Banning Idlers in #ubuntu-ops

[Sarah Hobbs]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

This has been in effect for a long time - longer than the IRC council
has existed for.  Hence, it hasn't been listed in one of the meetings.
Same with the DCC exploit handling, etc.

This is because we often have an op saying that they're going away for a
few hours/days/whatever.  It's not rocket science for would-be trolls to
work out if there are ops around or not, and when they're not, to spam
the channel.  Or to see various other things, and then attack the
channels based on those.

We have had multiple occurrences of trolls being in ubuntu-ops, and then
attacking the channels based on what they read there.  To combat this,
the policy of removing non-ops, or non-trusted/non-vouched-for people
was put in place.  So far, this has worked very well - we don't have our
decisions in #ubuntu-ops being used against us immediately.

We cant know everyone, and suggest you introduce yourself if you're an
op of a loco channel, etc.  If people don't know who you are (and we
tend to ask around the people who tend to stay around in the channel),
you'll get removed.

The topic warning is in place to warn people about this.  I'm unsure why
we're banning (or who was doing it), but a remove is usually the way to
go - at least, until the person automatically rejoins it.  Obviously,
for a client being set to auto-join the channel, just removing them is
useless, so it changes to a ban.

Hope this helps,

Hobbsee
(one of the people on the pre-irc op council, making that particular
decision)

Dave Walker wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've noticed one OP occasionally ban users he considers idlers in
> #ubuntu-ops.  I am not one of those affected, but have had somebody who
> has been contact me who is upset that they have been banned.
> 
> The person who was banned is an OP in a LoCo channel and it would seem
> apt, that this person is available in the Ubuntu OP's channel.
> 
> The ban comment is laid as, "The IRC council reserves the right to
> remove idlers from the channel".  I'm interested as to when this was
> agreed by the IRC council and if consultation with non IRC council
> members was conducted.
> 
> Kind Regards,
> Dave Walker
> 
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFHEZ6R7/o1b30rzoURAgDwAJ4iSwjQ2kssF/PDsxMnHC20zRE2CgCg8mLT
sW81l+aA6pLBZurK4kGePkg=
=Dgis
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----