This Channel is premised on the belief that free discourse leads to healthy dissent and positive action.  It is based on the fact that Chatters are the life blood of any channel as they are the ones who do the largest share of the work in maintaining an active channel, keeping chat flowing and making new channel members feel welcome.  Chatters are a channel's greatest asset and should be treated as such, just as they should treat those who help to maintain the channel with the same level of respect.


Not permitted by Chatters or Ops.

Name Calling and Insult
	OK - I disagree with you.  I think that is a stupid idea.  That will lead to disaster.
	Not OK – You are a moron.  Only morons think like that.  Fuck you.
Verbal Harassment
	Harassment of an individual or an op both count.   Harassment includes
Badgering
Long winded complaints about op behavior or rules.  There is a committee to discuss that.  Once you are referred to committee please stop.
Excessive pejorative language against any group
Excessive crudity and/or profanity
	The occasional curse word for emphasis is okay,  but when you make the sailors blush it’s time to cut back.
No posting of WHOIS or other personal information of others
No abuse of color or caps
	Emphasis is allowed,  but if it becomes the norm in your postings it’s too much.

Violation of the rules.

If the violation is small, or if a chatter is new,  the op may choose to warn in /notice or /msg.     By keeping the initial op warnings ‘under the table’ is an attempt to avoid confrontation and blowing things up in public.

If the action continues,  the op may choose to kick the chatter as a strong warning, or to do a kick/ban to allow for a cooling off time.  The guidelines for duration are given below in the op guide.

If a Chatter or Op has a complaint, they have right of complaint and appeal through the Channel Committee.  Any complaints or suggestions should be sent by PM to a Channel Committee member.  Complaints should be stated simply and be accompanied by log of any such incident(s).  All complaints, including complaints about Ops, will be forwarded to and handled by the Channel Committee.

Additional Rules for Ops:

Ops have a duty to not only adhere to the same rules as chatters but have additional obligations as follows:

Channel Ops answer to the Channel Committee and Channel Owner with regards to conduct.


The Channel Committee shall be comprised of seven (7) members, three (3) who have been selected by Chatters, three (3) who have been selected by Channel Ops, along with an Admin Op selected by the Channel Owner.  The Committee will select a spokesperson(s) to serve as Liason for purpose of communication with Channel Owner.  Committee meetings to discuss requests and complaints will be held on a regular basis in a separate private channel, no less than monthly, as decided by the members. The Channel Owner may appoint additional committee members as necessary.

It is the duty of the Channel Committee to ensure that Chatters and Ops both are treated equally and to work with fairness in order to resolve complaints.  Any Chatter or Op who abuses this system by using insult or harrassment during their complaint process may lose their right of appeal for that issue.  Any Channel Committee member who abuses the system with regard to fairness will be replaced.  The Channel Committee answers directly to the Channel Owner, through their selected Liason Member.

KICK or BAN RULES:

No KoB for personal reasons or past history with chatter
No bans for something you just noticed in your scroll that is older than 30 minutes.   The damage has been done and worked out.  If they have continued the behavior,  then you have an example more recent than 30 minutes.
No KoB  for difference in viewpoint
Chatters coming back to channel after a ban have a clean slate and are not to be banned unless they again abuse the rules.

No bans set for longer than necessary:
Simple misconduct: Anything from a kick up to a 24  hour ban,
Chronic misconduct:  Anything from a kick to a 120 hour ban
Flamers and Flooder bans should be set at 1500 hours in order to easily identify them in the ban list.

Any request for perm bans must be sent to the Channel Committee.  Chatters have right of appeal, however, permanent bans and appeals to said bans will not be considered by the Committee unless request for the ban or appeal contains the full log of the incident(s) or presented with inflammatory insult.