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docs/historical/opermyth.txt

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+Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 16:21:40-0700 (MST)
+To: operlist@the-project.org
+From: rayp@primenet.com (Ray Powers)
+Subject: The myths of opers....
+
+I've always wanted to write something like this.. Its half rant, half
+fact, so bear with it. Hopefully it will be worth reading.
+
+There's a lot of hate for opers for a lot of reasons. Some are directly
+oper related (i.e. 99% of us are colossal assholes), some are directly
+user related (i.e. 99% of you are raving lunatics), and some is just plain
+misconceptions. I'd like to take a minute to talk about part three in
+hopes of clearing a few things up. This will kind of be in a FAQ form,
+maybe you'll like it,  maybe not, but its worth a shot.
+
+Q: What can an oper on EFnet do.
+A: This is an EXACT list of what we can do:
+        1) /squit a server, separating it from the rest of the net
+        2) /die our server
+        3) /kill a user, this disconnects them from the server they are on
+        4) /kline a hostmask, this bans them from our server
+        5) /dline an ip, this bans them from our server, regardless of 
+           hostmask
+        6) See all invisible users on our server
+        7) Mass Msg/CTCP/notice a hostmask
+        8) Mass Msg/CTCP/notice a server
+        9) See and send Operwall/wallops notices
+
+That's it. We can see more server messages than you, but that's not the
+point.. The point to be shown here is very simple, *none* of these things
+have anything to do with channels. Which leads us to our next question.
+
+Q: What can opers *NOT* do, but keep being asked to anyways?
+A: We can *NOT*:
+        1) Enter a channel that is +i or +k without being invited or 
+           having the key
+        2) See who is inside a +s channel  
+        3) Op ourselves or op you on a channel (unless of course we are a 
+           channel op for that channel)
+        4) Tell you what XXXX's new nick is since they changed it to hide 
+           from you.
+        5) Deop someone for you on a channel (unless of course we are a 
+           channel op for that channel)
+
+Notice a trend, with the exception of 4, all of these are 100% channel
+related. EFnet is made so that opers have *NO* power of channels, for
+better or worse. If we don't help you with these requests, its not because
+we won't, its because we are completely incapable doing so. On the other
+hand....
+
+Q: What can opers do, but won't?
+A: This will be a bit differently done, because I figure I should explain 
+   why opers don't do these things, when they may normally make sense.
+        1) Why won't they kill somebody who has stolen your nick.
+              EFnet has gone on the basis of nicks not being owned, which is 
+           why there is no nickserv on EFnet.  Of course we see opers kill 
+           all the time for nicks, though, so it seems rather hypocrital, 
+           doesn't it?  
+              An oper who kills for his nick will tell you its because the 
+           other person was a bot, was juping his nick, or was imitating an 
+           oper.  It may be true, but it really comes down to the same 
+           feeling you get when your nick is taken "Hey! that's my name! I 
+           don't want that person using my name!" 
+              I personally, do not kill for nicks. If someone takes my nick, 
+           they can have it. Let them get my several hundred messages a day. 
+           :P  But the problem with the oper is this: How does an oper know 
+           that you are really the person that uses that nick, or are you 
+           the guy that wants to nick jupe that nick out from the real guy? 
+           Unless the oper knows you well, they don't.. And saying that 
+           people generally tell the truth means you haven't been on EFnet 
+           very long. 
+              I would prefer to think I am one of the more well respected 
+           people on the net and people still lie to me on a regular basis. 
+           So, the oper is stuck refusing to help because he can't tell who 
+           is who. Remember this line of reasoning, its going to be coming 
+           up a lot. :P
+        2) Why won't they kill that guy nuking/smurfing/ping -f'ing me?
+              This one is simple.  There is no way to prove that somebody is 
+           doing any of these things to you from an opers point of view. All 
+           logs are fakeable, and the oper has no way to firsthand prove its 
+           happening. Your best bet in this situation is to log what you can 
+           and complain loud and long to their ISPs.
+        3) Why won't they help me take my channel back?
+              There's a bunch of answers to this. First, it is popular 
+           opinion at EFnet that channels are not owned, and therefore, if 
+           you lose a channel, you should go make another one.  Notice I 
+           say popular instead of official, because EFnet has never had an 
+           "official" policy on much of anything. 
+              But more and more you see opers killing for takeovers, so why 
+           are they helping their channels and not yours.  
+              Well, first, let's say your channel was taken over, and is now 
+           +smtinlk. How exactly is the oper supposed to find out who is 
+           oped in the channel right now to mass kill them? Even if they do get 
+           all the nicks, they have to somehow manage to kill them all in 
+           one hit, or they'll all just op each other again and it will be 
+           fruitless. Or worse, they could have it all set up, and some 
+           other oper could kill them halfway through because they don't 
+           like mass-kills and it would be all ruined. 
+              Or, let's say the mass-kill goes off, then the channel is 
+           opless and generally speaking, chaos begins. People start 
+           mass-nuking or flooding the channel to clear it out, or just to 
+           be annoying. And there's still a 50/50 chance that takeover
+           people will get the channel back on a split and we'll have to try 
+           to do it all over again.  
+              If you're about to ask why they don't split their server,
+           the answer is very simple: We are not about to screw up roughly 
+           30,000 peoples chatting for your channel. Its rude. This of 
+           course is all based on the fact that we can prove its taken over, 
+           as per the conversation about nicks, we often can't.
+        4) But.. its obvious they took it from me! The topic says 
+           "Ha ha, we took your channel Rick!" for Pete's sake! And 
+           there's only One op, so you can kill him and get the channel 
+           back immediately!
+              This one is a bit more complex, but its really a personal 
+           call. That one op could be a rampant smurfpup with a penis so 
+           tiny he has no choice but to rampantly smurf and synflood anyone 
+           that gets in his way.  This is popularly known on irc as SPS, or 
+           Small Penis Syndrome.  In this case, if the oper does help you 
+           out, they could end up with their server being downed for a day 
+           or two, and it really isn't worth it for your channel, no 
+           offense.
+
+Keep in mind that this is all spoken from the perspective of someone who
+*DOES* help with channels when possible, but understands greatly the
+reasons not to, and judges each situation very carefully.
+
+That's the gist of the information I was trying to get across.  If you
+were cluefull enough to get on operlist, a lot of this may be common
+knowledge to you, but sometimes its good to step back and see why opers do
+what they do a lot of the time. 
+
+Hoping this is of value to SOMEONE....
+
+Ray Powers
+Monkster/MimePunk/PrimeMonk/PacMonk/MtgMonk/Ihavefartoomanynickstonickjupe
+