| In
September 2000 I started chatting and instantly loved it. It opened
a new world with so much to learn. I went from Java to Java totally
unaware of mIRC, IRC etc. I met a friend who introduced me to another
server and other chatters where I day by day explored and learnt
more sometimes surprising myself. I was a regular chatter and would
sit back and think how I would love to have the job of an oper –
yet still so new and scared of it all. In time i learned that the
fear to try was my worst enemy and that I had to overcome those
fears.
In
November 2000 I had a website made by a good friend and we started
with a #kickchat channel on a server. The name Kickchat is related
to kickboxing which was a hobby of my children. However, there
were many problems that occured at the beginning. Many, many problems
with connections, netsplits and attacks to the network. I eventually
moved and found similar difficulties and there was never anyone
there to help sort problems out as they occured. No Administrators
or IRCOps. At this point in February-March 2001 I finally decided
to get my own shell. With help from a few close friends and a
lot of tech knowledge. We became a team. A team that is still
together after over 2 years and dedicated to Kickchat.
In
February 2002 – after continuous problems with the previous shell
provider and their extremely money grabbing attitude, even for
smaller enquireries we decided that first of all Kickchat had
come to basically a dead end. We continued to build it and users
were coming and we also managed a lot of problems and technical
difficulties, but we felt we could do more. So we decided – as
also Dopefish was starting to work on our own Kickchat IRC Services
– to get our own dedicated servers, to be more flexible, to be
able to see to security ourselves and just to be able to make
Kickchat continue the way we always wanted it. A userfriendly
chat environment, based on good services.
As
it is with all IRC Networks, you can never please everyone and
nothing goes without trouble. However, we have doubled our user
amount within 1 year. We had about 90 users at the end of 2001.
Now – at the end of 2002 – we had a user maximum of 195. For a
server on it’s own, without links or file servers so far that
is not a bad average. And clones are hardly possible as well due
to our services settings. We try to make the chat secure, therefore
a proxy scanner was added to our services as well.
What
I would say makes Kickchat special is that we do what we do with
dedication to it and out of love to it. Unfortunately script kiddies
and wannabe-hackers that believe IRC is one big war zone sometimes
take your attention away from what chat really is about – meeting
people, getting to know new cultures and societies and having
fun. Well, as a user keep in mind that you are treated as you
treat others. That means we are a userfriendly, supporting network
and we treat everyone fair. All we expect is friendlyness, fairness
and acceptance of a few network rules – that – given a few thoughts
are far from being unfair.
Enjoy
your stay on this website or in chat.
—
Julie Reeves,
JS. "Operator"
Dahmen
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