Frequently Answered Queries
From Blitzed
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[edit] How do I stop someone annoying my channel?
Firstly, please don't come straight to the Blitzed admins demanding that we ban the person from the entire network. We understand that people can be annoying, but it's often better to resolve matters at a channel level before taking too drastic action.
The first step you, as a channel owner or operator, can take, is simply to ban the person:
/mode channel +b nickname
Unfortunately, many people manage to evade bans. To understand better how to deal with this situation, it is neccessary to look at how bans can be evaded.
A person's identity on IRC is made up of three main parts: the nickname, the ID, and the host. This is given in the following format:
Nickname!id@host
For example, someone whose nickname was LaMeR, whose ID was ~bob and whose host was l4-m3.bitenternet.com would have the following nick "mask":
LaMeR!~bob@l4-m3.bitenternet.com
To evade a ban put on the above mask, the user could change any part of their mask. For example, if a ban was set on the above mask, the user could easily come back into the channel by changing their nickname:
LaMeR2!~bob@l4-m3.bitenternet.com
Or by changing their ID:
LaMeR!~crunch@l4-m3.bitenternet.com
Or simply by reconnecting, and giving themselves a different hostname:
LaMeR!~bob@b2-t1.bitenternet.com
Fortunately, there is something channel ops can do about this problem. You can use your friend ChanServ to apply an AKICK, which will always kick and ban the person every time they enter, until it is deleted by you or another channel op. But how is an akick set up? Read on...
The basic akick format is as follows:
/msg ChanServ AKICK channel ADD nickname!id@hostname reason for akick
So let's say that our old friend LaMeR was annoying the channel, evading bans and generally being a nuisance. Your first step would be to find out his ID and hostmask. To do this, simply do a
/whois LaMeR
This would give as part of the WHOIS result something along the lines of:
LaMeR is ~bob@l4-m3.bitenternet.com * STUPID LAMER LaMeR using penguin.uk.eu.blitzed.org LaMeR has been idle 4 seconds
You can ignore the bit from the * onwards - it's just the user's description (quite apt in this case.) The bit we need is the ID and hostmask, right there in the middle of the first line. Now we know the three parts of the user's identity that they can change, we can set up an akick.
This first akick will only akick the user as they stand, and isn't any more effective than a ban:
/msg ChanServ AKICK channel ADD LaMeR!~bob@l4-m3.bitenternet.com Constant Abuse
We can, however, use * to represent "anything"; for example, the next akick would always ban and kick LaMeR if he came back using the nickname LaMeR, ANY id and any connection on the ISP bitenternet.com:
/msg ChanServ AKICK channel add LaMeR!*@*.bitenternet.com Constant Abuse
If things were still not right, you could go further and akick his entire ISP from your channel (although you must be careful here - you could be banning legitimate users from the same ISP!):
/msg ChanServ AKICK #channel add *!*@*.bitenternet.com Constant Abuse
If you have any more queries about AKICK, please FIRST try visting the AKICK wiki page or by using our online documentation by typing in IRC:
/msg ChanServ help akick
If you're still unsure, ask in #help on the network.
[edit] How do I ban colours from my channel?
/mode channel +c
To turn colours back on, type:
/mode channel -c
[edit] I'm a channel op, but ChanServ isn't listening to me!
You probably haven't identified to NickServ:
/nick YourRegisteredName /msg NickServ IDENTIFY password
[edit] How do I stop my ban list becoming unmanageable?
You can use Blitzed's CLEARBANS tool to clear your channel's bans after a set amount of time. This will not affect akicks (see question 1).
/msg ChanServ SET channel CLEARBANS time
For example, to clear all bans in your channel 24 hours (1440 minutes) after they were first applied, you would do:
/msg ChanServ SET channel CLEARBANS 1440
Remember, by having a huge and out-of-date bans list, you could be denying legitimate users entry to your channel.
[edit] How many nicks and channels may I register?
We have no automatic means to prevent you registering any number of nicks and channels but we would prefer if you only registered things that you actually use. As a sensible guideline we would prefer if you registered no more than 20 nicknames and 15 channels (you can only be in 15 channels at once anyway).
All nickname and channel registrations are at the discretion of the Admin team and persons who are found to be hoarding nicknames or channels risk losing those registrations no matter how many there are.
Remember also that our Services will automatically expire any nicknames that are not regularly used.