This note has been posted to see if there are any other people who might be interested in an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) area for discussions regarding earthquake related topics.

Just post a note in response to this one if you are. If there are enough positive responses then an attempt will be made to see if something like this can be organized.

For one example, someone on the U.S. West Coast might have a pet cat or dog which appeared to be sensing that an earthquake could be about to occur. And the owner wanted to discuss that with other West Coast residents. He or she could post a note to the EarthWaves board regarding linking to that IRC area later that evening at a certain time. Other interested parties would then link to the IRC area at that time and join in the discussion.

For another example, someone might be concerned that a powerful earthquake could be about to occur somewhere on Earth. But he or she could not decide at which of several locations it would occur. The IRC resource could be used to quickly obtain opinions from other people regarding where the expected earthquake was likely to occur.

EarthWaves IRC notices might look like this:

One note with the heading:

"IRC Discussion Times"

would be posted to the EarthWaves board and renewed each time files were archived. People who wished to state that they were going to link to that IRC area would then find that note and post a response to the heading such as:

"I will be there at 8:00 PM U.S. West Coast time - Pet dog acting strangely"

There are two procedures that I myself know about for linking to IRC areas:

The easiest procedure probably works automatically with most recent version Internet Web site browsers. A Web page is visited where there is a link with the IRC area. When that link is activated the browser connects the user to the area.

The second procedure involves running a special IRC access computer program which will link the user with the IRC area. I believe that some of those IRC access programs can probably be downloaded for free from different Web sites.