Internet Relay Chat Operator Etiquette Guide

May, 1992

Welcome! You've either been selected to be an IRC Operator or you have set
up your server and thus have taken on the dual task of IRC Server
Administrator and IRC Operator. Your future days will be filled with hours
of fun chatting on IRC, and then wondering why everyone you talked to went
away, because the links had apparently broken. 

2 and a Half years later, December 1994.

Linking:
========

Currently, there is no policy of any sort in operation on EFnet except for
Europe (see EBIC documents).  If you want links, find an operator or server
admin, become friends with them, build a case, run lots of bots to make it
look like you have lots of users and away you go.  It doesn't matter what
speed your link is or where you get it (regardless of what people say, they
don't actually follow their own preeching).

Kills 
=====

/kill is a special operator command.  The format is as follows:
	/kill NICKNAME comment.
Comment can be a phrase of almost any length (within reason) and should be
used for specifying the reason of the kill.
Example:
	/kill jonathan hey, this is fun!


/SQUIT server {comment}
   /squit isolates a specified server from the next closest server, when
you look at it along the trace path starting from your server. 
This is usually used in conjunction with CONNECT (explained later) to
reroute traffic. This will be described in detail in the section
"routing", preceding CONNECT.  Note, that a primary reason to use squit
is to isolate your server (to become a leaf) if you want chanop or someone
else wants chanop and you want to help them.

   Usage (and examples): 

      /squit E

     If the network looks like this initially (and you are on server A)

 
          A <---> B <---> C <---> D
                          ^
                          |
                          v
                  G <---> E <---> F <---> ... (rest of the net)
                          

    Then after issuing the previous /squit the network would look like this:

          A <---> B <---> C <---> D
                          
                          
                  G <---> E <---> F <---> ...


    /squit E {comment}

	It usually helps to give a reason why you are sending a
	SQUIT for a server. This can be accomplished by sending
	the command "/squit server This link is making the US route
	through Finland". The SQUIT will then be sent out, and the 
	server sending the squit will WALLOP sending the comment
	so all operators can see it. 

/CONNECT server {portnum server2}
   /connect is used to establish a link between two servers. These
connections must be authorized by each server's ircd.conf file, but
any operator can issue a CONNECT between authorized servers. This
command is most often used in conjunction with SQUIT to reroute
traffic. 
   If only one argument is given, this command causes the server you
are on to attempt to connect to the server specified. For example,
"/connect B" (in the previous example) would cause your server (A) to
connect to B. 
   Suppose you wanted to reconnect server F to server E? You cannot
contact server F since it is no longer part of your network. However,
you can tell server E to connect to it. A remote CONNECT can be issued
to server E. 

   Examples (assume you are on server A):

   /connect B

   If the network initially looks like this:

         A      B <---> ... (rest of network)

   Then afterwards (if the connection succeeds) the network will look
   like this:

        A <---> B <---> ... 


   In the example where you wanted to reconnect server E to F, the
   following syntax would be appropriate (note: we are assuming that
   F's irc socket port is 6667, which is the default)

   /connect F 6667 E

   If the network initially looks like this:

         A <---> B <---> C <---> D
                         ^
                         |
                         v
                 G <---> E      F <---> ... 

   Then after your CONNECT request the network topology will look like this:

         A <---> B <---> C <---> D
                         ^
                         |
                         v
                 G <---> E <---> F <---> ... 

    Be careful when connecting servers that you know which command to
    use! If you simply issued "/connect F" from your server, the
    network would look like this:


    ... <---> F <--->  A <---> B <---> C <---> D
                                       ^
                                       |
                                       v
                               G <---> E 

    which for various reasons (discussed below) might be very
    undesirable. 

Routing
=======

   When and how should you do rerouting? This depends on where your
server is topologically located and whether you route traffic. If you
are a leaf node (i.e. only connect to one server at a time) then
chances are you won't need to do any routing at all.  Your ircd.conf
file should be written to connect to the best possible servers first
before trying alternates. At the most, you may decide to squit an
alternate server and connect to your primary if/when it goes back up.
This only involves local squits, however.

   Chances are that hub operators will be more familiar with the
general topology of the network and which servers connect to which
(which is why most of the manual routing is left to them), so if you
have any problems, talk to the other operators on operator channels
(#twilight_zone, #eu-opers etc.) That's what they are there for!

   Don't bother wasting your time with #twilight_zone.  There are many
operators on many hub servers (including many found in this channel) which
purport to know something but in fact know nothing.  They will most likely
ignore you, make fun of you, abuse you, dump your private messages to the
channel, etc.  In general, many operators (especially true of those on
#twilight_zone) are not the sort of people you'd want to do this as a
paid job and won't do anything unless it serves them in some way.

Please let us know if there should be any additions to this guide. Again,
this is not MANDATORY, this is just a GUIDE. Please conduct yourself as 
an IRC Operator would...you are looked upon for assistance, both emotional
and mental. 

Helen Rose		Christopher Davis	Noah Friedman
<hrose@cs.bu.edu>	<ckd@cs.bu.edu>		<friedman@ai.mit.edu>

January, 1991


Updated by

Mauri Haikola
<mjh@stekt.oulu.fi>

May, 1992

Revised to become more a reflection of the current state of IRC by
Darren Reed
<avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au>

December 1994
