User:Snake6

PBC, PaintballChat, or Paintball Chat IRC Network is a small IRC network, with between 50-100 users at any given time. It is the only Paintball subject matter releated IRC Network in existance.

IRC clients can connect to PaintballChat via  in an IRC Client or via a Java Client on the PaintballChat.org site.

History
PaintballChat orginally started as the unoffical Tippmann Forum chat room on GamesNET, now GameSurge channel #tippmann in the late 1990's. In 2003 the core group of members from #tippmann decided to make a network exclusivly for paintballers, at this time there were paintball channels on every major IRC Network, thus creating many small "pockets" of paintballers with no way to communicate. The original idea of PaintballChat was to consolidate all paintballers into one IRC Network so paintballers from around the world could easily communicate. This early effort was headed up by "Enos Shenk", "Sebastian Black", "RfUiLrEz". under the domain PaintballChat.Net.

The original network had a small site using PHP Nuke, and an IRC Server which users could connect to at  hosted at Cit Hosting. This network only produced a modest amount of users due to poor marketing strategy, the final deathblow to this server was the infamous "foonet raid" on February 15 2004. Most of the user base was lost during the downtime that followed the raid, and what was left migrated to the domain.

The network remained on shenko.homedns.org until late September 2007 when financial issues caused Enos Shenk to shut down the server. Between October 2007 and late December 2007 the remaining users migrated to #paintball on EsperNet. In December 2007 "Snake6" setup a server to house the small community at PBC at the domain. In February 2008 the domain "PaintballChat.Org" was registered, and the network moved to. Later that month a small website was created to support the network. Since then the network has continued to grow because an advertising campaign is currently underway.

Characteristics
PaintballChat is a network designed for paintballers, and does not cater to those outside of that specific interest group. It is also a very strict network in regards to server rules. PaintballChat uses UnrealIRCd and Anope services, as well as eggdrop bot to moderate channels.

The network also does weekly NetRadio broadcasts related to Paintball.

During its recent marketing campaign press releases were syndicated major paintball news sites including WARPIG, 68 Caliber, and Paintball Uprising.