Below is a piece of code from ircLogBot.py in the examples section of the Twisted release. It makes reference to a "channel" - What is a channel. I assume that "sys.argv[1]" when passed into main() must be a "channel" Of course the person who wrote this module just had no inclination to actually tell anyone how to use it. I know the 2nd argument is a file name or path, but what is a "channel".... I know I probably am really lame for asking these kinds of questions, but i left my crystal ball on the planet venus, and can't read the mind of the person who wrote this module. class LogBotFactory(protocol.ClientFactory): """A factory for LogBots. A new protocol instance will be created each time we connect to the server. """ # the class of the protocol to build protocol = LogBot def __init__(self, channel, filename): self.channel = channel self.filename = filename def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason): """If we get disconnected, reconnect to server.""" connector.connect() def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason): print "connection failed:", reason reactor.stop() if __name__ == '__main__': # create factory protocol and application import sys f = LogBotFactory(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2]) # connect factory to this host and port reactor.connectTCP("irc.freenode.net", 6667, f) # run bot reactor.run()