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The No Longer Unwritten Rules of #hbo
(Set down in Silly Putty by Count Zero)
First, general politeness and good manners. Breaking these guidelines will just annoy people and lower their opinion of you, and the admins may ask you nicely to stop.
- Don't ask the user named "msn_working" or "shunji" to give you voice, or bother him in general. He's usually very busy.
- At least try to use proper spelling. Chat shorthand (lol, brb, etc) is acceptable, but illegible overuse ("u r dum") is not. Also, please capitalize the word I.
- Do not use excessive profanity, sexual language, or racial insults. We have no problem with the occasional cuss or mom joke, and sometimes arguments can get pretty heated, but if every other word is R-rated then you've gone too far.
- Don't piss off or harass the other users, even if they're not admins. The channel is a social venue like any other in the world, and people in it are to be treated politely and with respect. Please think before you hit return. Also, remember that the bounds of good taste are set by the admins, not by you (i.e. an off-color joke/insult/link that you might think is hilarious might not be so funny to the guy with the kick button).
Next, things that are officially "against the rules". Don't do these, really; if you do the admins will give you a slap on the wrist, either by kicking or devoicing you (usually after a warning, if you're new and don't have a history of bad behavior).
- Excessively and repeatedly violating any of the guidelines above.
- Asking for warez or other illegal content in the channel (including pirated mp3s). Yes, we know that pirating music is socially acceptable these days; it isn't here.
- Trying to socially engineer the other users (tricking them into typing "/quit", or do something the bot will automatically kick/ban them for, etc).
- Running automatic scripts in the channel. This is something of a gray area since scripts are useful most of the time, but buggy or accidental script use has caused problems in the past, so we found it easier to set down a unilateral rule. Running a script is not an automatic kick, but if an admin asks you to remove it, do so. Similarly, do not bring your own bots into the channel; they (and anyone else on that IP, such as you) will be banned.
- Excessive advertisement, especially if the subject is not really related to Halo.
- Helping someone evade a ban. If someone has been banned from the channel, that means the admins do not want to see or hear from them again for a while. Do not pass on chat from them into the room, and don't bother the admins on their behalf.
Finally, some serious rules. Breaking these will get you temporarily banned from the channel.
- Pasting pornographic or "taint" links (if you don't know what this means, you don't want to). This is not just our rule, it's a HomeLAN policy that we help enforce.
- Pasting chat from this channel to somewhere else on the Internet. What happens in the channel stays in the channel. People in the channel have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and if they are VIPs of any relevant body they are assumed to be speaking off the record. Also, airing dirty laundry to sway public opinion will not bring forgiveness and a lifting of your ban; instead it will almost certainly get you banned permanently.
- Ignoring lesser discipline. When an admin warns you that you are out of line or asks you to stop doing something, they're trying to give you a chance to realize the error of your ways without having it forced upon you. If an admin does take action, that is meant to send an even stronger message that what you were doing to provoke him was not acceptable, and that you should not do it again. The admins will always be happy to explain exactly what you were doing to earn a boot or devoice, in case it's not clear. Which brings us to the meat of this rule: If you are kicked or devoiced, and you do not modify your behavior as the admin requested, you will be banned.
If you believe you have been treated unfairly, please take it up privately (see serious rule #2) with the other admins or LouisWu.
There are also some behaviors that our bot, Lopez, will notice:
- Saying the same thing too often. If you say the same text (or even extremely similar text) more than twice in a short time, even if you say something else in between, you will be kicked. If you do this too often, you will be banned for chat flooding.
- Changing your nick too often. If you change name more than 3 times in a short period, you will be banned for nick flooding (changing name causes a line of text to appear on everyone's client; this can be abused to fill the channel with name change notifications).
- Joining the channel too frequently. If you leave and rejoin the channel more than 3 times in a short period, you will be banned for join flooding (like nick changing, joining causes text to appear in everyone's chat log).
- I've seen this happen at least once, so it's worth mentioning: If the bot is not working properly for any reason, that does NOT mean that you can do any of the above things without penalty; he will record that you did and you will be kicked or banned once he is repaired. And you will almost certainly be caught by a human admin anyway.
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