Chat Rooms

Internet chat rooms have been an important part of the Daria fandom from the very beginning. Most of the major ones have been on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), with the notable exception of SFMB2 on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).

#Daria (original)
The earliest IRC channel for Daria fans was #Daria, which was established on EFnet in 1997 not long after the show started airing. It was abandoned in 1998 in favor of #Daria+ after it was taken over by trolls.

#Daria+
#Daria+ was established in 1998 on DALnet to replace the troll-infested #Daria. In May 2000 it was moved to Sorcery.net after users got fed up with DALnet's service issues. By 2004-5 the channel was essentially abandoned, as most fans used SFMB2 instead; virtually all activity occurred Sunday evenings when MartinUK dropped in. Although one user is still lurking there 24/7 (perhaps having forgotten that he's logged in), the channel was officially abandoned in November 2007 as part of the move to #Daria.

AIM
The major Daria chat during the mid-2000s was on AIM. The name fluctuated between SFMB and SFMB2 over the years to deal with technical problems with AIM chat rooms. By late 2005 it was SFMB2, and remained that until early 2007, when the name was changed to just SFMB in a successful attempt to elude a troll from outside the fandom. In fall 2007, AIM suffered a server-side glitch that severely impacted its ability to handle chat rooms, with people being unable to connect to the room. Initially just one person at a time was blocked, but by November the problem was affecting multiple people simultaneously. After some brief experiments with Jabber, the most tech-savvy of the regulars decided to move the chat to IRC, setting up #Daria. SFMB2 was officially abandoned on November 13, 2007.

#Daria (irc.sorcery.net)(current)
The current #Daria was established in November 2007 after AIM's ability to handle chat rooms collapsed, forcing the abandonment of SFMB2. Although #Daria+ was still active at the time, the presence of 24/7 lurkers prevented anyone from resetting that channel and getting Ops authority. The switch back to IRC offered a number of advantages over the old AIM chat, most importantly the ability to ban asshats. The ban feature was used within two weeks of the channel's creation when the ever-annoying Bliss Ticks managed to find his way in (he had been a major pain in the ass during the last several months that SFMB2 was in operation).


 * 1) Daria was quite active when it was initially created, with most of the regulars from SFMB2 being able to make the switch to IRC. The channel is now largely dead.

A section of Lawndale Online was devoted to providing a permanent archive of #Daria-related stuff, including channel news, instructions for setting up various IRC clients, and user-submitted quotes from the channel.

#Daria (irc.geekshed.net)(current)
This channel is a spin-off from the Sorcery.net channel of the same name. Reese Kaine created it in 2013 in an attempt to draw in more users from Geekshed.

#Lawndale (current)

 * 1) Lawndale is an alternate channel established by Peter Guerin. It currently is the most active channel, particularly on Sundays.

Skype
Users will occasionally get together on Skype for a group audio/video chat. These sessions are typically announced on the PPMB at least a few days beforehand.

Daria Discord Server
Discord helped resurrect the chatroom concept. Likewise, the Daria Discord Server (now known as the 'Zon) has given fans a place to discuss the show in real time.