WorldTalk Channel Guidelines

Guiding Philosophy
Worldtalk is here as a source of enjoyment and information for its users. Everyone is welcome. People will be treated with fairness and respect. We will be tolerant of each others differences, and if we do not agree with those differences, we will at least show respect to our fellow users.

I. Channel Operators
Channel Operators help maintain an open and respectful atmosphere that is fair to all users, and in which everyone feels welcome.

Channel Operators should serve as moderators to ensure that the Guiding Philosophy of the channel is adhered to.

A certain maturity is expected in Channel Operators, as users look to Channel Operators to maintain order, so that users are treated fairly, are not berated, belittled or abused, and the channel itself can be a comfortable forum for exchange.

II. Responsibilities/Expectations of Channel Operators

1) Respect other users. This is of utmost importance for a Channel Operator. Respect does not mean you automatically have to like the person, or be friends with them, but rather it means that as an Op you should treat each and every person in a respectful, fair and consistent manner, without belittling or berating them (no kicking for personal reasons, etc.). A good rule of thumb on how Ops should treat other users in the open channel would be "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all".

Also, Channel Operators are expected to respect other users and act in a responsible way regardless of whether they are currently opped or not. This does not mean you can't express your opinions on a particular subject, just so long as it's done in a way that does not violate the Channel Guidelines.

2) Be active on the channel. This means channel Operators should be people who come on and participate in the channel at least several times a week. Also, any channel operator who has not been on the channel for 30 days will have their ops removed (not because they did anything 'wrong' but just because we really only want people who are active on the channel to be Operators. You will still have access to the partyline, notes, etc. However, if you have not been on the channel for a period of 60 days you will be removed from the bot entirely. You can always get your ops back by hanging out on the channel again regularly.

3) Be helpful to users when they have questions.

4) Know the basic bot commands. DCC the bot and type .help if you are unsure. Operators should know how to set kick and set a ban.

5) Overall, make people feel welcome. Help maintain an atmosphere where everyone can feel welcome. While it is not an op's responsibility to control every move of every user, the main point here is that the ops THEMSELVES should not contribute too much to those kinds of things that create a negative environment.

6) Defer to botmasters if a botmaster is openly handling a situation on the channel. This just means that if there's a problem on the channel and a botmaster has either said or made known (by his actions) that he is handling it, then ops should let the botmaster handle it. This of course does NOT mean that the botmaster can treat anyone with disrespect or boss people around in a rude fashion, nor does it mean that if it's not apparent that a botmaster is taking care of it that you can't take care of it yourself - it just means that if the botmaster has made clear they are handling it, to respect that and step aside. If there's an issue with the way the botmaster handled an incident, then you can discuss it privately with that botmaster.

7) Communicate with the other ops and botmasters! If there's an ongoing channel problem that needs to be addressed, or if you just want clarification about a certain issue, please feel free to email. The matter will be discussed with the owners/botmasters.

8) Violation of these channels guidelines may result in loss of your op status. This decision will be at the discretion the owner/botmasters.

III. Scripts
Please do not enable any "channel protection" scripts, since they almost always conflict with some of the settings the bots have for protecting the channel. A channel protection script (as defined here) is any script that will either kick or ban a user when certain conditions are met (e.g., the user floods, for example).

IV. A Few Things To Keep In Mind

Let the bots do the opping and absolutely no kicking/banning of a channel bot.

Never kick/ban another op. (Botmasters are exempt from this, since presumably they would have a good reason for doing so.)

If you have a channel-related dispute or disagreement with another op, and are unable to work it out with that op, talk to a bot master or channel owner. Please keep are agruments out of the channel. And remember, there is an /ignore feature. It works well :)

Owner - vett Co-owner `TWT

Botmasters are:

MistyBlu
Hawk
Haffro
Kensai
Redmix

V. In Conclusion

Remember, IRC is meant to be fun, and enjoyable. By establishing and consistently upholding reasonable guidelines such as these, we can help to keep #Worldtalk a fun, tolerant, informative, and enjoyable place for everyone. :-) See ya online!

Vett