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IRC was originally created by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988. IRCnet was the first IRC network and was a revolutionary new way for people to chat with others around the world. Eventually, due to internal conflicts, a few servers split away from IRCnet and formed a new one network: EFnet (Eris Free Network) which is currently, the oldest and largest IRC network in existence.
Due to the large number of users on EFnet (a maximum of 7,000 simultaneously online, which was considered to be a lot at the time), there were a fair number of netsplits and it became quite
frustrating.
DALnet was founded on July 1994, (the exact day happens to match dalvenjah's birthday) as an alternative IRC network in order to get away from the lag, netsplits and takeovers on EFnet. Over time, it
blossomed into what it is today: one of the most popular IRC networks with a steadily growing number of regular users.
DALnet took pride in its friendliness, its Services (which none of the other networks had: they were invented by DALnet) in addition to the lack of lag and netsplits. For example, a Server Administrator once rerouted his server to another hub, because he thought that two seconds of lag was too much. Everyone knew each other when there was an average of only 150 users.
Numerous factors contributed to DALnet's growth, but the most significant one was likely the emergence of a new Windows IRC client: mIRC. Back then, there weren't many IRC clients for Windows.
Previous to Windows95, mostly everyone had been using UNIX clients.
mIRC contributed so much to DALnet's growth because DALnet was one of the first small networks to have its servers listed in the default server list. This list was ordered alphabetically, which placed DALnet in front of EFnet, Undernet and all the other major networks. Thus, whenever someone new to IRC would download the program, they would naturally be inclined to try the first listed server or network. This led to a flood of "mIRC newbies" coming to DALnet.
DALnet was, of course, quite happy about its increasing popularity. Efforts were made to be as friendly and helpful as possible by accommodating the newbies as much as possible. Lots of people kept coming to DALnet and well before the end of 1995, a record of 1000 simultaneous users was reached.
This was a cause for celebration, but as with all things in life, DALnet also had its low points. With this drastic increase of users, the network began to experience problems in early 1996. Lag and netsplits, which before this time were practically unheard of, made their appearance. Due to its size, DALnet was no longer the "family network" where everyone knew each other. In addition, while Services
had an autokill function, there was no coordination for it. All this led to the formation of the KLine team.
Back then, whenever there was a channel found to be engaged in illegal activities, it was immediately shut down and locked. Today, this has grown unfeasible with the number of users on the network. Most policies still remain and are enforced, however, only after a careful investigation of the matter with all the required evidence. In those days, troublemakers were easily spotted since everyone knew everyone else. Today, there are lots of abusive users who just want to give others trouble. Thus it has become necessary to first make certain that the punished are really the offenders.
In the early days, when there were only 7 servers, all the major decisions were reached through a vote held by the server administrators. As the network grew, that became infeasible, which was why the Executive Board was formed: JoelKatz, Kestral, MirclMax, Sentinele, Webmaster, Aetobatus and WillRiker; with dalvenjah as CEO. Teams have been created on DALnet ever since, in order to accommodate the growing needs of the network and its users.
Little by little, piece by piece, DALnet grew in size and even helped to improve the technology used to maintain IRC servers.
The introductions of Services in 1995, based upon the idea that users should have the right to control their presence online without being afraid of getting a channel stolen or of getting harassed, have supported this growth. As already mentioned before, DALnet was the first IRC network to have Services the way we know them today.
DALnet network is divided into servers. Servers are linked together through hubs, which are a particular type of server that can handle large blocks of information, and in so, support smaller servers
known as leaves. All servers linked together as a network, contain various chat rooms known as channels.
There have also been a few embarrassing moments throughout DALnet's history. In 1998, an autokill of *!*@*.* was mistakenly set on two separate occasions: once by dalvenjah and once by mittens. Even the
most careful people make mistakes, but most importantly, the mistake was learned from and preventive measures were taken. Ever since then, it has been impossible to set an autokill of *!*@*.*.
Lots of people have visited DALnet, even a few celebrities. The first celebrity to publicly drop by DALnet was BB King, the jazz legend, who made an appearance to answer questions on Tuesday, January 16, 1997 at 19:30 EST in #jazzirc.
Tito Puente also held a moderated conference in #jazzirc on Tuesday, February 13th at 19:30 EST. Wes Craven, director of the popular Scream series, visited on April 20, 2000. There have been other visits and nowadays, there's an Events team to organize events such as this or general classes for DALnet users.
As the network continued growing, it was decided that a new IRCD (IRC server program) should be created and DALnet eventually switched from Dreamforge to Bahamut (known as dfhybrid at the
beginning) in June 1999.
Dreamforge was having more and more difficulty being able to cope with the increasing amount of users; it had a lot of limitations. So the idea was to start using the code developed by EFnet, however with a lot of modifications that were needed for it to successfully work on DALnet. This was the birth of Bahamut. White_Dragon, lucas, Raistlin_Majere, Rakarra and a number of other important people were, and still are, heavily involved in this project. This new ircd enabled servers to handle tens of thousands of users whereas they could only normally take up to 2000 before. Further information on Bahamut is available at http://bahamut.dal.net.
On March 22nd 2000, dalvenjah turned over the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) position to taz, due to real life considerations which made it impossible for him to attend to DALnet as much as was needed.
dalvenjah did a wonderful job, and taz continued the tradition. taz left in January 2003 handing it over to MirclMax who still holds the position today.
And DALnet is now, after ten years, with a user record of 140,000 simultaneous users being the highest record on this growing network while keeping intact the ideal of providing the best service and chatting environment for everyone.
Special
Thanks to DALnet Network : Texts From http://docs.dal.net |
