Network Operator Guidelines

Written by Rubin Friday, 16 April 2004

A note to our users: These rules act as a guide for your administration to act justly and fairly when dealing with security and disciplinary activities online. This is NOT our terms of service, or our acceptable use policy.

These are basic guidelines for Opers on the AfterNET IRC network. These rules are “the law” for immediate oper action, but can be overridden by the network at a high level (i.e., a vote by opers). In general, if you are not sure if its OK to act, play it safe. Always try to solve problems FIRST without use of your oper.

In most cases, where a real person is involved (not a bot, clone or trojan) you should try to talk to them first. Oper commands should be used as a last resort. Educate channel owners on how to set good bans, and use the tools they have first. G-Lines should be used only when there is no good alternative solution. Spammers may be killed without warning as long as they are really spammers (see below).

• Spam: Unsolicited MASS advertising. Pasting a URL is _NOT_ spam if its an honest part of conversation. Channel ops ARE allowed to say EG in their /topic that they have moved to another network and how to get there.

• Mass flooding: Flooding one channel is grounds for a channel ban, not a gline. The flooding must be to multiple targets (such as moving from channel to channel flooding).

• Ban/ignore evasion: IRC is designed so that users can solve their own problems. However, opers may take action in cases where extra-persistent people change hosts, use proxies, etc to avoid ignores or channel bans.

• Evasion of gline(s): Once banned from AfterNET, users must respect the ban until it expires. Evading should result only in longer ban time.

• Serious threats: Users who very strongly threaten others with cracking or DOS. This is for stuff that is an eminent threat to the users such as actively using client exploits, or threatening to DDOS servers when you have some reason to believe the threat is credible. Most cases of threats should be dealt with using ignores and bans. This is only to be used as a last resort! Note: using a particular nickname alone is not a threat to anyone (unless they are engaging in other activities to try to convince people they are an oper and get info out of them or such.)

• You will note that racism, warez, and porn are not on this list. We are not the morality police, nor are we cops. AfterNET is an uncensored place. Don't like what someone says? You can add your own opinion, and/or ignore them, but you cannot take away their right to say it.

• Oper powers are not to be used to give or take ops (+o) in channels unless:
  • The channel is being used as a “base” for an attack on the network.
  • The channel's owner/operator has been massively spamming and simply glining them has not solved the problem.

• Overriding security in the channel services shall not be done without explicit permission from the channel's owner. Ownership must first be verified.

• How to verify a channel owner in X3: /MSG X3 #channel CHANSTATS (be sure to oper up first) send an email to the address listed, containing a secret word, number, or phrase, along with a short message explaining the situation in case you're being swindled. If the person requesting help can tell you the secret, you know they are the true owner.
• Or ”/MSG X3 #channel ACCESS nick” tells you if they are logged in.

• Channels may have a maximum of one owner. The rest are co-owners. This way we don't play games with who gets the channel after a fight/breakup. If the real owner has not been seen for 60+ days, the owner may be removed and a co-owner promoted to owner at your discretion. (Try to get them to a consensus, and think of what's best for the channel, and network).

• Missing servers should be reconnected automatically by X3, which will try once an hour if they don't return immediately. Regardless, opers should try to connect them as well. The X3 command “REROUTE C” will do this automatically to the proper hub. /connect server* 8888 hub* if x3 is missing.

• Improperly routed servers should NOT be rerouted unless the routing is causing problems on the network or a current hub needs to stop hubbing. Netsplits should be avoided at all times as they are a huge inconvenience to the users. Improperly routed servers will correct themselves over time - as they split X3 will reconnect them properly.

• Wallops are intended for official oper communication. The occasional social conversation is OK but should be stopped if it is bothering anyone.

• Mass user notices such as /wallusers, .GLOBAL, and /msg $*.* should be used only for official business. The appropriate method should be used to target users according to who needs to see the information (.Global is for cservice messages only, /wallusers is for “optional” info to users, and $*.* for getting a message to every user).

• Glines: Glines set by other people should not be removed by you without some special reason (i.e. do not clean up the list just because YOU don't know what they are for). If you do need to remove a gline please try to talk to the person who set it first.

• Opers and admin on a testlink server MUST NOT use any oper power beyond the range of their own server without supervision, except in very extreme situations.

• New opers are not to be added without first consulting with the group. Normally this is done via a msg to the mailing list.

• Every oper must have a 'sponsor'– an admin who is 'their' admin. This admin's server is referred to as their 'home' server. If the server goes away, or the admin decides to un-sponsor an oper, all other admins have the option of picking up the opers sponsorship. If none do, the oper is removed.

• Disconnecting your server in anger is grounds for immediate delinkage (count to 10 and take a deep breath instead).