Abusive IRC Operator

[Graceful]

I go by "Graceful" on EFnet, though my nickname has been taken over by probably the same person(s) who DOS'd me repeatedly the night it was stolen, and who have tried to convince people they are me—even trying to gain operator status in the channels I formed.

This is the impostor:
--- [Graceful] (someone@didn't.read.the.forum.rules) : sabre
--- [Graceful] irc.inet.tele.dk :Better than WoW

Last year, with the help of several others, I took on a project to start a series of <b>hurricane help and information channels</b> to help people survive the storms. One such channel is #Katrina. As the storm hit, #Katrina's population began a rapid increase, at one point reaching a population of nearly 200 people. When #Katrina began to get too much attention from those on #EFnet who attack other users, <oper>, an IRC operator, joined #Katrina and started removing the problem people, and for the helpful things <oper> did, we will always be grateful.

But <oper> stayed in the channel, and while we were desperately trying to help the hurricane victims and their families find information they needed to live or save their loved ones, <oper> frequently took it upon herself to pull the discussion off-topic while cussing at other operators and users in the channel. <oper> persisting with this behavior after having it pointed out that she was violating the channel's clearly posted family-friendly policies and that we were trying to keep the channel focused to help save people, and <oper> even continued after being asked by more than one channel operator to stop cussing and stay on topic. When I have tried to talk to her about the inappropriateness of her in-channel behavior and treatment of the other ops, her response was to argue with me, call me names and tell me that my ideas are unreasonable. <oper> argues that no one on EFnet should try to have an on-topic or family-friendly channel, with "censorship ended in the '40s" being a favorite slogan of hers.

Since <oper> did not agree with the channel's policies, instead of cooperating, she persisted in remaining in the channel (after being nicely asked to desist) hounding the channel's operators, making subversive comments and derailing the channel's help and information topic--even starting anti-American debates*. After several days of <oper>'s abuse, the channel's other operators asked me to deop her, and I asked her as nicely as I could to stop opping in there, but after <oper> refused to stop, the other operators started to leave. <oper>, along with new ops who have come in (supposedly to help the channel) have taken control of #Katrina. I thought the IRC operators from #chanfix were supposed to protect against channel takeovers—not take over channels, themselves!

All of the #Katrina's original operators have asked or demanded that I deop <oper> and make her leave. Hopefully, my saying so will not result in <oper>'s harassing them, as she has been harassing me. <oper> has taken to following me from channel to channel. Hopefully, <oper> is observing in those other channels that not all EFnet channels are as raunchy or combative as she seems to think they should be, and that non-raunchy channels can actually be pleasant.

My questions are:
• Is it reasonable to assume that all current and future attempts to form family-friendly or disaster help channels on EFnet will be taken over by <oper> or other IRCops?
• I did not think so at the time, but would it have been appropriate for me to de-op and ban <oper> or any IRCop when they persisted in violating channel policy and derailing the channel's ability to serve its purpose, or was there another way to get people like <oper> to cooperate while allowing them to save face? (Trying to reason with her made her angry and more argumentative and after that, she started following me around.)

* I agreed at the time and still agree that there were many good points made that should be discussed, but we formed #Katrina-Debate and other channels for people to argue side issues or chat--it was extremely insensitive to be bashing Americans in the designated hurricane help and information channel when several of the nearly 200 people in the channel were there, hoping for help with finding lost loved ones who quite possibly were drowning at the same moment <oper> was carrying on with her anti-American comments.

As per the forum rules, names have been deleted, as have hosts. The "Read This" forum is there for a reason -- Pills

[Manic]

Wow, now thats possibly the longest unsubstantiated post I've ever had the misfortune to read.

You will of course have logs of all of this, or you wouldn't have bothered to make the post. I find it quite amusing that you decide to run off to the forums, instead of actually mailing or speaking to an admin, myself or JamesOff in this case.

I did have a whole post typed out, explaining how I don't actually believe a word you say, but, I decided to go with the quick, shut up and post some logs, or kindly go away and investigate what I had for breakfast this morning.

I would do some further investigation, but frankly, I think you have wasted enough of mine and everyone elses time.

Also, you claim the channel was created 'last year'

Channel #katrina created Tue Jul 19 07:06:00 2005

If you feel you don't want to post the proof of what you claim, I'll expect to see them sent to irc-admin@demon.net else I'll assume you are an attention seeker / time waster.

[wundr]

First, if I remember correctly, is not allowed to post people's hostnames and it is also not allowed to flame individuals on here, so your post probably will get edited before many people see it. As Manic said, you should contact the server admin of the oper's server (which, in this case, is him).

My questions are:
• Is it reasonable to assume that all current and future attempts to form family-friendly or disaster help channels on EFnet will be taken over by <deleted> or other IRCops?

Are you seriously asking if opers in general are out to ruin all family-friendly channels? I would hope you would know better than that. Of course opers aren't out to destroy family-friendly channels. Opers are, for the most part, just like regular users on EFNet. Some regular user can disturb your channel by swearing and other disruptions just the same as an oper.

• I did not think so at the time, but would it have been appropriate for me to de-op and ban <deleted> or any IRCop when they persisted in violating channel policy and derailing the channel's ability to serve its purpose...

If it is your channel, then that is your call. You are allowed to ban opers all you want. Deal with them just the same as you would a normal user.

[lucy]

...I decided to go with the quick, shut up and post some logs, or kindly go away and investigate what I had for breakfast this morning.

If you feel you don't want to post the proof of what you claim, I'll expect to see them sent to irc-admin@demon.net else I'll assume you are an attention seeker / time waster.

dont post logs here - against forum guidelines...
best to email them since logs would only get removed.

[Graceful]

1. You said: "Wow, now thats possibly the longest unsubstantiated post I've ever had the misfortune to read. You will of course have logs of all of this, or you wouldn't have bothered to make the post". The forum rules forbid the use of logs because they can easily be faked.

2. You said: "I find it quite amusing that you decide to run off to the forums, instead of actually mailing or speaking to an admin, myself or JamesOff in this case". I spoke directly to the IRCop who was causing the problems, and that only made the situation worse. I'm sorry if my asking all the EFnet admins about this bothers you, but since I am not asking for direct action against the IRC Operator, it seemed to me to be more of an EFNet policy question.

3. You said: "Also, you claim the channel was created 'last year'", but that is not what I said. I said: "Last year, with the help of several others, I took on a project to start a series of <b>hurricane help and information channels</b> to help people survive the storms. One such channel is #Katrina."

I appreciate the speed of your response, but you overlooked both of my questions.

My questions are:
• Is it reasonable to assume that all current and future attempts to form family-friendly or disaster help channels on EFnet will be taken over by <name omitted> or other IRCops?
• I did not think so at the time, but would it have been appropriate for me to de-op and ban <name omitted> or any IRCop when they persisted in violating channel policy and derailing the channel's ability to serve its purpose, or was there another way to get people like <name omitted> to cooperate while allowing them to save face?

[Graceful]

1. You said: "First, if I remember correctly, is not allowed to post people's hostnames and it is also not allowed to flame individuals on here, so your post probably will get edited before many people see it. As Manic said, you should contact the server admin of the oper's server (which, in this case, is him)."

OK! I have not used this forum or other communication like this before, and I assume(d) anything inappropriate would be taken out, and that it was best to identify the individual I was talking about. It seemed ineffective to ask the questions without trying to describe the situation as accurately as I could--if someone was talking about me, it would seem weird for them to call me "the user" or <deleted>, but I will remove identifying information, hereafter.

2. You said: "

My questions are:
• Is it reasonable to assume that all current and future attempts to form family-friendly or disaster help channels on EFnet will be taken over by <deleted> or other IRCops?

Are you seriously asking if opers in general are out to ruin all family-friendly channels? I would hope you would know better than that. Of course opers aren't out to destroy family-friendly channels. Opers are, for the most part, just like regular users on EFNet. Some regular user can disturb your channel by swearing and other disruptions just the same as an oper."

I have always been very well-treated by the EFNet IRCops, and while I can understand the oper's passion, I was very surprised about what happened. I thought that perhaps there had been some change within the EFNet system.

3.

• I did not think so at the time, but would it have been appropriate for me to de-op and ban <deleted> or any IRCop when they persisted in violating channel policy and derailing the channel's ability to serve its purpose...

If it is your channel, then that is your call. You are allowed to ban opers all you want. Deal with them just the same as you would a normal user.[/quote]

Well, OK, but deopping and banning would have seemed very rude and disrespectful, and I *do* appreciate the work she did to help us and to protect people on EFnet.

[lucy]

My questions are:
• Is it reasonable to assume that all current and future attempts to form family-friendly or disaster help channels on EFnet will be taken over by <name omitted> or other IRCops?

no thats not a reasonable assumption... continue forming family-friendly/disaster-help channels on efnet.

• I did not think so at the time, but would it have been appropriate for me to de-op and ban <name omitted> or any IRCop when they persisted in violating channel policy and derailing the channel's ability to serve its purpose, or was there another way to get people like <name omitted> to cooperate while allowing them to save face?

yes you can deop-ban any ircop from your channel for whatever reason you want.

[Graceful]

My questions are:
• Is it reasonable to assume that all current and future attempts to form family-friendly or disaster help channels on EFnet will be taken over by <name omitted> or other IRCops?

no thats not a reasonable assumption... continue forming family-friendly/disaster-help channels on efnet.

• I did not think so at the time, but would it have been appropriate for me to de-op and ban <name omitted> or any IRCop when they persisted in violating channel policy and derailing the channel's ability to serve its purpose, or was there another way to get people like <name omitted> to cooperate while allowing them to save face?

yes you can deop-ban any ircop from your channel for whatever reason you want.

[Pills]

Whee, that was fun. As it is, the oper in question's admin saw this post.

I just can't believe that you let this go on for "days". If someone's acting like an idiot, get rid of them. CHANFIX would've backed up that you were one of the main ops of the channel, if you were worried about a potential takeover. Why does an op need permission to de-op someone? Yeesh.

[wundr]

It seemed ineffective to ask the questions without trying to describe the situation as accurately as I could--if someone was talking about me, it would seem weird for them to call me "the user" or <deleted>, but I will remove identifying information, hereafter.

But you also said in another post:

I am not asking for direct action against the IRC Operator, it seemed to me to be more of an EFNet policy question.

You can definitely describe a situation and ask a policy question without using specific names.

I'm sorry if my asking all the EFnet admins about this...

Keep in mind that this forum is NOT read by all (or even many) IRC admins. This is an unofficial discussion forum that is meant to be used to discuss EFNet-related topics, not an official support forum.

I have always been very well-treated by the EFNet IRCops, and while I can understand the oper's passion, I was very surprised about what happened. I thought that perhaps there had been some change within the EFNet system.

No, as far as I know, there has been no official EFNet policy change to actively destroy all helpful and family-friendly channels.

Well, OK, but deopping and banning would have seemed very rude and disrespectful

OK, fine, then don't ban her. Like I said, that's your call whether to ban her or not. As far as opers' capabilities on EFNet, they mostly just have the same capabilities as regular users. They can't join channels through bans or restrictive channel modes. If you don't take action to remove her from the channel, then she'll probably stay.

[Graceful]

It is in the last line of the original.

Whee, that was fun. As it is, the oper in question's admin saw this post.

I just can't believe that you let this go on for "days". If someone's acting like an idiot, get rid of them. CHANFIX would've backed up that you were one of the main ops of the channel, if you were worried about a potential takeover. Why does an op need permission to de-op someone? Yeesh.

[Graceful]

Many good people came to help with #Katrina, and I appreciate all the efforts--even the efforts that ended up being counter-productive. The channel got HUGE over a very short period of time, with a lot of charged-up emotions, and the ops team we started with was not large-enough or fully-prepared. In retrospect, we needed experienced *teams* to manage the channel instead of everyone trying to do everything. But, for the most part, I think the channel was somewhat successful at helping people during the critical time period, and that was the whole purpose for starting the channel.

Without the help of the EFnet IRCops and others who rushed in to help, I have *zero* doubt that the channel would have been complete chaos during the time when it most-needed to be somewhat orderly to support people who were struggling to survive the storm.

If you came to help, I deeply appreciate your efforts on our behalf.

THANK YOU!