Moderator reference

#yackfest has two varieties of moderator:

• Staff members have the full slate of traditional IRC channel operator powers.
• Trusted users can kick users and issue short-term bans, somewhat like halfops on other networks.

Correspondingly, this guide covers two varieties of commands:

• ChanServ commands can be used by any staff member or trusted user.
• Standard commands generally require op privileges, and are therefore only usable by staff members.

In the command examples below, note that words in bold should be replaced by actual values, and words in [brackets] are optional. Don’t actually type bolded words literally, or add brackets!

Setting up your user account

Please configure your client to connect to EsperNet using SSL on port 6697. This keeps passwords from being transmitted in the clear. Staff members will be unable to join the private staff channel on an unencrypted connection.

It’s also recommended that you turn on nick protection, so that it’s more difficult for malefactors to impersonate you.

Opping and deopping

This action is restricted to channel staff members.

It’s preferred that you only keep operator privileges when you are performing actions for which they are required, or when a situation calls for a visible channel staff presence. This guideline is borrowed from freenode, which suggests:

• Don’t keep channel operator privileges. Displaying these privileges on your nick with a “+o” attracts participants who are interested in gaining them and using them actively; it also attracts the attention of participants who react negatively to authority. Have your nick added to the channel access list and op yourself only when needed.

• Use channel operator privileges sparingly. Each time you use them you raise the channel temperature. Users will be pleased with you, angry at you, frustrated that you used them inappropriately, envious that you have control over the discussion. None of these reactions may be conscious on the part of other users, but all of them increase the channel temperature.

(I also personally suggest reading their notes on "catalysts" — they’re a bit formal for us, but good ideas to keep in mind nonetheless.)

Kicks and short-term bans

Both staff members and trusted users have access to the following commands:

Many clients have /ban nick[!user@host] and /kickban nick aliases for the standard commands above.

Note that bans by themselves do not remove affected users from the channel; you must explicitly kick (or kickban) them. Banned users that are still present in the channel cannot send messages or change nicks, however.

Long-term bans (AKICK)

Bans implemented through the above methods last until someone unsets the corresponding channel mode. IllFlower generally clears the ban list every couple of months, just to keep cruft from building up. Should a user pose enough of a problem that they need to be banned long-term, they can be added to the channel AKICK (autokick) list. Any changes to the AKICK list must be performed by a superop, either IllFlower or ponicalica.

An optional time limit can be set by using the !T token and a time specification of the form NN (minutes), NNh (hours), NNd (days), or NNw (weeks): !T 5 for five minutes, or !T 1w for a week. The AKICK entry will be automatically removed after the given time period.

Additionally, private notes can be appended to autokick messages by placing them after a vertical pipe. This note will appear to ops viewing the AKICK list, but is otherwise hidden. For example, attempted to bribe ops | though I could have used that $50.

Whenever an entry is removed from the AKICK list, whether through time expiration or by hand, the matching channel ban is also removed if it exists. This is a change in behavior from previous services incarnations, which required the AKICK entry and channel ban to be lifted separately.

Access list

To grant a user channel permissions, use ChanServ’s FLAGS command. This is restricted to superops.

Communication

If you’re a moderator of any sort, please make sure you have memos enabled! You can do this by using /msg NickServ set nomemo off. You might also want to turn on forwarding of memos to your registered e-mail address with /msg MemoServ set emailmemos on.

Other useful stuff

You can set your nick registration on “vacation mode” by using /msg NickServ vacation, which triples the nick’s expiration time. Note that this is only effective until the next time you identify to NickServ; you can’t use it as a permanent time extension.