Why do we have channel rules? Well, look at it this way: If the city, town, or country you live in had no laws, the result would be total anarchy where anything and everything goes. That is not what our channel is all about. We are a channel where the chat doesn't stay x-rated, we don't tolerate flaming others constantly, and we do a lot of help with newbies wanting to get a handle on how to use their IRC client and learn proper IRC etiquette. Therefore we have some channel rules, and the channel operators (the nicks you see with a @ beside them in most IRC clients) have leeway to take care of anything they believe is getting out of hand, including kicking a user out, and kicking a user as well as banning them. Listen to the ops!
A brief version of our #Beginner Channel Rules:
Idlers may be kicked and banned from the channel at the discretion of the channel ops and autokicked without warning by the channel bots. How do you avoid this? Easy! Chat, participate in the channel. It's fun! We do not have a "set" time at which idlers get the boot, it varies at random. It might be after 30 minutes of idle one day, it might be after 4 hours the next day.
No harassment of others
No warez or ftp or video file trading
We permit people who have IRC scripts that play mp3 and wav files to do so, as long as it is not excessive. We do not permit mass mp3 trading. That is against DALnet rules and is a copyright violation in many localities
No advertising of anything in the channel or in private message to others
No porn
No cursing
No hacking
No trolling for dates or cyber sex
Channel ops and bots may kick users who idle for excessive lengths of time
Users who attempt to spread virii or trojans will be removed from the channel and DALnet
No flooding the channel with excessive text, color codes, etc. Over five lines of text within a few seconds will wake up the channel bots and they will ban you
Repeating the same text can get you kicked or banned
No excessive ctcp version/time/etc, or pinging of other users in #Beginner
Users with scripts found to do things that violate channel rules may be asked to turn those features off for the safety of others in the channel
Non-channel staff are NOT to act in the capacity of channel staff, that is, they are not to warn other users of perceived rules violations, or try to convince other users they are authorized to act on the behalf of channel operators, or "I op here or I used to op here, so I can tell you what to do", or any intimidation of other users, or give erroneous help to others
Help popups, if the ops have permitted you to use them, must conform to the channel rules, you are not permitted to issue channel warnings with or without popups
Bad attitude or feeling hostile? Please do everyone else a favor and take it elsewhere :-)
Attempts to circumvent a channel ban placed on you will result in more severe punishment
We do -not- deal with channel issues of other channels. If you ran afoul of the rules in another channel, that is between you and that channel's staff. Each channel has it's own staff and ownership
The #Beginner channel staff have the final say-so on what goes on in #Beginner. Please, if asked to cease doing something by the channel operators, please stop it. You act nice, they will act nice in return :-) If you were kicked or banned from the channel for a reason not covered above, don't complain. That's just the way it is, deal with it. The channel operators never do anything without a good reason.
One thing to remember about the many IRC networks and their channels, is every channel is independent of others in it's management and rules (or lack of them). You will be amazed at how many channels have no real set of rules and are run by the whims of the @ .. that is, they'll do whatever whenever they want to. Internet Relay Chat is quite literally the "Wild Wild West" of the Internet and always has been, so you are on a wild, sometimes fun, sometimes dangerous, sometimes amazing and challenging journey!
Our channel is only one of literally tens of thousands, and we encourage you to have fun and visit! There is a channel for everyone. No matter what your goal is on-line, you will find some like-minded people if you dig around enough on IRC. Remember, there are many IRC networks as well. If you don't find a channel on network "x" that is to your liking, visit other IRC networks until you do. Not every network has the cool nick and channel management features (ChanServ and NickServ) that DALnet does, some have variations of this, some have none, any nick or channel may be up for grabs. Our goal in DALnet's #Beginner channel is to help you learn about IRC and how to get where you are wanting to go.
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