My IRC Philosophies

This is like my IRC etiquette page. More to come as the ideas come to me...

Probably the biggest and most important IRC philosophy that I have is I only speak to people that speak my language! So, if they don't speak English, then, they are ultimately, a waste of my time. This is why channels whom classify themselves as English-speaking, shall do everything they can and want to exterminate the non-English speaking users.

This comes to the fact that I would never use a nick in a different language, yet so many people who don't speak English use English words and names as their nicks, and that is annoying as hell.

List of things that are generally considered to be annoying.

1.Spam/Ads.
2.Unwanted capitalizations.
3.People who use nicks lIkE tHiS... That's instant kick ban.
4.Private messaging someone in a language they do not speak.
5."haii" should always be "Hi."

My philosophies.

I do not use the /ignore command or feature.

Reason:Because I am a scripter.

My philosophies, continued: Other things I am against.

Channels that block, or kick ban, for using color.

I do not believe channels should filter color, I believe users should filter color on their own. A lot of random frustration (of operators who ban) has to do with intelligence. For example, sure, one can find it annoying if someone purposely speaks in white text when you have a white background, which is why a scripter would change it to black text if the text matches the background color, and then wouldn't notice a difference, therefore, wouldn't be annoyed.

In other words...I'm no color-blind fool - I appreciate art.

My biggest pet peeve, is those who ban the ident!

I never ban the ident! Banning the ident is lame! Sometimes I ask people who they ban the ident, and they may say "because the default /ban (or when I right-click)" bans the ident. Idiot! Use a level 2 ban instead! The fact that mIRC' default ban is level 1 is no excuse to not ban the ident, because it should.

Off topic: Sometimes some channel operator whom is also a network operator may purposely ban the ident of a user in the attempts that the user changes the ident and evades. And that coincides with another rule of the same channel, that evading that channel's bans results in an akill.

Well now, that depends on the philosophy of bans. Do you ban users to keep them out, or ban them so they can easily evade? Well, I believe the philosophy is the first one.

Talking.

In IRC, this is something I keep to myself, and that is I talk only if I need to talk. Meaning if I don't have anything relevant, important, or anything worth reading, then, I don't say it. And the level of this depends on what channels I'm in, such as private channels and public channels.

Uusally, when people say something, especially when they ask a question, they should get to the point. For example:

"Hi is anyone here?"

Is a useless piece of shit thing to say, as well as "Help me." And most definitely, "Hi room."

IP.

I do not hide my IP address (except when I cannot). Why? Well, you wouldn't care to know for social engineering reasons (or reverse social engineering). I've decided I am not one to hide my IP. However, that does not mean you have to unhide your IP if you want to. I was raised on a network that automatically masks IP addresses, and that you have to unset a mode to unhide. Then I traveled to networks that do not, so I got that experience too.

Some networks make it so you purposely can't unhide your IP, which is why my IP is accessible in my remotes.

Operators and channel rules.

On a lot of networks, there are "official" channels, particularly help channels. Then, there are channel rules. Well, there are 2 such philosophies of ops and channel rules:

That an channel operator is one who enforces channel rules.

The above is key! Yet, almost no official channels follow that. They follow: "The channel operator is one who enforces and is exempt from channel rules." That, I disagree, as it shouldn't be that way. And the philosophy behind that is, how do you become a channel operator in that channel? By following and not breaking the rules? If so, channel rules should be enforced to channel operators, in such channels.

For example, a channel op may deop himself and say something that triggers a channel operator's scripts, where it wouldn't have been triggered had he been opped. Now, seriously, how hard is it when you get banned from a channel you're an AOp in, that you just type /mode # b, and wait for that ban to be removed from another op? (On most IRCds). So many people have problems with following that.

So, what should the founder of an official help channel do when writing a script that ban kicks for swearing? He should write it so it bans his channel operators too. And this is how it should look.

on *:text:#MyOfficialHelpChannel: {
  if (*fuck* iswm $1-) {
    if ($nick isreg $chan) {
      /ban -ku300 $chan $nick 2 You may not say the 'f' word.
      }
    if ($nick isop $chan) {
      /ChanServ Aop #MyOfficialChannel Del $nick
      /ban -ku300 $chan $nick 2 Yea not even ops can swear..
      /.timerAop 1 300 /ChanServ Aop #MyOfficialChannel Add $nick
    }
  }
}

What this does, is, if a channel op swears, he/she can evade the ban or unban himself/herself, whereas, if the channel ban for saying the F word is 300 seconds, then the channel AOp loses his AOp for 300 seconds, and can /join the channel after the ban is lifted and get his/her AOp back at the same time..

But of course, due to flaws in human logic, most people don't work like that.

O well.

And now, for the most important philosophy (not compatible with what I said at the top of the page).

So some of you know now that I hang out in a lot of channels (usually over 50), spanning across several networks (usually over 10). This means I have been to, and hung out, regular at, kid channels, teen channels, adult channels, computer channels, mIRC channels, official channels, trivia channels, help channels, chat channels, locational channels, lobby channels, hacking channels, drug channels, etc.

What this means is I have a lot of experience in a lot of different places. This comes down to meeting a lot of different people with different personalities. This means that I have a lot of personalities if I can fit in a lot of channels. Therefore, this brings me to one of the most important philosophies of IRC...

And that is the ability to adapt to a lot of different environments and people. Bruce Lee once said we should be like water, because it can adapt to all it's environments. Well I think having a lot of personalities and being able to adapt in a lot of different channel-environments and people is...well, something for me!

Why...

Because... Listen: Every person on IRC has their own unique idiosyncrasy...as well as...their own unique specialty. This means that everyone on IRC has their own unique problem and their own pet peeve where you have to do something to not piss them off. So hey, some philosophies of IRC could be:

-That everyone on IRC has a problem, and it is your job (as the person joining channels and meeting new people) to find out what their problem is.
-That everyone on IRC has the potential to be a good person, and it is your job to bring out the best in them.
-That every person on IRC is an idiot and it is your job to straighten them out.

Etc.

Hey, the list goes. ;) But nevertheless, I like the ability to adapt in so many different channels, and I think you should too.

And ultimately, the worst thing about IRC people is those that get pissed off easily.

People who get pissed off easily.

I have explain some of this in MyViews.html, and a lot of the problems with those that get pissed off easily is discretion on IRC, particularly channel op discretion. For example, some channels have a rules page on a site, yet those who get pissed off easily will have additional rules not on the site, like, if they get annoyed easily. Having a channel with staff with some that get pissed off easily causes a lot of channel op discretion, apparently.

Another philosophy I have.

As this is also something I believe in real life, I put it to IRC too. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt (as opposed to the disadvantage of the doubt). This is used in the American criminal law system too. And I hope you do too.

Centisecond timestamps.

After some years, I now conclude, centisecond timestamps, as far as a mIRC standpoint, is a waste of a scripter's time. At first, when I met scripters that could script a "centisecond timestamp," I thought it was pretty cool, but as I learn more, I see that it is a waste of time.

First off, scripting a centisecond timestamp isn't really a centisecond timestamp. It takes advantage of $ticks, and what it just does is just calculate the duration between 2 events in centiseconds, such as ban-kicking a user. How many centiseconds apart did that haopen? It doesn't actually tell the 'time' to which I want. As far as calculating how many centiseconds happen between lines of flood, that's just more unwanted work for your mIRC. Mirc is also a 16-bit program, so use the /timer -m and such are inaccurate. Mirc timers itself are off (from the second standpoint). Mirc centisecond timestamps are probably something more worth considering if mIRC was a 32 or 64 bit program, at least, from what I understand of it.

Nevertheless, I deleted and erased everything in my remotes or aliases that has to do with centisecond timestamps. I could keep them and save it for someone else that would want it, but then I would just show them this page.

-Neal.