Thanks in large part to the efforts of Ian Hutcherson and Rumor, afe has its own channel on IRC. There are #Eddings channels on several IRC networks, including IRCNet and Dalnet, but the channel on Espernet has become the unofficially official afe channel. The following information describing how to connect was contributed by Kamion and describes how to connect to #eddings on Espernet.
First, you need an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client. This enables you to access IRC servers, which operate like your news server in distributing messages among all the people using it, but in a matter of seconds rather than minutes or hours so that it's possible to chat more or less at random without the bandwidth restrictions on the newsgroup.
The most popular IRC clients by computer seem to be:
Windows:
"mIRC" can be downloaded from:
UK: http://www.mirc.co.uk/
USA: http://www.geocities.com/~mirc/
South Africa: http://www.mirc.co.za/
Australia: http://mirc.eon.net.au/
among others.
Macintosh:
"IRCle" can be downloaded from:
USA: http://www.ircle.com/
Australia: http://www.ozmac.com/
among others.
UNIX/Linux:
"ircII EPIC" (sources/binaries) can be downloaded from:
USA: http://www.min.net/~douglas/ircii/
Germany: http://www.snafu.de/~kl/epic/
among others.
"sirc" (sources) can be downloaded from:
us: http://www.iagora.com/~espel/sirc/
among others, but this is the official site.
"Zircon" (for X) can be downloaded from:
UK: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Programs/Zircon/
RISC OS:
"LIRC" can be downloaded from:
Denmark: http://isa.dknet.dk/~tolsson/files/lirc.zip
"IRClient" can be downloaded from:
UK: http://willothewisp.demon.co.uk/software.html
"iXRC" (commerical), see:
UK: http://www.quadworks.co.uk/sub/products/ixrc/
There are lots of others. If none of the above suit your tastes, then http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Chat/IRC/Software/ has a fairly good selection of IRC clients for various systems.
Once you've downloaded and installed your client, you need to configure it to connect to Espernet, which is a group of IRC servers that all co-operate to allow anyone using one of them to talk to anyone using any of the others. The way you add a server depends on your client; if it's not mentioned here, check your client's documentation for details.
mIRC:
In mIRC you click on File / Setup / Add. You will then be prompted for some
information. The only important and/or obscure bits of this will be the server
and port number. You should ideally choose the server that's geographically
closest to you; you may pick a port number at random from those that are
available (or your client may allow you to enter several ports between which it
will choose each time you connect - check your help files for more details).
sirc:
Having chosen your server from the list below, invoke sirc with the
command: sirc -i "<your name>" <nick> <server>:<port> (this assumes that the
sirc binary is on your $PATH). <your name> should be your real name and <nick>
your chosen nickname.
LIRC:
Select 'Choices' from the iconbar menu; type the name of your chosen server
in the 'Server' writable icon, followed by a colon, followed by your chosen
port (all the esper servers use 5555). You should enter your chosen nickname in
the 'Nick' field and your name in the 'Real Name' field. The remaining fields
can safely be left blank for the moment.
The official list of Espernet servers, geographical locations, and ports
can be found at http://www.esper.net/servers.html and at the time of writing
runs as follows:
adastra.esper.net
Location: Falls Church, Virginia
Server Administrator: Catlin
Operators: C`leton Selestra
Ports: 5555, 6667, 7000 - Bots: Allowed
Hosted by: BocanerNet
bean.esper.net
Location: Perth, Australia
Server Administrator: Ender
Operators: None
Ports: 5555, 6667 - Bots: Not Allowed
Hosted by: Connect
chocobo.esper.net
Location: Fresno, California
Server Administrators: IJ & Delirium
Operator: Neko
Ports: 5555, 6666 - 6669, 7000 - Bots: Not allowed
Hosted by: ChocoboNet
cosmos.esper.net
Location: San Diego, California
Server Administrator: Data
Operators: Faris Gin-Irochi Zero
Ports: 5555, 6660-6670, 7000
Hosted by: Amity Institute
damocles.esper.net
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Server Administrator: matti
Operators: Ender Miravlix RoboBob
Ports: 5555, 6660-6670, 7000 - Bots: Allowed
Hosted by: Fishpool Creations, Ltd.
dream.esper.net
Location: San Diego, California
Server Administrator: Rand
Operators: BlueChocobo CharlesV Kelmar Rasis
Port: 5555 - Bots: Allowed
Hosted by: DreamHaven Internet Services
excalibur.esper.net
Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland
Server Administrator: Rakoth
Ports: 5555, 6666 - 6669, 7000, 8000 - Bots: Not allowed
Hosted by: GPL Internet Services
phoenix.esper.net
Location: Squamish, British Columbia, Canada
Server Administrator: Cyan
Operators: Karinu Pteryx
Ports: 5555, 6660-6669, 7000 - Bots: Allowed
Hosted by: Weyland-Yutani
weyr.esper.net
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Server Administrator: FireMyst & Ragnarok
Operators: AndrewK Chiapet Dominick Googleshng Ryo-ohki
Port: 5555 - Bots: Allowed
Hosted by: Mediabang!
If you want, you can also connect to irc.esper.net, port 5555 (and possibly others); this will connect you to a random server. However, I recommend choosing one manually because, while you presumably know your geographical location, irc.esper.net does not. You will not necessarily be connected to the most appropriate server this way.
After you've filled in the nickname you want (and, if you want, an alternative should your first choice be taken) press "Connect", or the equivalent on your client, and you will (I hope) be connected to your chosen server. You'll see a welcome message of some description, and then either you will be presented with a list of channels (the IRC jargon for a chat forum) or you will see a vaguely unfriendly-looking command prompt.
In the first case, look for #eddings in the list with which you are presented. Click on it, and press "Join" (or similar).
In the second case, or if you can't find #eddings in the channel list (in which case you can probably press something like "Cancel" to get you to a command prompt), you will need to issue an IRC command. These can be recognized by the fact that they start with a slash (/). The particular command you need in this case is "/join #eddings" (without the quotes).
There may not necessarily be anybody on the channel when you arrive. This is quite normal. Just wait a while, or try a different time of day. The best times tend to be from 23.00 GMT onwards, which is popular with UK users, and 12.00 GMT onwards, which is popular with Australian users. Given that there are afe posters and lurkers all around the world, there may well be other times that are popular.
If you need any further help, you should be able to get it from #eddings itself, or the #dragonweyr or #irchelp channels on Espernet.
EDDINGS HOME PAGES:
Donal Fellow's Eddings Page
<http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/eddings/>
Eddings trivia, voting on items of interest to Eddings fans, and links to other sites. His site also contains a copy of the a.f.e. Recommended Fantasy Author List.
Paul Farris' Eddings Page - "The Vale"
<http://valhalla.vossnet.co.uk/p/paulf/eddings.htm>
Contains Paul Farris' original Eddings FAQ, and well as links to other sites and lots of other useful stuff.
Guardians of The West
<http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~cjwatson/eddings>
Maintained by Kamion, this contains many excellent features, including Eddings in the Real World. It also has some good links to other Eddings web sites. Be warned this contains many advanced HTML features and may only be used with some of the later browsers.
Aphrael's Isle
<http://www.microserve.net/~aphrael/eddings.html>
This site concentrates on the Elenium and Tamuli series, which makes it unique in itself. It has a very good character list.
The AFE Codex
<http://www.members.tripod.com/~afecodex/>
More about alt.fan.eddings rather than Eddings' himself. It has descriptions of many of the regulars on AFE and also contains a history of the newsgroup.
The Happy Bunny Sanctuary
<http://www.watershipdown.freeserve.co.uk/>
Contains a graphical display of the Rivan line family tree.
The Eddings Web Ring
<http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/6498/Eddings_Ring.html>
This collection of web sites is a link to 18 different sites.
Aquarius' Site
<http://www.kryogenix.albatross.co.uk/afe/index.shtml>
This site contains the fanfic archive, the nvFAQ and the AFE Code decoder and creator. It also gives an explanation of afec, and contains a copy of the afec FAQ.
The AFE ICQ Site
<http://www.greenbeak.demon.co.uk/afe/icq/>
This site contains the ICQ numbers of various regulars to AFE
Jakob Persson's Site
<http://home4.swipnet.se/~w-44583/eddings/>
A large site about Eddings and their work mainly focused on the Belgariad/Malloreon series. There are also a message board for discussions, a chat, and a lot of fun facts and info for the Eddings fan such as the YKYRTMEW list and several interviews.
The Recommended Fantasy Author List
<http://www.sff.net/people/Amy.Sheldon/listcont.htm>
Listing of fantasy authors recommended by readers of the alt.fan.eddings newsgroup. Contains descriptive listings on more than 150 authors, forthcoming titles, book news, and numbers of recommendations.
Del Rey homepage
<http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/>
Del Rey is Eddings' publisher in the U.S., and their site often has news about his upcoming work. They also publish quite a few other fantasy authors, and you can find a number of sample chapters as well as a variety of other options there.