IRC Backchannel Bookmarklets

• "Chat About This!" (Undernet) The Undernet is one of the largest IRC networks in the world, with approximately 31 servers connecting over 35 countries and serving more than 100,000 people weekly.

• "Chat About This!" (QuakeNet) QuakeNet is an IRC network built around the gaming community. Though originally founded as a chat network for gamers, by gamers, QuakeNet welcomes everyone to chat about anything (within its rules). QuakeNet is also currently the largest chat network in the world, with a peak usercount each week of around 180,000 to 190,000 users.

• "Chat About This!" (IRCnet) IRCnet is one of the largest IRC networks. It currently has more than one hundred thousand users. IRCnet was formed as a European fork of EFnet, when a number of operator disagreements resulted in a group of European admins declaring their independence. The oldest of the IRC networks, it is an "anarchistic" network without the channel services and nickname services you may find on other networks but this is deliberate since this is how IRC was designed to be used and their users tend to prefer it this way.

• "Chat About This!" (EFnet) EFnet or Eris Free network is a major IRC network, with over 50,000 users. It is a modern-day descendant of the original IRC network.

• "Chat About This!" (DALnet) Started in 1994 as an alternative to the overburdened IRC networks of the time, DALnet has grown into a vibrant community and is widely regarded as the most "friendly" of the major IRC networks. DALnet pioneered nickname and channel registration, giving users the right and ability to govern their online experience, without the fear of channel takeover, impersonation or harassment.

• "Chat About This!" (OFTC) The Open and Free Technology Community IRC network aims to provide stable and effective collaboration services to members of the community in any part of the world, while closely listening to their needs and desires. OFTC was founded at the end of 2001 by a group of experienced members of the Open Source and Free Software communities aiming to provide these communities with better communication, development, and support infrastructure.

• "Chat About This!" (Rizon) Rizon is a large IRC network with an average of around 15,000 users. The IRC network itself is well known and ranks number 7 among the largest IRC networks. Rizon is popular with many anime fansubbing groups who work online, many of whom provide their content through XDCC via IRC bots in their distribution channels. File trading of other copyrighted material such as Warez is also common in some channels on the network.

• "Chat About This!" (LinkNet) LinkNet is an IRC network that hopes to provide a friendly environment for online conversation with a high level of privacy for users.

• "Chat About This!" (Allnetwork) Allnetwork is the largest Indonesian IRC network.

• "Chat About This!" (RusNet) RusNet is the largest IRC network in Russia, Ukraine, and most of the ex-USSR, founded in 1997 through a merge of the leading local IRC networks SibNet, VolgaNet, OdNet, and LvNet.

• "Chat About This!" (IRC-Hispano) IRC-Hispano is the largest Spanish-language IRC network.

• "Chat About This!" (HanIRC) HanIRCis is the largest Korean-language IRC network.

• "Chat About This!" (Abjects) All users are welcome to join Abjects IRC Network, and channel registration is open. They ask only that you respect their acceptable use policy, and behave respectfully in their network channels, and towards their hard working staff and other users.

And here are links to the top 100 IRC networks and to more than 800 known IRC networks, so you can roll your own IRC backchannel bookmarklet for any of them as well.

The basic format of the bookmarklet is:

<a href="javascript:var str=encodeURIComponent(location.hostname)+encodeURIComponent(location.pathname);var newStr=str.substring(0,50);void(location.href='irc://irc.undernet.org/'+newStr);">"Chat About This!" (Undernet)</a>