#50+retired on DALNet - How to: Open and use a private chat window

How to Chat Privately
In the normal channel chat mode, everyone on the channel sees everything that you have to say, but there are times when that is not so desirable. Sometimes you may have comments that you do not want others to see, of course; but it far more frequently occurs that two or three people begin talking about something that doesn't interest or concern the rest of the channel.

When this happens, especially if two or three groups of two or three people are discussing different topics, it can become a struggle to keep track of who is speaking of what, and which conversation is yours. It's easy to tell when this situation occurs because the "scroll" of the channel windows becomes so rapid that it is nearly impossible to make any sense or to follow any thread of conversation.

For these reasons in particular, the 50+retired OPs encourage you to make use of "private" chats on the side. We don't want you to leave 50+retired, of course, but it is possible to chat "privately" with one or more people even while you both (all) remain on 50+retired as well (after all, you wouldn't want to miss anything said about you!) Whenever your comments or topics are not intended for the whole channel, it is a good idea to open a "private" chat... BUT HOW?

Fortunately, if you are using mIRC, this is a very simple thing to do! However, typically, there is more than one way to do it too; in fact there are three types of "private" chat (there is also more than one way to do each of these, but we'll explain only the most frequently used):

1) "query" window (least used)
(To open a "query" window with another user, double click on a name in the nicknames list or type /query <nick>)
Advantage: offers private chat
Disadvantage: dependent on the server
2) "msg" window (most often... too often... used)
(type: /msg <nick>)
Advantage: allows private chat
Disadvantage: server dependent, must type nick at beginning of each line to other user
3) DCC
(right click in nicknames and choose DCC/Chat)
Advantage: most secure private chat AND server independent
Disadvantage: none
Note: A DCC chat is actually a direct connection between your computer and that of the other person. For that reason, once the chat is started, it is not dependent upon the server. In fact, even if the servers "goes down," or gets caught in a netsplit, the DCC chat will stay connected. In addition, because the connection is direct, no one operating a server can "listen in" on your chat.

A Few Final Observations:

Private chats can be simultaneous with regular channel, but the two chat windows cannot what is happening in the other.
There is no need to disconnect from 50+retired to have a private chat, you can simply arrange the two windows so that you can see both and just click in the window in which you want to make a comment.
You can use all of the same features (aliases, DCC, etc.) in a private chat as in a regular channel window. (Note, you may need to copy certain "popups" to the query/chat section for them to be available also in DCC/Msg/query windows.)
You can open as many private chat windows at one time as you can handle, and you can close them at will.
Without special scripts, however, it is not possible to chat with more than one person at a time in such windows.

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