llamas

##llamas Rules & Guidelines

We are llamas. We’re a social channel with a fun environment, no fixed topic, and a community of friendly regulars.

For years, ##llamas has mostly operated without a clear set of rules or guidelines for interaction. This has had mixed results. While it has helped the channel avoid feeling stuffy, it has also lead to inconsistent responses to trolls. So, we’ve finally decided to write some stuff down. This should help chatters understand what’s expected of them, as well as help the ops be more consistent.

The Channel Atmosphere We Want

We want ##llamas to be broadly enjoyable, to provide a place where people can socialize in good faith. We have no interest fitting any specific viewpoint, narrative, or other agenda. We want a channel where people generally get along, and can unwind. Users of ##llamas should make an effort to be friendly towards others, and be able to reasonably trust that others are reciprocating the effort. Even during debates or arguments, we should be able to trust that everyone is arguing in good faith.

The Main Rule

Don’t significantly degrade the channel atmosphere.

This is a very broad and loosely-defined rule, and that’s that way for a reason. Our operators are generally permissive and understanding. Of course, there are plenty of types of behavior that we just don’t want, so here are those in more detail.

Examples of Unwanted Behavior

This list is not exhaustive; if a behavior is not listed here, that does not mean it’s allowed.

• Violating the Libera.Chat network policies. We are proactive in moderating unwanted content and behavior as defined by them.
• Quiet or ban evasion.
• Posting any form of sexual content, or links to indexes or directories of content. This includes but isn’t limited to:
  • Pornography.
  • Images or videos that primarily focus on genitals, even if the intent is not sexual.
  • Images or videos depicting nudity. Sorry, nudists.
  • Sexual roleplay, descriptions, or advances in the channel.
• Spam.
  • ASCII art and logs should be kept to 1 or 2 lines and used conservatively, or otherwise go in a pastebin-like service.
  • Some lenience is allowed for logs if they are relevant to the current conversation.
• Speech that explicitly degrades any particular demographic. In particular:
  • The use of racially-charged slurs.
  • Antisemitism.
  • Racism.
  • Sexism.
  • Homophobia.
  • Transphobia.
• Harassment, defined as doing any of the following to someone after they request it to stop:
  • Insulting someone.
  • Asking someone personal questions.
  • Calling someone a nickname that differs from their current and all of their grouped nicks.
• Knowingly spreading proven disinformation, mainly but not exclusively related to disproven conspiracy theories.
• Discouraging anyone from taking vaccines or prescribed medicine.
• Disclosing private personal information about someone that they have not explicitly and verifiably agreed to being disclosed.
• Threatening or attempting to harm someone, including by:
  • Committing crimes against them.
  • Accessing their devices or online accounts without their permission.
  • Harming their friends, family, and/or pets.
  • Attacking their livelihood (e.g. trying to get someone removed from their job or volunteer positions).
  • Blackmail.
• Habitually using ##llamas to promote political ideas without participating in any following critical examination of those ideas.
• Bringing personal drama or drama from other channels to ##llamas.

Examples of Permissible Behavior

• Profanity.
• Harmless silliness being someone’s only contribution to the channel.
• Discussing contentious topics such as politics, economics, social justice, the news, new or controversial science, etc.
  • An exception is made if someone is participating in order to be intentionally offensive to others.
• Posting some forms of non-sexual but NSFW content, so long as it’s appropriately tagged or age-gated.

Bot Policy

We have some additional rules regarding bots.

First of all, please don’t bring your bots to ##llamas. We may kick them without warning, and if they auto-rejoin, we will ban them.

That said, bots may be allowed in ##llamas on a case-by-case basis, so we also have a rule against bot abuse. Bot abuse is using a bot in a way that is not intended (as determined by the bot’s owner) and that negatively impacts the bot’s owner or anyone in the channel. Examples of bot abuse include:

• Using a bot in a way that causes spam.
• Using bot commands to circumvent ignores, quiets, or bans.
• Spamming the bots with messages, including in PM, especially if doing so may exhaust API request quotas.
• Exploiting any bugs in the bots.

Finally, if we do allow your bot in ##llamas, we may kick it at the first sign of it causing problems, or if intended use of the bot changes to something we don’t feel is desirable.

Operating Procedure

Operators will issue warnings before action is taken, with exceptions of especially egregious actions or behavior (especially quiet or ban evasion). If an operator warns you in an official capacity, you should heed their warning.

Most quiets will be temporary, and will expire automatically. Bans will only be issued in cases where the user’s mere presence in a channel should not be allowed to continue.

Contacting Ops

The preferred way to bring up an issue is to join ##llamas-ops and discuss it there. You can join even if you are quieted or banned from ##llamas, and we encourage people to dispute or ask about the duration of quiets and bans in ##llamas-ops instead of PM. We ask that people not idle there, and may kick idlers.

If op attention is required immediately (e.g. due to active spamming), you can say +ops in ##llamas.

You can use /msg ChanServ FLAGS ##llamas +o to view a list of ##llamas channel operators.

Non-Defenses

The following are not valid excuses or defenses for unwanted behavior:

• Ignoring operator warnings because you have the operator on /ignore.
• Claims of humor and joking, especially but not only if the “humor” is not explicitly tone-tagged.

Moderation Priority

New visitors to ##llamas deserve to feel comfortable, but when two users make each other uncomfortable, the comfort of someone who’s been a long-term and friendly participant takes priority over that of someone who hasn’t participated in the channel as much or hasn’t been particularly friendly.

Flexibility

It’s important to note that the above unwanted behaviors are examples, not an exhaustive list. If you feel you are being treated unfairly by others, or are bothered by the contact of others to the point that is causing you to not have an enjoyable experience, or have concerns about the rules, tell us about it in ##llamas-ops. We can’t promise any specific changes, but we will discuss your concerns.

Addenda

We know about the capital letter. We’ll change it when we have a way to do so without clearing the channel.