How to deal with opers-gone-bad
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[edit] Dealing with opers-gone-bad
OK, the most important thing is don't panic! This sort of thing happens very rarely, in fact in Blitzed history to date there have been only two incidents of this, both of which were resolved quickly.
Before continuing, a note about the scale of these guidelines. This stuff applies only to actions taken on the Blitzed IRC Network - actually on the IRC network itself, or "IRC" for short. On IRC we have a few rules of conduct for opers that are quite easy to remember and simple to stay within.
This document also only relates to actions on the network that require oper abilities, and behaviour in official channels. We are not interested in your personal grievances with other members of staff, nor are we interested in gossip and rumours and axe-grinding and other elements of IRC-drama. We don't care who gets on with who, who is cybering who, who had phonesex with your IRC boyfriend's dog the other night, in short, all of that is your personal life so please don't try and get "the network" involved in that. It'll only end in tears.
Note that this document also does not attempt to cover behaviour within the various Blitzed teams (that is the sole discretion of the team leader) nor on the mailing lists (most lists are associated with teams). It is strictly for on-IRC oper stuff only. If there is doubt whether anyone is a "rogue oper," it's safe to say they probably aren't. Hope that is clear enough.
The first thing to do is to try and see the scale of the problem. A minor issue for example would be where another oper has /killed or AKILLed a user for what you believe to be an unfair reason. A major issue would be stealing of nicks and channels, masskilling of users, disruption of network routing, and so on.
If it isn't obvious what is going on, use /chatops to ask. Never be scared of asking what other opers are doing or questioning uses of oper commands. New staff (especially staff on newly testlinked servers) may warrant closer attention; they are far more likely to not be aware of what they can and can't do, and/or to be malicious in the first place.
At this point, if you're still sure that an oper is doing something wrong, your options now depend on what oper abilities you yourself have:
[edit] Local oper
You're screwed, you don't have the ability to do anything meaningful. Try and find a server admin. Try to document what is going on by logging it with your IRC client. Clear logs will be important later. Use our mailing lists to bring admins on. Phone your own admin if you can, or phone other admins. Most of us are happy to give our contact numbers. But unlike Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, asking the audience is not recommended.
[edit] Global oper
If their behaviour is obviously corrupt, try and find a server admin. If there is no one else to turn to, you may be able to AKILL the offender. Feel free to do so if there is no one else to help. AKILLs can always be sorted out later by email when everyone has had a chance to calm down.
[edit] Server Admin or above
Well aren't you the fortunate one. OK, with power comes responsibility, and this is it. There's a few different scenarios from here:
[edit] The person who is misbehaving is your own oper
You have to control them and kill the problem quickly. Blitzed is harsh on its own transgressing staff, and even minor offences like /killing users for no good reason will usually demand an apology from your oper to the user concerned. If you cannot get them to calm down then the best thing to do will be to take their O:line out of the ircd.conf temporarily. Then discuss the matter on the admins list.
[edit] The person misbehaving is an oper from a different server
This is the most likely situation, since an admin and their own opers are not often online at the same times. You should try to contact the miscreant's admin, but if it is not looking likely that they can be brought to IRC, you must deal with the situation yourself. The most obvious way would be to AKILL the offender. Make sure to keep scrupulous logs of everything you do because it will all need to be justified to this oper's admin and the other admins later.
[edit] The person misbehaving is another server admin or oper with access to their ircd.conf
Worst case scenario. If they can't be talked down, then their server(s) will have to be isolated. All admins are permitted to take emergency measures to achieve this. This also includes use of JUPE. If one or more client servers end up JUPEd, don't forget to get a member of the Systems team to get them out of the public server pools.
Please don't go on a witch hunt saying things like "Well that guy is bad, and it's possible he could take control of that server and then use it to frobnicate with the Blitzed Goat's Holy Udders! We must JUPE them now! It's the only way to be sure!!" We want none of that please, and an extremely dim view will be taken of it later when we argue about it on the admins list. Please only bust the network up as a response to actual evil behaviour committed. An example would be adding O:lines which are subsequently abused. If in doubt, ask in /chatops!!
[edit] The person misbehaving is EB
Your only recourse is to kick off an almighty flamewar on the public list and resign from every Blitzed position you hold with as much drama as possible.
Well, alright, more seriously.. As far as actions on IRC go, EB members should be treated no different to other server admins, with the exception that there is just no way you can win an arms race with EB. If it ever got to that stage then something would be seriously horrendously wrong. Don't feel bad about questioning EB people about what they are doing, or protesting what they are doing, because we should always be able to explain what we're doing. We don't tend to do things without consensus of admins anyway, so if we see protests then we'll likely stop and take it to the admins list to discuss. But sometimes there are emergencies that just have to be dealt with and explained later, please be aware of that.
[edit] What to do about your own misbehaving opers
So the dust has settled and it turns out that one of your opers has done something bad. What to do? Well, the first thing is, you don't have to accept it. Your own opers are more than anything else meant to be your friends; you put your trust in them by making them opers and you hopefully did not do that lightly. In short, you can defend your staff on the admin list, and if anyone is going to do that then it should be you. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding.
However, with logs from multiple opers, if you're in this position then barring a miracle, it's likely that your oper really did break the rules. The best thing to do in that case would be to take control of the situation and suggest an appropriate punishment for your oper to the admins list. If all parties (other admins, you, your oper) can agree then the matter can be dealt with quite quickly and your oper's disgrace need not reflect too much on you, if you are seen to "do the right thing."
If you can't come up with an appropriate punishment, then you will leave it to the other admins to decide, and you can be sure that they will all be none too impressed with you for failing to deal with it.
[edit] What to do about misbehaving admins
The admin team will decide appropriate punishments in all cases involving server admins.
In all cases, failure to enact whatever punishment the admin team agrees on in a prompt manner can lead to delink. Please be aware that Blitzed has at one point in its history delinked one of its most stable hubs because the admin inappropriately used /kill and refused to apologise to the user concerned. Do not make the mistake in thinking that your server is important enough to the network to allow you to behave as you wish.