Forum:Cleaning up the IRC nonsense

This page is a discussion about how to stop making the Star Wars Fanon IRC channel a load of @#$%ing horseshit. If cursing offends you, then quite frankly I’m not in the mood to care right now, so I’ll just say “sorry” now and you can skip the “I forgive you part” just so we can stick to the main plot here, which is more important than how I gave this a catchy opening while venting some of my own frustration.

Now, what is the main plot? Basically, our IRC channel is ridiculous. We violate virtually every IRC policy on a daily basis and those of us who have Operator powers (for those of you unfamiliar with IRC, Ops are basically the Admins of the channel) tend to abuse (that’s a very generous word for the shit we pull) said powers. This needs to stop. This thread is a detailing of some current problems and the steps we can take to correct it.

Abuse of IRC rules
As noted above, we constantly disregard our IRC policies. Many users are not treated with respect. There have been a few times when people have come on claiming to be other users, and instead of calmly telling them that we know they are not who they claim to be, we outright flame them for a bit and THEN block them. This violates the civility clause of our IRC policies. We also have a tendency to keep things uncivil between those of us who are active and, while it’s in good fun, it also needs to stop. This basically also violates the Assume good faith clause of our policies.

“Use Op powers sparingly” is one of the policy clauses - lol wtf? What a joke. That’s not followed AT ALL. The last time I was on IRC today, I was kicked out by one of our administrators because I thought the Star Wars Kid video was funny and he didn’t. Needless to say, I’m having the last laugh right now. Kicking is used to get rid of trolls, vandals and other problem users like that. The majority of the people kicked from #swfanon are kicked for shits and giggles. This is an abuse of power and it needs to stop.

There is also constant spamming and flooding. One code, !FLOOB, puts up the word FLOOB about forty-two times. People PING (think of it as the noise and flashy lights on whatever instant messenger you use) each other to death (I had a friend who is dead because of it.....just kidding) if they don’t respond for, oh, thirty seconds. There are so many other instances of spamming that it just needs to stop.

Channel hacking/vandalism
Oh yeah, remember how I said that I was having the last laugh after having been kicked out of the channel? Yeah, that’s a crock of shit. I’m actually not having the last laugh, because I’ve been spending the last two hours dealing with this IRC crap. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? No, you probably don’t. Why? Because barely anyone uses our IRC channel. Quite frankly, considering the sad and sorry state of our channel, I don’t blame you. So, I’ll tell you the problem.

At around 8:04pm on this chilly Eastern Standard Time night we are having right now, I logged onto #swfanon IRC. But wait - it didn’t take me there! Where did it take me? Why, to #halopedia, the IRC channel of the Halopedia wiki. Naturally I thought I accidentally clicked to go into Halopedia, so I logged out to log back into #swfanon. Low and behold, I was taken back to #halopedia. Apparently, someone who thinks that they are oh so funny (newsflash: YOU’RE NOT) used Op power (not necessarily an actual one of our Ops, but I suppose it could have been) to forward our channel to Halopedia’s channel.

Let me take this opportunity to formally accuse some member of Darthipedia of doing this. I don’t know who it was, but you guys know by now that you’re all numero uno on my suspect list for virtually everything (I know you killed JFK...), so I’m certainly not going to start getting rid of that bias now. If it wasn’t any of you then I apologize, but...I think it was.

Anyway, I went to the main Freenode IRC channel to find to a Freenode staff member to help me. I did find one, and they begin to help me. But wait....I’m not set as a permanent Op in our IRC channel so they can’t help me! I tried to prove it by showing them SWF:IRC which shows who our Ops are (I’m listed there) and I posted a blog directly addressing the staff member in questioning saying that I was, in fact, who I said it was. Unfortunately, no dice, because “Star Wars Fanon does not equal Freenode”, so regardless of the proof that I am who I say I am (aka, not a vandal screwing around like one of you people are), their policies say they can’t help me. So at the time I leave this message, our channel still forwards to Halopedia’s channel.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had a major problem. A few weeks ago, some vandal (also probably from Darthipedia) managed to remove powers from all Operators and close off the entire channel (aka, they blocked access). Wikia was able to fix that a day or two later, but right now, in true incompetent Wikia fashion, none of their staff members have responded to me on #wikia, despite having been trying to get them to do so for the better part of two hours. Way to lead, Wikia....way to lead.

Clean up our acts
The solution for the first problem is to clean up our acts. We need to start following and enforcing policies in our channel, if for no other reason than to improve the image of our channel. When I was forwarded into the Halopedia channel, I tried to explain that a SWF Operator wouldn’t do this. They wouldn’t hear it because in our channel we’re, according to them, a bunch of immature twelve year olds who abuse Op powers. Guess what, guys: they’re exactly right. When vandals start being held in higher regard than SWF Ops and members, it’s time to clean up the act.

Removal of non-Admin Ops
How do we prevent future vandalism? The hard answer is that it will never be fully preventable, but we can take steps to ensure that it’s left to a minimum. A drastic change is needed, and that change right now is the removal of all non-SWF admin operators. That means, the following people (and bot) need their Op statuses removed:


 * Jedi Master 76 - I know JM would never do this, but out of fairness if we’re going to remove some we need to remove all.
 * Jedimca0 - completely useless. He’s not active in the channel at all. He has no business having Op powers. Not only that, but he’s an administrator on Darthipedia. We might as well just as handed them the keys to the kingdom. Forgive my bias, but we can’t trust Darthipedian administrators with Op powers. It was either supergeeky1 or Madclaw (can’t remember which) who said that they wouldn’t trust themselves with Op powers. What does that tell you? A lot.
 * Kathkira - like JM, I know she wouldn’t do this. Regardless, she doesn’t even use Op powers. It’s unnecessary, and out of fairness this has to go too.
 * Whopper - same as JM.
 * Wallybot, Darth tom’s IRC bot - this bot has no business being an Op (assuming it is an Op, I can’t remember right now, so if it’s not a bot then disregard this). All it’s really good for is trolling (you heard me) and linking to articles on wiki’s. It doesn’t need Op powers to do that.

The only bot that should NOT be removed is “whop”, Whopper’s bot. I say this because it has very important anti-spamming, anti-flooding and counter-vandalism functions that need to be utilized if a situation arises.

Many of you are probably having a “wtf” moment right now, but non-administrators really don’t need these powers. There is also the potential for further abuse from them (no offense) and, in the end, their Op powers are unnecessary because they’re never used anyway. I don’t exactly think that this is going to be met with any rousing support, at least not immediately, but I think you can understand the need to remove potential abuse and restrict power, if only for the time being, like this to Star Wars Fanon administrators.

Removal of aforementioned powers
NOTE: If you have skipped to this section without reading the other sections because the title intrigued you, go back to the beginning and start reading. You need to see everything before this before coming here.

So, please vote in here to remove Op powers from JM76, Jedimca0, Kathkira, Whopper and Wallbot (assuming Wally has powers).

Remove all (1)

 * 1) As the proposer. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 02:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Final thoughts
Please don’t accuse me of saying I think everyone else is doing this and I’m guilty. I’m not saying that. I partake in this crap too. I go by the name Achmed, say I’m a dead Muslim terrorist and threaten to kill all the infidels in the channel when things don’t go my way. Clearly I’m not going to be doing that anymore. To end this, let me just say that I think we need to do all of the above to help improve the quality and security of our channel. I rest my cae.

Tl;dr version of this entire thread: stop dicking around in #swfanon or there will be consequences, aka. the legitimate upholding of our IRC policies.

Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 02:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Problems
Please use this as a general discussion area for the problem section. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 02:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Solutions
Please use this as a general discussion area for the solutions section. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 02:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)