New Services: Nicknames and Accounts

We've noticed a lot of people who are confused (and rightly so!) about the new nickname system - particularly the way that nickname grouping has changed. Hopefully this blog post will clear some of it up.

Nicknames and Accounts

freenode now uses a system of ownership that is different to the old nicknames system. Now, when you register a nickname for the first time, that nickname becomes the primary nickname on your account (which has the same name). An example:

User1 vists Freenode for the first time. She registers by using the command:

/msg NickServ REGISTER myshinypass my@shiny.email

User1 now has an account. freenode services have automatically assigned the nickname User1 to the account User1. User1 is now happy.

So, nicknames are now assigned to your account. But what does this actually mean, practically?

Identification

When you identify:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY <password>

freenode services will try and identify you to your account.  It does this by taking your nickname, and looking it up in the database - to find the account associated with it. Let's go back to User1 for a little demonstration:

User1 returns to freenode. She identifies using the command:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY myshinypass

freenode services finds an account (User1) with the same nickname as her (User1), and so identifies her succesfully.

But what happens when you try and identify with a different nickname?

User1 connects to freenode, but her client decides to connect with the nickname User12. She tries to identify using the command:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY myshinypass

freenode services tries to look up an account called User12 (as this is her current nickname). This nickname is unregistered, and so does not have an account associated with it. The identification fails, and she is not logged in.

With the new accounts system, there is a command that allows you to identify to your account from any nickname!

User1 connects to freenode, but her client decides to connect with the nickname User12. She can identify using the command:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY User1 myshinypass

freenode services will now look for an account named User1, and log her into that. Since she already registered this, the identification succeeds.

However, this isn't ideal, as she is now logged in, but is using an unregistered nickname. She may want to consider GROUPing the nickname.

Grouping

With the new system, GROUP basically means to add another nickname to your account. User1 is fed up of being connected as User12 and using an unregistered nickname, so she has decided to GROUP the nickname to her existing account.

There are two ways to go about this:

User1 connects to freenode, but her client decides to connect with the nickname User12. She can identify using the command:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY User1 myshinypass

freenode services will now look for an account named User1, and log her into that. Since she already registered this, the identification succeeds. She can now GROUP the nickname (User12) to her account (User1) by typing:

/msg NickServ GROUP

The command takes the current nickname, and adds it to the currently logged in account. She can now, in the future, identify using the command:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY myshinypass

when connected as User12.

Or, she can do this:

User1 connects to freenode. She identifies using the command:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY myshinypass

freenode services finds an account (User1) with the same nickname as her (User1), and so identifies her succesfully. She can now change her nickname:

/nick User12

And GROUP her new nickname, as freenode services does not log her out of her account when she changes nickname.

/msg NickServ GROUP

The command takes the current nickname, and adds it to the currently logged in account. She can now, in the future, identify using the command:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY myshinypass

when connected as User12.

Conclusion

So, to wrap up, freenode now allows you to register an account, to which you add nicknames as explained above. That's not an easy concept to grasp if you are used to the old system, and if you have any questions, feel free to drop into #freenode and ask away!