The etiquette established for online chat, though often more strict when using IRC than web applications, is similar to standard etiquette, with a few adaptions:

• Use of colours and effects like bold and underlining when contributing should be avoided in most settings.
  
  
• It is important to consider the privacy of other participants before sending them a private message. It is often more polite to publicly request a private conversation first with unfamiliar people.
  
  
• Particularly in technical discussion channels it is often considered bad form to ask to for someone to help you; just ask the question and with luck comments from the channel will be forthcoming soon enough. In low volume channels this may take hours rather than minutes.
  
  
• Flooding a channel material, should be avoided, as many chat clients, including BitchX ship with default settings that automatically ignore flooders. Also to be avoided are frequent changes of nicknames and the frequent transmission of other off-topic messages. To avoid triggering an auto-ignore when copying and pasting large portions of text, consider using a pastebin.
  
  
• Unless the rules of the channel state otherwise, advertising is generally unwelcome.