Dal dulls other networks with lucrative services

In other words, it was the first network where users had the convenience of Chanserv, Nickserv and Memoserv. If you are not sure what is being talked about here may be its time you know about the services.

Chanserv, for instance, is a service Dalnet provides a user to register one or more channels and keep that channel active for at least 30 days. To explain, if you register a channel and nobody including yourself show up there for 30 days it still will be registered to your nick.

On the 31st day, Chanserv will erase the channel you registered and let others to register it. Apart from registering channels, Chanserv also lets you add, delete channel operators and visitors to your channel and lock channel modes.

Lucrative enough, it also empowers you with an option called 'akicks', which means a user will be instantly kicked (thrown out) out of the channel whenever s/he enters the channel. A good tool to get rid of some annoying people you do not like.

Nickserv, on the other hand, deals with a user's nick-related services. You can register your nick with Nickserv and like channels you will be the owner of that nick for at least 30 days. So, it becomes a lot easier for a person to build up an identity.

Dalnet also allows a user to register several nicks as long as 30 characters while most other major IRC networks allow only seven to nine. For instance, the nicks Velvet_hour, The-Quiet-One or Extra_Ordinary_ Machine will not appear full in other networks and the users would have to use smaller nicks like Starlyt, Miel`, or kkn_.

Memoserv allows a user to send and receive memos. Memos could be sent to registered nicks only and an owner or an operator of a channel can send memos to all the operators opening doors for offline communication as well.

Dalnet used to be the most popular IRC network in the world, commented an IRCop (IRC operator), people who maintain the services, servers and the network. But during December 2002 and January 2003 Dalnet became the victim of malicious attacks over the internet also known as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks.

The IRCop, who usually hangs around in the channel #chatterz, said during that period Dalnet was shutdown for weeks and a lot of users left Dalnet and it was forced to become a chat-only network.

Before this period, Dalnet allowed the users to share files with each other. Channel that were dedicated to sharing files left the network and people who had no interest in chatting and who only came to Dalnet for sharing files left the network with them.

The IRC op said the network lost many users during the attacks and it only had around 35,000 users when the dust settled. Dalnet had over 1,30,000 registered users before the attacks.

While Bangladeshi IRC servers have recently become popular among users, Dalnet became more of a community. The numbers of Bangladeshi users may be few but they have the pride of being the few who share intimate experiences with each other that other people do not in the privately owned Bangladeshi IRC servers.

BlindCat, the current founder of #Bangladesh in Dalnet, says, "We always have friendly people talking here, where as you will find more people on other servers with unethical intensions."

While talking about why Dalnet #Bangladesh is so popular he said, "The channel here is clean and we have strict rules against abusive uses," adding that, "Dalnet used to be the first on the connect list in mIRC client (mostly used IRC Client) and since it was dropped from the spot a noticeable decrease in new user arrival was noticed."

BlindCat said attack on #Bangladesh is something he does not like. Accusing owners of private servers, he said, "We have a number of rivals who spend money to bombard us with floods, a method of disrupting a channel, and drones."

When asked why the use of colour barred in #Bangladesh he said it all started in the early days when not all clients could handle colour. But later it appeared the excessive use of colour made the channel gibberish. He informed that he received the channel from one Ziaul Rahman also known as Zia in the late 90's.

Several Bangla channels like #Deshi, #Lalbag and #Kotha have become popular on Dalnet recently and seems to have survived the test of time. Some of them have introduced one or several games like couple trivia, uno and timebomb and news, cricket scores and horoscope to keep their users entertained.

And there is also one MoktaR, founder of #Lalbag, who did not have any academic background, should be hailed for running the channel. He learned about IRC while working for an internet café in Kuwait and registered the channel in 1999.

Some of the channels claims to have family environment, like #Deshi, as The-Quite-One, the founder began the channel with his sister ^eshita^, while the founder nick of #Kotha, `ElectricalStrom`, is shared by four friends and they have close relationship with the channel users.