IRC: Cannot send to channel: #ruby-lang

I cannot connect connect to the #ruby-lang channel using an online IRC or my application. I can see what other people are saying, but whenever I type it just says:

20:05 <freenode> Error(404): #ruby-lang Cannot send to channel

and what does this mean:

17:35 Topic: Ruby 2.0.0-p0: (Ruby 1.9.3-p392) || Paste >3 lines of text on 

I pasted 3 lines of text on like a fool. I have no idea what's going on!

Please, some help?

2 Answers

This is a description of a similar problem in another IRC channel on freenode. Basically, register (using NickServ) a nickname and then log in using it.

As for the "paste >3 lines...", it is just to get people to not post lots of text on IRC (which is annoying) and use a pastebin/Gist instead.

Some channels mute unidentified users to prevent spam and abuse (#ruby-lang on freenode is an example). If you want to be able to talk in this channel, you need to register an account and identify to it.

If you use the following command:

/mode #ruby-lang +q

You can see this:

#ruby-lang q $~a barjavel.freenode.net 1364171330

This extban prevents all users not identified to services from speaking in the channel. Note the ~, which negates the match.

Once you've registered an account, you can identify to NickServ by executing this command on IRC:

/msg nickserv identify YourAccount YourPassword

To make this process easier, you can use SASL. It's easy to configure and highly recommended. The documentation for that is available on freenode's knowledgebase: