newOps Instructions

by

Verla Kay

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General Information:

MUST READ! ---> Being a chat room operator
Operator Commands

MUST READ! ---> About your Nick

MUST READ! ---> Get or give OPS

MUST READ! ---> Chat Room HELP

Full List of Chat Room Commands for #PrivateKidlit

MUST READ! ---> Complete Chat Room Commands List

 

Specific Commands:

Coping with Troublemakers

Give/take away Voice

Ban and/or Kick someone

Stop someone from sending private messages to you

Limit the number of people in the chat room

Change the chat room topic

For More Privacy

 


MUST READ! ---> Being a chat room operator

Congratulations! You've been given a great gift. The status of a chat room Operator. You are now an OP with "Power." In order for you to be able to use your power wisely and safely, the following information has been compiled to assist you. Be SURE to read the Starred sections, as they have extremely important information in them. The final section is a simple list of all the commands explained on this page. It's on a separate page so you can print it out and keep it close to your computer when you are in the chat room.

Remember, spacing is all-important in ops commands. If you add an extra space between words, or leave one out, the command will not work. If you forget to put the slash/ at the beginning of the line, or if there is a space before the slash /, the command will not work. If you add the words /chanserv or leave them out, it could make a command "not work." The best way to test your skills is to go to the chat room with a friend and practice using them. (Just don't use the ban command!) Again, Congratulations and have FUN!

When you are given "Ops" status in a chat room, you are being given special privilages. There are some responsibilities that go hand in hand with those privilages. This session is to give you some idea of what these responsibilities and privilages are and how you can use them to your best advantage.

The first thing you need to know is that when you are a chat room operator, you have POWER in the chat room. People who have power will show up on a channel chat list with an @ in front of their name or in a different color, depending on your machine, your browser, and what kind of program you used to enter the chat room.

I allow all regular visitors to the Kidlit chat room to have Automatic Operator Status in this room. The only "requirements" for that status are:

You must have a registered nickname with the dalnet server and you must identify that nickname on a regular basis to keep it registered with dalnet. Dalnet requires that you "identify" your nickname at least once every 20 days in order to keep it registered.

To identify, after you connect with dalnet, type this in the Input line of your screen:

/nickserv identify YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE

It is important that the SLASH / is the FIRST character in the line or others will see your password! That same instruction about the SLASH / goes for all the commands you will learn here.

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Operator Commands

If you want to see all of the commands that you can use as an operator, type:

/chanserv help

You will then see a list of all the available commands. There's a lot of them, and I don't even know what half of them are for, much less how to use them. We are only going to talk about the ones I know that will help you in this chat room. (Some of them are only available to the Founder of the channel and SOP's... Super Operators.) If you want to find out more about any command, type:

/chanserv help NAME_OF_COMMAND

You will get more information than you ever wanted or needed and most of it will be total gibberish to you! Don't let that frustrate you. Look for the command lines with USAGE in them. They are the "templates" for the proper format you need to use to make that command work. Some commands will need to be prefaced by /chanserv and all of them have to start with a slash / whether they have the chanserv phrase in them or not.

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MUST READ! ---> Getting/Giving Ops

If you ever find that you haven't gotten ops and you need to have power, first, "IDENTIFY" yourself by typing:

/nickserv identify YOUR_NICKNAME

and then type:

/mode #PrivateKidlit +o NICK (Use a small O and not a zero.)

RULE #1 about ops.... NEVER GIVE OPS TO SOMEONE UNLESS YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SURE IT IS SOMEONE YOU KNOW AND TRUST! In the past, we have had people drop into the chat room and write down the nicks of our operators. Later, they enter the chat room using that person's nickname and ask for ops. Unless you know how to identify people by their "masks" or are ABSOLUTELY certain that this IS the correct person using that nickname, DO NOT GIVE THEM OPS! The minute a troublemaker gets ops, they can take your ops away and kick everyone in the chat room out, banning them so none of you can return. It's happened to us in the past, it could happen again. Be careful and very cautious and stingy with sharing your power. If at all in doubt, err on the safe side and do NOT share your power with anyone.

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MUST READ! ---> HELP!

Should you ever need assistance, and don't know what to do, you can go to a help chat room and the operators there will assist you, or direct you to another chat room where you can get the assistance you need. To get help type:

/join #dalnetHELP

When you arrive in the help chat room, type your message explaining what kind of help you need and post it, then wait for a few minutes for someone to respond. If you don't get a response after a few minutes, retype your question. (They might have missed seeing it if the room is very crowded and/or busy.)

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Coping with Troublemakers

If you ever get into "trouble" in the chat room and have someone that is disrupting your session and you can't make them leave, there are several things you can do. (Most often this is when someone comes into the room talking dirty, flooding the room with a bunch of messages or the same message over and over very quickly so you can't post or see what others have posted, or otherwise disrupting your session.)

First try using one or more of the following methods. If all else fails, go to the help chat room by using the

/join #dalnetHELP

command and tell them you have a disruptive person in your chat room and need help getting rid of him. A Channel Operator will come to assist you. (Or they will tell you where to go to get one to help you.)

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Moderated Room and Voice Commands

If you want to "shut someone up" that is talking in your chat room, there is a simple command that will stop everyone except ops and people that the ops have given "voice" to from posting messages in the chat room.

To activate this command, type: /mode #PrivateKidlit +m

When you use this command, you change the chat room to a "moderated" status. Then, to give "voice" to the people you WANT to be able to talk in the room,

type this command: /mode #PrivateKidlit +v NICKNAME

To take voice away again, type: /mode #PrivateKidlit -v NICKNAME

Once you have moderated the chatroom, no one can talk in it except those with operator status and those the operators have given voice to.

Disruptive people won't be able to talk in the room anymore, so they will usually leave. It's no fun to hang around if you can't bug the people in the room.

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Ban/Kick

If using the moderated room and voice commands fails to work, then use the kick command. If the disruptive people keep coming back, or if they are talking very dirty and you don't want them to ever be able to come back, then use the ban command first, followed by the kick command.

As an operator, you have the power to kick people out of the chat room and to even ban them so they can't come back.

To ban someone, type:

/ban #PrivateKidlit NICKNAME

To kick someone out, type:

/kick #PrivateKidlit NICKNAME

If you need to kick someone out and want to make sure they can't come back (by banning them) it is highly recommended that you do the BAN command FIRST, then kick them out. If you do it that way, they won't be able to come back once you have kicked them out of the room.

If you ban someone by mistake, you can remove the ban by typing:

/chanserv unban #PrivateKidlit NICKNAME

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Blocking Private Messages

Should you start getting private messages from a person you don't want to talk to, there's a command you can use to stop them, too. (And this command doesn't need ops status. ANYONE can use this command.) Simply type: /ignore NICKNAME

Presto! They can no longer send messages to you.

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Limit Attendance

If you want to have a private chat with someone, and don't want anyone else to be able to come into the chat room, you can limit the number of people that the chat room will allow at any one time.

To limit the number of users, you would use a small letter L with the mode command. Capital L will not work. It must be a small L. To limit the number of users, type:

/mode #PrivateKidlit +l #OF_PEOPLE_HERE

Make SURE there is one space between the name of the chatroom and the +l and between the +l and the #of people allowed into the room.

Example: /mode #PrivateKidlit +l 2

This would limit the number of people in the room at any one time to two. /mode #PrivateKidlit +l 4 would allow up to four people in the room at once. Anyone more than that number of people trying to enter the chat room would get a message saying they couldn't enter the chat room.

To change the room back to unlimited usage, you would type this:

/mode #PrivateKidlit -l

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Changing the Topic Line

When you are in the chat room, you might wish to change the topic line so people would know the room was in use. To change the topic line, type:

/topic #PrivateKidlit NEW TOPIC TYPED HERE

Be sure to put the original topic line back when you leave so people won't think the room is still in use!

Original topic line is something like: Private Chat Room for Kidlit Users. If room is in use, please come back later.

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For More Privacy

To hide the chat room, so that it won't show up on anyone's list when they are hunting for chat rooms, change the room to a "secret" room, by using the Secret mode. To hide it, type:

/mode #PrivateKidlit +s

To "unhide" it when you are done using it, type:

/mode #PrivateKidlit -s

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MUST READ! ---> Your Nick

To change your nickname to something better, type:

/nick YOUR_NEW_NAME_HERE

If you get a message telling you your nick belongs to someone else, change it again. Try adding a ^carat or a _slash to the front or back of it. If that doesn't work, add some numbers to the end of it.

If you have a registered nickname, you should receive a message telling you the name belongs to someone else. Identify, and you will be allowed to use your name. This keeps anyone else from using your name except you.

To identify, type:

/nickserv identify YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE

Make SURE the / slash is the first character in the line or everyone in the chat room will see your password!

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MUST READ! ---> Complete Chat Room Commands List

Printable List


Verla Kay

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