#guifications Channel Guidelines

We don't really have too many rules for the channel. It may look like a lot by reading, but many of these are just common sense practices or practices preferred by the Freenode IRC network's staff, just filled out in text for completeness and clarity. The main reason this page exists is because John Bailey saw a question about channel guidelines and thought it might be a good idea, even though almost no one reads documentation.

Note that these channel guidelines are not meant to control any person or his/her actions, but instead explain our stance on issues and give us a document to point to when someone feels we have treated him/her unfairly in the channel.

• Anyone spending any significant amount of time in the channel will discover we are uncensored. Language in the channel is often such that we would receive an R or NC-17 rating under the US movie rating system.
• The discussion topic is often changed to something that is not the channel topic (this is "off-topic") by developers or long-time channel regulars who have earned the right to do so.
  • We ask that users not start off-topic discussions. Participation in an off-topic discussion started by a developer or long-time regular is fine and in some cases encouraged.
  • Generally we will stop our off-topic discussions if a user enters with a problem, support request, etc.
  • We ask that any users participating in an off-topic discussion drop the discussion when the developers active in the discussion choose to do so.
  • Discussions often focus on things that will offend or disturb some people--references to sex and sexuality, alcohol, etc. As such, we fully expect people to use their own judgment in determining if our channel is the right place to go. If you will be offended by these discussion topics, it might be advisable for you to contact us via other mechanisms, such as mailing lists and/or the ticket system.
• Remember that Freenode policy prefers that those who have channel operator status not display their ops continuously. Therefore you will not normally see our developers in the channel having ops, as we take the capabilities only as needed. All our developers do, however, have operator capabilities and will use them if they desire or are provoked into doing so.
• Troublesome users will be removed from the channel with a kick. A repeat offense will be handled with a /remove that prevents autorejoin. Another repeat offense will result in a ban. This is the suggested order of escalation, but may not always be followed, depending on the merits of the situation.
• Users who have been banned and evade the ban will be reported to Freenode staff. Ban evasion is grounds for a k-line, preventing the person from connecting to the IRC network. Note that a silence ban (+q on Freenode, shown as +b %nick!?=username@hostname where ? is either i or n, depending on whether ident is available) is a ban, like it or not.
• Only developers (channel operators) and the CIA project may run bots in the channel. Unsanctioned bots will be banned and removed from the channel.
  • We run a bot that announces wiki page edits, ticket changes, etc. in the channel.
  • We have configured a  CIA project and through that project requested that a bot run in our channel.
    • This bot announces commits to our Mercurial repository via PRIVMSG to the channel--this is a normal message.
    • When we are in a particularly active development cycle, these announcements can cause a lot of channel activity, but we find it useful.
    • This is behavior we won't change, so we suggest ignoring CIA-* or avoiding the channel if you don't like this behavior.
• Note that we like our channel just how it is, and aren't going to change it any time soon ;)

The channel bot also logs all activity (joins, parts, nick changes, and messages) in the channel.

• These logs are not made public. They are used simply for the developers' own personal reference in the event of development discussions that have taken place in-channel.
• Should a meeting occur in which only developers (channel operators) are allowed to speak, the channel will be marked +m (moderated--only operators and those granted voice may speak) and relevant sections of the log shall be copied from the log files to serve as official logs of the meeting.