No Bots in Channel... Help, what do I do?

Scenario
This page is derived from one in the ops section of undernet.org #Christian. Use the channel names of your choice as you apply these principles. It was written because for two months in early 2001, the whole of Undernet lived according to these rules.

It is to the credit of those ops and regulars in Undernet's #Christian (and other channels) who followed these instructions that those channels kept going with a minimum of disruption during the worst period in Undernet's history...

For those who are unaware, there was a complete withdrawal of Channel Service facilities by Undernet while they effected damage control, and it was two months to the day after the withdrawal of W and X that they made an announcement about the return of X. The problem was due to prolongued attacks on the servers which provide this free chatting service.

The scenario described is not likely to happen normally unless a major netsplit occurs, and the channel service bot goes as well as logos. Remember that if channel service is down, channel service's database is down as well, and nobody is going to give you ops because there is no access to the database.

Another possible scenario is where a channel becomes unregistered. As much caution as in the former case - sometimes even more - is needed, to prevent a take-over.

ALWAYS beware of pretend channel service bots who send you a message asking for authentication. They are ALWAYS frauds. In every major netsplit there is a rash of these. However, the nicks of channel service bots are now protected on most networks.

The first thing to understand is that if there are no bots (opped) and no people opped, there is absolutely nothing that can be done in enforcing any discipline in channel AT THAT TIME.

If anyone is opped, they should op as many known to be reliable people - preferably authorised channel ops. Note that a bot that is not opped is as useless as a person who is not opped.

If there is pandemonium in channel as a result, fortunately there IS a WAY OUT. Our advice in these circumstances is simple.

Create a new channel and get as many trustworthy people to join it after you, and give them all ops. If you can trust them, it does not matter if they are regular channel ops, but you need to be sure that you can trust them, or you will be in the soup again :)

Join that channel, and if it is empty (apart from you, that is - lol), use it.

If you do not have access to ops in the bots in the channel you choose, find another channel. You will be no better off than where anarchy currently prevails :(

Set this new channel to +t +n +m +i immediately, and manually voice each person who joins if they are a "desirable" person.

/mode #newchannel +snti

The modes +s, +n and +t should be set. +m is moderation, and +i is joining by invitation only.

Then invite those in the regular channel to come and join you. If someone keeps posting a "come and join us" message in your botless channel, few folk will be lost. A good message would be (perhaps)...

/me advises we have set up a channel at #whateveritsname with ops in it.
Please come and join us there.

Then, of course you need to manage your botless channel :)

Each person who wants to join needs to be "invited"...
There is a simple command you can send to do this. It is...

/invite nick #channel

Commands that can be used
In the event described above, or in the event that there are ops who can op other people (but no bots), remember that all of the basic IRC (internet Relay Chat) commands should still work.

This means, anyone who is opped can kick, ban, moderate, demoderate, voice, devoice, set the channel for no external notices, secret, invitation only, limit the numbers, need a password, etc.

This is why it is a good thing if all ops should understand a bit about how "the system" works, rather than relying completely on their chat program and the bots.

The mIRC chat client allows you to set these modes in the dialogue box which comes up if you double-click in the (new) channel window.

For those who don't use mIRC, here are some basic get-you-out-of-trouble commands...

SECURITY MODE -
SECRET,
NO EXTERNAL MESSAGES,
TOPIC SET ONLY BY OPS
AND ROOM SET TO INVITATION ONLY
/mode #channelname +snti

PUT THE ROOM ON INVITE ONLY
/mode #channelname +i

REMOVE INVITE ONLY
/mode #channelname -i

PUT THE ROOM ON MODERATE & INVITE ONLY
/mode #channelname +mi

UNMODERATE & REMOVE INVITE ONLY
/mode #channelname -mi

LIMIT NUMBER IN ROOM
/mode #channelname +l nn
- where nn is the number of people you think you can handle

REMOVE ROOM LIMIT
/mode #channelname -l

In closing this section, when the last person leaves a temporary channel "the lights go out"... no need to reset modes etc... the channel ceases to exist.

The following would be appropriate commands to insert in a mIRC popup menu if you don't run a script and are familiar with building popup menus. The Channel menu would be the least cluttered, most quickly found, and the most appropriate.

There is one menu item called No bots mode... (the three dots after it is a convention which points towards a cascading menu.

The cascading menu would give you the choices discussed above, and the syntax to place in the popups.ini file would be like this...

n6=No bots mode...
n7=.+snti:/mode # +snti
n8=.invite:/mode # +i
n9=.uninvite:/mode # -i
n10=.mod&invite:/mode # +mi
n11=.unmod&uninvite:/mode # -mi
n12=.modes +snt:/mode # +s+t+n
n13=.limit number:/mode # +l $$?="type chatroom limit:"
n14=.remove limit:/mode # -l

A script like this will substitute the channel name for the # symbol if it is used in a channel window. This is therefore a *very* useful pop-up menu to have as it will work in any channel - including an emergency one you have set up to replace the regular channel if anarchy is prevailing in there.

That will save the time involved in retyping commands at a moment when you are trying to watch what's going on. Good reason to use some sort of automation in your chat proggy.

There are many simple scripts that can be found on-line to try out. You don't need a humungously big one :)

Remember these Commands
Your chat client should work correctly in this mode, but if it doesn't, here is the syntax to use when typing kick and ban commands...

KICK

/kick #channel nick

KICK and BAN

/kick #channel nick | /ban #channel nick