Help channel guide

(Up to What You Can Do)

Some notes for #Help volunteers:

Use a WormNET snooper or IRC client

This is pretty much a given - you will probably not want to use the game itself for idling in #Help. Contact CyberShadow for IRC details if you want to use an IRC client.

Enable sound notification

Simply joining the channel and checking it every now and then will most likely not give you any chance to help - most people will leave quickly if their questions aren't answered within a minute or few. Enabling sound notification for channel messages will allow you to quickly react when someone asks a question, at the cost of being annoying. If you have extra screen space or a second monitor, you could place the #Help window in an always-visible spot to monitor it.

Check your facts

Bad advice is worse than no advice. Make sure you know what you're talking about if you want to help others. The Troubleshooting FAQ and the Help bot's answers (see below) were written or verified by the game's maintainers, and so should be treated as factually correct.

The Help bot is your friend

The WormNET Help bot can already answer 99% questions that are asked in #Help; unfortunately, some people persistently ignore the bot's attempts to help them, or can't find the right wording for a question Help can answer. Study the Help answer database (which is written using regular expressions and WormNET colour codes).

When someone asks a question in #Help that the Help bot can answer, you can use the public trigger in one of the following forms:

• ?keywords
• !keywords (deprecated)
• Help: keywords

You can also have the bot address a person, to make it clear that the response is directed at them:

• ?keywords @ nickname
• !keywords @ nickname (deprecated)
• Help: tell nickname about keywords (about is optional, so tell nickname how to host works)
• Help: explain keywords to nickname