About us

Re-written: 7th March, 2010.

Induced IRC was started by three people on the 16th May, 2005 after having their rooms ransacked by newly-appointed IRC Operators on their former network, Bigpond Chat, a network that no longer exists due to the way that network was to be managed for the next few years. Originally there was no real intention to make the new network public. At the time the network had no identity, no domain name, just two servers, iServ and Shintara, connected to via irc.iserv.com.au and irc.shintara.net, respectively. However, on the 19th May, 2005, just three days after opening, we decided to give public access a try and we invited a number of people we knew well to migrate from #Chat, which was consumed by a hostile channel takeover from the new order on Bigpond.

With the new network in place and about 40 people successfully migrated, four IRC Operators on Bigpond resigned in protest over the events that led up to the network split. Support from these four people was greatly appreciated by us. The next task for us was to add one more server, Vilesilencer, which would complete the picture for the time-being. The job after that was to find an identity and it would take another eight weeks to come to a decision. Even though LordWatchdog was not 100% keen on the final decision agreed to, Induced was registered and a new naming convention implemented for all the servers in the format <sponsors-name>.induced.net, the naming convention that still applies more than four years later. As for LordWatchdog, the new name grew on him quickly, he's such a canny bloke.

After four and a half years, Induced IRC faced a new challenge with the announcement by Telstra that Bigpond Chat would close down on the 31st October, 2009. Traditionally, when IRC networks close, other networks compete for the displaced chatters and on this occasion there is no difference. Induced IRC has happily inherited numerous chatrooms from Bigpond, some keeping the same name and others adopting a new name for a new start. A small number of servers have started up to help absorb Bigpond's demise however it does not seem that these other networks have the right reasons in place for their existance and it is our belief that further consolidation will take place in the next few months. If you end up regretting your server of choice then the best place for you and your friends is right here on Induced IRC.

Induced IRC has some noteworthy achievements to its name:-

• A world record turn-around in creating a self-hosted IRC network (typically under 24 hours).
• Network was quickly populated, fed from users not happy with their current network.
• High retention rate - people who try us out generally end up staying here.
• No restrictive rule regime. Easy on both the users and administrators.
• Friendly merger with irc.auzchat.com, an older network with very similar values to us.
• Additions of two more servers, Bat and TechwebServ.
• Seamless migration of #Peers.20s, #Romance.Married&Flirting, #Australia.Brisbane and #Chatterbox from Bigpond to Induced.
• Seamless migration of a number of chatrooms from Austnet to Induced.

It was later decided that purging what was left of the rooms and users from Bigpond was the best way to take the network forward as infighting was having an effect on morale overall. Only a few months after Bigpond closed down, all remaining rooms run by those who migrated from Bigpond were closed down and the users that remained were given the option of using #Chat or shifting to another network.

Today, Induced IRC survives largely due to a non-Bigpond chat community and we continue to provide our servers and bandwidth for celebrity chats and those wishing to host chatrooms on their websites. These chatrooms are productive, enjoyable, stable and reliable, without the infighting and personal agendas of an era gonebye.

Induced IRC has been around for a long time and will be here for the long haul. We're not closing but instead working out ways to improve on perfection.