IRC
IRC is Internet Relay Chat, a protocol for real-time live chat. It is useful for connecting with other libertarians, constituencies, and generally advancing libertarian thought through a more efficient communication medium than is offered by things like email, which are not real-time. In addition to enabling large-scale public communication between groups, private channels can also be set up to allow small groups to communicate securely. Many modern servers allow the use of SSL to connect via an encrypted session to the server, hence your communications cannot be observed by a third-party "snooper" while in transit. Many other chat systems do not allow for secure, encrypted communications, so be wary of these. Furthermore, person-to-person communication by two users connected to the same server, outside of any group channel, is possible.
Libertarian chats
- The Libertarian Party of West Virginia offers a live chat via IRC on their website at www.lpwv.org. It's hosted on irc.lpwv.org in channel #lpwv.
- There is also a generic, non-WV-specific channel on irc.lpwv.org which is #libertarian. In addition to those, it also hosts the #lptools channel which is used for the discussion of the LP Tools software package.
- EFnet has an active #libertarian channel.
Running your own libertarian IRC channel
If you're interested in running a libertarian IRC channel of your own and deploying a web-based chat feature on your libertarian site, you should contact Matt D. Harris at the LPWV on the irc.lpwv.org server in #lpwv. He can provide the necessary assistance to deploy one of your own.