Guidelines to Running or Operating on an IRC Channel

Okay, ranting blog here after a long time. Recently, having gotten back into IRC, I've noticed that, while in different places, channel ops in many channels that are for generic Chat and light non-serious RP, do not actually act professionally or take what they do seriously. Yes, you are in a channel that is not 100+ people, it's not a corporate chat room, but as an operator you have a responsibility to your users if you want to maintain respectability and control of your chat. So, here are basic basic guidelines for you to follow.

For channel owners.

• Know how to use your network services, and/or have an operator on staff who can help you. This part is super important, because knowing how to use the tools provided to you as a channel owner helps you get this done fast, efficiently, and helps you remember how to take care of problems in the future in case a services database is corrupted or lost. You should know off the top of your head how to add/remove ops, lock your topic, and use chanserv to set channel mode locks.
• Maintain a consistent set of rules posed on your website/forums and as an auto message on chanserv. This does not mean that your rules may not change from time to time, but please do not makes rules that have written into them"At operator's discretion" or other such non-descriptive language. Also, stick to your rules instead of deciding "well, just because they didn't know I'm going to warn them" because if your rules are to be respected, rules are rules and ignorance is no excuse to break one.
• Keep your ops between 15% and 20% of your channels average population. While there is no "magic number" of operators, it helps to have a fairly sizable number of operators and half operators (as well as with larger channels a co-founder with founder access) and have them able to keep watch on the chat at every time of day. Automatic bot floods and stupid people do not sleep, and your channel should not go unmonitored for longer than 5 minutes at a time.
  
• Do not treat some users as special. Your girlfriend/boyfriend/best friend [for life] is not special, not immune to rules, and not able to say "well, this person was being a meanie" and get them removed from the channel.
• Communicate with your operators, and respect their opinions. You made your op staff for a reason, if you want to continue to make them feel like they are important[ish] or like they are not wasting their time in your channel, listen to them and act on their feedback even if it's a simple "let me look into it" that turns up nothing needs to be done (which you should also respond to them about at your conclusion). Do not ridicule your ops for enforcing your own rules, or taking advantage of any flexibility you give them within the rules, especially when you say "Annoying an operator is grounds for removal.

For Operators (and Owners as well)

• Don't be a dick: keep users as much as you can. This one should be pretty self explanatory, and SHOULD go without saying. Occasionally ops will go crazy will power when a user gets on their nerves. We all have done this, and we all know it's inappropriate in a majority of these cases. If you think a user is a troll, query them and see if you can stabilize them there, or if you can get a civil conversation from them. If they do not understand what you are trying to do, do not taunt them, do not set a "quiet" ban or a ban without a kick: just kick+ban them after politely asking them to stop.
• Learn how to set timed bans, or set a timer by your computer for a ban. Not all infractions need a permanent ban, or a "5 second" band just to defeat most auto-join scripts or to teach a lesson. Often, all you need is an hour long ban or sometimes a week long ban, or just 24 hours. Most clients have a way to time a ban, use it if possible.
• Know channel modes, ban types, and how to use helpop. Channel modes are pretty universal, as per the protocol standard. You should learn what channel modes mean, why they're used, and when to change the mode. Having this knowledge helps you presumptively manage the channel against basic spam attacks, or against trolls and/or bots. Most popular IRCd programs have their own version of Unreal's extended ban types, which let you set bans based on real name, as well as bans which let the user join but require a voice to talk, and all of them have the ability to set an exception list for when you need to set a blanket ban but an existing user is covered under that.
• Know which of your members are reliable, but take everything they say with a grain of salt. An important part of being an operator is knowing the channel and is dynamics: know your users know who is a social climber. Just because you can trust somebody though, do not take their word at face value and make sure it matches up with your logs and with what other users say in the case of a dispute, but remember: you are an operator, they are not. And do not decide to have favorites and always take their word, it's bad.
• Keep your clone limit to two, after that de-op your clones. This mostly applies to RP channels, but is still annoying in other places. When you op or half op list suddenly doubles, it's very unnerving to both the users and can be to the channel owner. After all, why do you need 3 connections to the IRC network, much less three connections with operator powers?
• Know how to use /whois, and how to read what it tells you. This information lets you keep track of users, especially slippy users who proxy change their nick and almost everything about them, since they often have the same channel list or leave either a username or real name set the same out of absent mindedness
• The best phrase you know, "Please take it to PM." This should solve a large problem of people fighting in channel, dragging in topics that are undesirable, and just general useless bickering.
• Log everything. Keep track of everything said, every user join and part, every kick, and every ban. You can get various plugins for your client to help you keep track of just kicks and bans, but having logs will help settle ban disputes and disputes between your own actions and a channel owner.
• Know who your IRCops are, but don't contact them to be friends. This one doesn't need really any explanation, other than keep track of your network policies, and be sure to know where to go for help if a user is violating these or if you wish for clarification, or for details about a services bot, or a non-services bot.

This is not a complete list of IRC guidelines, but it is somewhat comprehensive even if it is specifically targeted at one type of channel. I didn't put into details things that i talk about to save time, and since they can be looked up with very minimal effort just by using Google. Hopefully i have given clear explanations of why each guideline is important, and hope you can agree with it after I've spend over seven years on IRC acting as an IRCop, channel op, and just a user.

Rituals

So, I'm ready to write about this now. No 250x250 picture, just a post.

In society, both this one and many others, we have a large focus on rituals: rituals for life, death, and living, rites of passage and yearly events. A vast majority of these, are based, if not exactly, religious rituals. This phenomenon is probably linked to the same part of human nature which makes us inherently more likely to want to believe in a higher power, a God, Goddess, or genderless higher power. Having been raised, grown up, and constantly bombarded with Catholic beliefs (and no little sister, I am not Catholic, as the first thing is for you to *believe* the Church's teachings) I was raised with a knowledge of the more pagan-esque Christian rituals, and upon delving into Pagan and Wiccan beliefs see the striking similarities, and seem pretty polarized on many issues of religion.

I, on a personal level, find the biggest problem with Christianity and "Modern" religions that they teach faith and obedience to clergy, not spirituality. It seems to be more important to many people that instead of encouraging people to find their own interpretations of the religious teachings (which is what the core of Protestantism was supposed to be) religious leaders seem to make religion about politics and pushing their personal agendas, as opposed to basing it on what is in sacred texts, ie citing old testament ideas which were specifically said to be invalid by Jesus.

Funerals are peaks of ritual, showcasing the pagan influence from the beginning to the end.

Why does the kisky write?

So, my keyboard has been silent for a while, thank you school, break, and stress. Anyway, I think today i need to cover why i write and why i write when i write. Put into one word? I write almost everything for me. There are three types of writing i write: School, Fan Fiction, and Thoughts. I'll discuss them each differently, since they each represent a different part of me and who i am.

School writing. This is the boring stuff i tend to not be as good at, unless it happens to intersect with when i do another type of writing. I feel that it's a reflection of my left brain, and thus tends to come out (initially) disorganized and in need of quite a bit of help. I find that many assignments i receive in school require that not only do i submit to a particular train of thought, but that i also submit to the opinion of the teacher and the structure set forth that, even when we are told, "is not the only way," tends to be the only way that one will be able to get help while doing. I actually consider these blog posts a form of School writing for the most part, since it is mostly me voicing my opinion and (occasionally) in a way that makes sense and is logical. That is to say, I do try and go for structure with these, but i do not often plan out the details or outline my posts, i let flow whatever comes to mind, as close to how it comes out as i can and still make sense. Even some of the posts that are very non-academic in content, to me are a form of practice for academic writing.

Fan Fiction. This is how i exert myself and my ideas for pleasure over worlds that I do not have to create, maintain, or even follow all the rules of. This is how i borrow to introduce ideas that I like on a table, so i can use or reuse them for other writings such as personal stories or poems, lore and mythology. Many times i do admit i write fan fiction solely for making a slash pairing, which I like to read, and others like to write, so why not share my perversion with others? If i write for myself, i should be allowed to write what i want about other peoples worlds, since i think about it enough (after all, Taito is very yummy)

Thoughts are posts like this. The let me rant, express my inner thinks, and my emotions. Most of this is done in poetry, like my earlier posts, and if people understand them that's pretty cool, if not oh well. Many of the longer forms of this writing will never get finished (this is only getting finished because i was asked if i blogged, and provided a link here) like a post i have about the odd energy well at the funeral of my great aunt. To me, this is my most personal writing, but also the only writing i do to share. Oddly enough, I am more scared of sharing my academic writing that has very little to do with my thoughts and insides than my personal writing where i write myself out in text

//

"I Am" - January 28th 2009

I am Me: a Paradox of time and humanity who resides here an individual in a conformist society.

I am One who resists, and One who conforms; One who finds Truth, and One who Lies.

I am One who believes in Innocence, yet destroys the Naïve; One who creates Love, and Destroys it ruthlessly.

I am One who Loves, but is no longer a Lover; One who Hates, but not by Choice.

I am One who has found God, but doubts Her power; One who is Saved, yet Cannot be so.

I am One, but am also Two; One who has seen the Past, and fears the Future.

I am One who wishes for Fur, and wants to create Wings; One who lies in wait for Myself to be revealed.

I am One who harbors Fear, but harvests Courage; One who sees the Beyond, but will be hesitant for my Time.

I am One who is not limited by Sex, by Gender, but falls into norms; One who does not let go, no matter how many times He hurts me.

I am One who feels the Fist of Power, but knows the sting of Weakness; One who warms Souls, and breaks the Auras of those who spread hate.

I am One, Mateless and Alone; One who creates his own yolk to shoulder a Burden alone.

I am Me: without my Identity, without my Mind, without my Soul: I cannot be.

//

-λrel

Meeps and Erfs

So, my keyboard has been very quiet lately. I can't find it within myself to write decent, scathing, angry posts that i used to, and instead have been focusing on a post for the blog i want perfect as well as my own personal projects.

Ontop of that, school has been particularly busyfying and distracting, along with out RPG sessions, which i am not (yet) playing a character in, but have been sitting in to give amusing ang synical opinions and know what's going on, as well as being amused at the plot points not yet revealed to players. Domriso's Mercury and Quicksilver pokemon world is fascinating, and i can't wait to see waht else he has in store.

I've been planning on fursuit materials and such lately, drawn between building, building most of it, or comissioning, and am leaning towards buying a partial then making a body suit for it, or just buying a head.

I have soem halloqween pictures to post, and soem finishing touches to do on my ears over Thanksgiving break, namely restitching some fabric, securing them to the headband again, and trimming them even with a shaver.

I hate Macbeth.

My head hurts and i hate ASMing.

New venture brothers tonight, an awesome end to an awesome weekend.

-λrel

Interview with Kaye

Name
Kaye (all letters)
Age
20
Major
Psych
Availability
Needs a Job
Interests
Nerd Stuff (too many pokemans)
Birds
Writing
Harrison Ford or Patrick Stewart?
Harrison Ford