Personally there are many reasons why a regular user should get to decide 'certain' things in channels they do not run. The rationality of the op staff usually impacts their intelligence and their response to fairness

You want it both ways and you can't have it both ways. If you want an op staff where good cause is required for you to resign your status, you have to accept a negotiation where there are penalties for quitting without cause. Most ops really do want an at-will status agreement. That means they can make any demands on their founder for any reason and quit if they're not met. But it also means their founder can make any demands on them for any reason and demote them if they're not met.

You certainly can negotiate an agreement where certain reasons are not sufficient justification for being banned, but you had better expect that certain reasons are not going to be sufficient justification for quitting.

And then the channel lacks justice - justice for non-staff.

Justice is the virtue of evaluating people's conduct and character accurately and objectively and rendering to each person what he deserves, what he has earned. Justice is rationality in one's affairs involving others - adherence to reality in the sphere of interpersonal relationships.

Now, several things I probably won't cover, however logical, because of human nature.

-Op discretion.
-Temp bans.

Apparently, anything discretion is life. There's police discretion, juge discretion, etc. Not many points making Efnet #mIRC perfect when the world isn't anyways.

Temp bans, because a bot named herbie removes them, and then, channel ban incidents on the individual level seem to be forgotten easily.

And then I could sort of cut the op staff in half: ops who get pissed off easily, and ops who do not get pissed off easily. But then, a lot of other channels have that problem, as well as real life society.

Now for my complaints.

1.Pragmatism is not ethical for #mIRC.
Pragmatism is the doctrine that ops should do whatever works. The problem with this doctrine is that we cannot determine what works and what does not until we have a standard of value for comparing them. Once we have a standard of value their is no further question of what we 'should' do. Thus pragmatism is not a system of ethics because it does not tell us what to value and that is the role of ethics.

2.Banning the ident.

Like all channels, Efnet #mIRC has the same problem.

Banning the ident is like banning the nick.

Because we are in the Nick!Ident@Host format, where nick can be changed, and so can ident, it is meaningless to ban the ident, just as much as banning the nick.

The exceptions to this are when you specifically ban the nick/ident/host because it is offensive or a swear word, that way, they can "rightfully" evade by using 1 that is not offensive, etc.

Since nicks can be changed, as well as idents, it is meaningless to ban the nick, as well as the ident.

And my premise is based on the point of the ban - to prevent the person from /join'ing the channel. Not some random, social-engineering drama.

Now I don't want to hear the excuse "my mIRC by default bans the ident." That's just too lazy; I won't buy that for an excuse.

3.Are scripts allowed or not-allowed for non-staff?

I think there is several confusion going on on 1 particular rule: whether or not scripts can be run in the channel for non-staff.

Take a look at this for example.

[December 17 2007 Monday 09:47:45 AM] <03qwerty-> !country ba
[December 17 2007 Monday 09:47:46 AM] <12Hrung> ba corresponds to Bosnia and Herzegovina
[December 17 2007 Monday 09:47:46 AM] <logiclrd> qwerty-: Name for the .BA TLD is Bosnia and Herzegovina.
[December 17 2007 Monday 09:47:46 AM] <Mike`> Country code: .ba Name: Bosnia and Herzegovina Location: (43 52 N, 18 25 E) Southeastern Europe, bordering the Adriatic Sea and Croatia

So you have a +v triggering the scripts. So the 1st 1 is an op. The 3rd 1 is a mirc.com moderator. And then, don't know who thd 2nd 1 is, but the 2nd and 3rd are "regular users."

Now, there are 2 philosophies. Scripts that output to the channel, and scripts that don't output to the channel. I could have a script that shows the clones when a person joins the channel in a clone-detecting script for Efnet #mIRC. Would a no-script rule jurisdict that? Hopefully not, because we assume no one would know about it (unless you output it of course).

Which is why I find it significant to differentiate between scripts that output to the channel and scripts that don't output to the channel.

Anyone agree with me?

Because 1 philosophy I agree in when making a rule, is the ability to know when the rule is broken. And it shouldn't be "did you break the rule? Yes/no." (such as when the op wasn't there), because that's not reliable.

And then you say, "what about breaking an Efnet #mIRC outside the channel," and then I say, "that's off the subject. Because that's outside the channel jurisdiction. Channel rules have to have channel jurisdictions and it should only constitute inside the channel." For example, someone could be banned in Efnet #mIRC just for posting this topic.

4.The philosophy between channel ops and channel rules.

I see 2 philosophies when involving channel ops and channel rules.

They are.

1.Ops are someone who can enforce the rules and cannot break them.
2.Ops are someone who can enforce the rules and can break them.

I hope Efnet #mIRC is not the latter.

But it seems it is.

There was 1 incident (which I may not have the logs to back up), where, a channel op was using another nick, and said to me a porn site. A channel op instantly banned him. But then, whether instantly or a couple seconds later, the 3 bots, herbie, etc., removed the mask. Now of course, the op banned the ident, and the ident, was the channel op's real nick. Thus realizing that the op banned another op, he instantly shrieked and unbanned. Then the op rejoined either using the right nick, or /nick'd after, and opped up, and probably removing his ban. This was around a year ago.

And then of course, the op who banned the other op apologized, despite the fact that the op posted a porno link. Well, at least they know how to get along with 1 another..

Let's talk about, rationality.

We like Efnet #mIRC to be stable.

Thus, rules.

5.Modoc has a script that bans people whenever they say the f word.

Good idea, however, there are several external problems.

-If Modoc was not in the channel, then you would think someone else would ban kick users for saying the f word. But apparently, Modoc is the only op that had the script.

-Someone said the f word when Modoc was not in the channel. When Modoc joined, I reported Modoc about that situation. Did Modoc care? Apparently not.

-This goes back to my philosophy on channel ops and channel rules: ops can break them. When Karen` said the f word regarding President Bush in regards to the Terry Schiavo incident, she did not trigger Modoc's script. And when someone pasted a log of Karen` saying the f word, that user got ban kicked no doubt, and Karen` unbanned.

Personally I like this 1. Karen` gave the user the benefit of the doubt. She didn't care so much about enforcing the f word rule (or simply Modoc's script) and unbanned the user.

6.Kniht's scripts.

He ban kicks people for using nicks in all ____ with a kick message like "Please join with a more inappropriate nick," or something.

But guess what. He resigned. And when he did, that meant anyone joining the channel with a _____________ nick would no longer get automaticaly banned. What can we do about that?

Some other stuff Kniht had in his scripts which are less meaningful.

-If someone also joined the channel with a nick like Bill Gates, they would get instantly banned with a kick message.

-If someone joined using the nick Khaled, they would get banned with the no Khaled impersonation. This I like, but of course, I would want other ops to have this script too.

Why should certain channel rules be dependent on who's on the op list and who isn't? Can't they have rules for all of staff to enforce? Or maybe have none of the ops run the scripts, and let the bots run it.

Remember, we like rationality here. And we like rational staff. If we want a rational channel - then we need a channel run by rational staff. Pretty simple and pretty complicated. Pretty simple in terms of the idea - and pretty complicated in terms of who decides who is rational or not.

-Neal Conroy.