How to be an op.

Be efficient. Be polite. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet - Sniper.

This is Aquarion's guide to how to be an effective channel op. It was written by Aquarion for #Maelfroth.

Technical Stuff

Making idiots go away.

This is the simplest one. This is how to kick someone off the channel, because they are being an arse, because they need to pay attention, or because you really want to and it's funny. Be really careful with the last, as it may put you in the same category as the first.

The command is:

/kick $username $reason

and will force them to quit the channel. This doesn't stop them whining at you in PM. /ignore $person will do that, but at the expense of not being able to hear them apologise if they realise what an arse they're being.

Nothing will stop someone who has been kicked returning to the channel, and persistent irritations may have things set up to automatically rejoin if they leave for any reason, including a kicking. The solution to this is banning:

Banning

/mode +b $ircname!$computerusername$host@

This will stop someone who matches what you put in there rejoining the channel. It will not kick them out, do that with /kick above.

Examples

Ban anyone using the IRC name "Football" from the channel:

/mode +b Football!@

(This isn't useful, as they could just change nickname. It's good for kicking people out for idling for months on end)

Ban anyone on AOL:

/mode +b !@aol.com
Again, not a good idea, but demonstrates hostnames. You can see the hostname by going /whois $username.
Ban anyone using my old University account:
/mode +b!ca9nav@isis.sund.ac.uk

This is good for people tied to a connection, as it doesn't matter what they rename themselves, they can't get back in.

Social Stuff