with ongoing interactions, suggesting a 'machine-gun' approach to openings”
How you greet signals closeness. Because everyone's nickname is on screen from the start, the choice of greeting carries relational weight. Greeting someone with their nickname alone could claim familiarity, while a generic greeting did the opposite. #
“traditional greeting tokens such as "hello" appear to act as social distance signals”
Matching each other's style. Users varied 'adornment' (typographic emphasis such as extra exclamation marks or stretched letters) deliberately, and could mirror another user's spelling and adornment in their reply. #
“Matching can be a powerful demonstration of alignment to the dyad, establishing both intimacy and ABAB sequencing.”
Getting started is an achievement. Turning a public greeting into a two-person conversation took three negotiated steps. These were recognising that someone was present, initiating, and having the other person ratify the opening by responding. Users found creative ways through it. #
“users who manage to ratify dyadic interaction on a public IRC channel have accomplished quite a difficult interactional and relational task”
Questions this paper answers
Why do people joining a chat room often get ignored?
Because the automatic join notice only says someone has arrived. Unlike a phone ring, it calls on no one in particular to answer, so everyone can leave it to someone else. In logs of two public channels, a third of newcomers left without saying anything. (See §The Automated Joining Event (AJE), p. 24; p. 27.)
Why do chat users greet so many people?
With no clear cue for who should answer whom, users cast a wide net, greeting many people in the hope that someone responds. The time real-time typing takes may also encourage fishing for several conversations at once. Many such greetings went unanswered. (See p. 26; §Conclusion, p. 48.)
Does how you greet someone in online chat signal how well you know them?
It seemed to in logged public chat channels, though the evidence is from a few examples. A token like 'hello' tended to mark the other person as unknown, a nickname-only greeting suggested intimacy, and matching another's spelling and exclamation marks showed alignment. (See §Interaction, pp. 29–30; §Interaction, p. 31.)
Contributions and implications
Communication researchers should take an active role in developing communication technologies. The join notice is exactly the kind of component they could advise on. The AJE is precisely the form of technological component for which communications researchers might provide developmental advice.(§Conclusion, p. 48)
In public channels, starting relationships may be harder than maintaining them, since friends can move to private interaction while strangers must meet in public. relationship development may well be harder than relationship maintenance(§Conclusion, p. 47)
Future research could examine how users juggle parallel interactions, how long new norms take to develop, and the links between public and private interactions.
Limitations
Private interactions could not be logged, so openings there may differ. Private interactions were not and could not be part of this study, and as such could have openings different from those in the public channels.(§Data and Methodology, p. 10)
Single-point logs from one computer cannot rule out users switching between public and private modes, so some apparently unanswered openings may have continued privately. there is no way to conclusively prove that users do not switch back and forth between public and private modes(§Data and Methodology, p. 10)
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Concepts
Channel Entry Phase (CEP)
Our term for the opening sequence this study concentrates on: this study concentrates on the most prevalent site of IRC openings, when users enter the interaction territory of a public IRC channel and are first able to engage in initiatory behavior(§Introduction, p. 3)
Automated Joining Event (AJE)
The server's twin messages when someone joins: a Joining Confirmation (JC) to the newcomer and a Joining Announcement (JA) to existing members. The AJE is the first indicator of presence and connection for both newly-joined users and existing channel members.(§Conclusion, p. 46)
JIB and JIR
The first human moves after joining, by the newcomer or by an existing member, each of which may or may not be answered: both newly-joined users and existing channel members were found to produce initiating actions, termed Joining Initial Behaviors (JIBs) and Joining Initial Reactions (JIRs) respectively(§Conclusion, p. 46)
Adornment
Our name for a familiar feature of chat typing: 'Adornment' is our term for the well-documented use of typographic extension (extra exclamation marks, letter extension, full upper-case, etc.) as somewhat analogous to phonetic indications of excitement in verbal interaction(§Interaction, p. 31)
How to cite
Sean Rintel, Joan Mulholland, and Jeffery Pittam. 2001. First things first: Internet Relay Chat openings. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 6 (3). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2001.tb00125.x
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@article{rintel2001first,
author = {Rintel, Sean and Mulholland, Joan and Pittam, Jeffery},
title = {First things first: Internet Relay Chat openings},
year = {2001},
month = {April},
publisher = {Wiley},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2001.tb00125.x},
journal = {Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication},
volume = {6},
number = {3},
edition = {Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication},
note = {Rintel, E.S., Mulholland, J., & Pittam, J. 2001. First things first: Internet Relay Chat openings. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 6, (3).
Online version is free and best version (Use Publisher URL)},
doi = {10.1111/j.1083-6101.2001.tb00125.x},
}