Communication / IRC

MusicBrainz uses two IRC channels for real-time chat and discussions.

Usage

If you're new to all of this IRC stuff and want to ask a question not related to technical code stuff, or just say hi, click here to join the #musicbrainz channel via your browser. Because of issues with spammers nickname registration is required (see guide) before you can view or join the discussion.

All users of the IRC channels are expected to follow the Code of Conduct as well as the general guidelines of the Libera.Chat network.

If you are not familiar with how IRC works, it can seem a bit odd at first. Some rules of thumb that will make you (and everyone else) have a better time:

  1. "Don't ask to ask; just ask." Don't ask for permission to ask a question or ask if anyone's around with expertise in the area you want to ask about. Just ask your question. See "Don't ask to ask, just ask" for a slightly more in-depth discussion.
  2. Don't ask and then quit. IRC is asynchronous and the people who may have the answer might not be around just this second. Stick around and someone will get back to you later. If you have to leave, you can check the chatlogs to see if someone replied to you after you left (but often people won't reply to someone who's already left).

If you plan to come to the chat repeatedly, you may also want to protect your identity in the form of your nick. Libera.Chat has a guide on registering your nickname you can follow for this. If you just want to ask a quick question, it's probably not worth it to bother with this.

Channels

#musicbrainz

This is the MusicBrainz community and support channel.

  • #musicbrainz on the Kiwi IRC web client. Recommended for users without an IRC client installed.
  • #musicbrainz on irc.libera.chat. Recommended for users who seek more options and have an IRC client installed.

Among the regulars in this channel are quite a few of the developers as well as some of the auto-editors and other active MusicBrainz users. Anything related to MusicBrainz, including Picard and other MusicBrainz products, is welcome here. References to IRC in MusicBrainz generally refer to this channel. As in many communities, the regulars in the channel have their own slang.

#metabrainz

This is the the development and general MetaBrainz channel.

  • #metabrainz on the Kiwi IRC web client. Recommended for users without an IRC client installed.
  • #metabrainz on irc.libera.chat. Recommended for users who seek more options and have an IRC client installed.

Apart from MusicBrainz development, this channel also hosts general MetaBrainz talk, incl. discussion about all the other *Brainz projects: BookBrainz, CritiqueBrainz, AcousticBrainz, ListenBrainz, MessyBrainz, and the Cover Art Archive. There is a weekly MetaBrainz meeting held in this channel.

#bookbrainz

This is the BookBrainz community and support channel.

  • #bookbrainz on the Kiwi IRC web client. Recommended for users without an IRC client installed.
  • #bookbrainz on irc.libera.chat. Recommended for users who seek more options and have an IRC client installed.

Among the regulars in this channel are the developers as well as other active BookBrainz editors and community members. Anything related to BookBrainz is welcome here. References to IRC in BookBrainz generally refer to this channel.

Non-English channels

There are also channels in other languages than English:

Bridges

You can also connect using bridges, which sync IRC with other real-time chat platforms.

Discord

Matrix

BrainzBot

BrainzBot is a bot which logs all conversion in the MetaBrainz IRC channels. You can see all of the chat log archives at https://chatlogs.metabrainz.org/. BrainzBot will not log messages that start with "[off]", so feel free to use that if you have some sensitive messages.

This page is transcluded from revision #77338 of Communication / IRC.