Guide to the SCP Foundation IRC Chatrooms

This guide outlines the SCP Foundation IRC chatrooms, and the rules and expectations therein. All of our chatrooms are IRC channels in the SynIRC irc network. If you don't know what anything I just said means, you can find some help here: http://www.ircbeginner.com/ircinfo/ircc-commands.html.

For further information: Google is a lovely and welcoming friend.

For the purposes of this guide, we'll be focusing only on #Site19, General Chat. The other IRC channels have their own rules and administration, talk with an operator there if you have any questions.

Introduction to #Site19

#site19 is open to all: you don't have to be a site member to join. It's a great place to talk about SCPs, get advice about your article, and the like. It's an even better place to socialize with members of the site from around the world, including some of our oldest and most involved members. The chat, like the wiki, has a variety of rules that you will be expected to follow. Claiming ignorance of a rule is never a proper defense, so read these rules and take them to heart.

Registering

You must have a registered nick to join #Site19. For those unfamiliar with registering a nick, here's how to do it:

Type the following: /msg NickServ register [password] [email]

Substitute the stuff in brackets with your desired password and email. (And remember to not leave in the brackets!) Once this is done, you should get a confirmation email. Follow the directions in the email. Once that's all taken care of, to identify, you simply type "/msg nickserv identify [password]" without the quotes. Alternatively, "/ns identify [password]" works as well on some clients. (Again, no brackets.)

Congratulations, you have now registered and identified and can join the channel. Some chat clients can ID automatically once you've registered. It is highly recommended that if you don't ID automatically, you don't type out the command in a public channel. If you screw up and, say, forget the / or type a space in front of it, you just announced your password to everyone.

Connecting

Here are some common free IRC clients:

• Xchat - Windows: http://www.silverex.org/download/ , Linux: http://xchat.org/
• Chatzilla (Firefox) - http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/
• mIRC (Windows) - http://www.mirc.com/
• Mibbit (Web) - http://www.mibbit.com/
• Pidgin (Multiplatform IM) - http://www.pidgin.im/

Instructions for mIRC

1. Copy paste this (without quotations) "irc://irc.synirc.net" into your browser and hit enter.
2. Type "/join #site19"

Instructions for Chatzilla

1. Copy this into the text bar: /attach irc.synirc.net (or just click here: irc://irc.synirc.net/site19)
2. Type /join #site19

If you still want to use a brower based client:

Instructions For Mibbit

1. Go to http://www.mibbit.com/chat
2. Select "SynIRC webirc" from the drop down menu.
3. Pick an appropriate handle, and put "#site19" in the channel(s) box.
4. Enjoy your pie.

General Principles

• When in doubt, apply Wheaton's Law: Wheaton's law states, quite simply, "Don't be a dick." So if you're doing something, and it makes you a dick? Don't do it. That covers 90% of everything in the rules below.

• These rules are by no means exhaustive: No set of rules can cover every possible situation. That doesn't mean that just because something is left out in these rules, it's not important. Where there is any doubt, the decision of the OP is final.

Banning

If you break the rules to the point where the OPs deem that the chat would be better off without you, you will most likely get banned. You can appeal bans you don't think were warranted, but don't expect any sympathy unless you both have a damn good explanation and a damn reasonable attitude.

Doing any of these things will probably get you banned immediately:

• The Game.
• Trolling the entire site. You know who you are.
• Threatening members, the site, or the chat.
• Taking personal grudges beyond this room or this site, i.e. harassing a user elsewhere.
• Ban evasion.
• Being underage.
• Spamming.
• Having a Homestuck wallpaper. I was told to add this in. Ask Waxx about it if you have questions.- Scantron

Doing any of these things will probably get you banned if you keep it up:¹

• Asking people for nudes.
• Failing to tag non-work safe images.
• Telling us how great or terrible your sex life is.
• Talking about how high you are, or what drugs you do.
• Excessive /me's. You'll see this repeated several times, which should give you a clue as to how annoying it is.
• Excessive evangelism about how great linux is, how much windows sucks, or what a piece of shit internet explorer is, and so on and so forth. Nobody cares.
  • This reasoning extends to other subjective, highly debated topics: don't act like your opinion is fact.
• Being stupid or creepy.
• Disobeying the OPs.
• Excessive rudeness.

For elaboration, read on.

Chat Behavior

• No Spamming: This is one of the most bannable offenses we come across in the chat. Anything where you disrupt the flow of the chat by making repeated posts with no content is considered spamming. This includes advertising other sites or products, by the way. And excessive name changes.
  • On a related note: do NOT feed the trolls. Don't encourage disruptive behavior, don't comment on it. Just ignore it as best you can and move on. Feeding trollish behavior is trolling in itself.
• No Roleplaying: There are rooms made specifically for this. Take your excess of /me's there, please. Some playing around is usually permitted but try to keep it from cluttering up the discussion. If you need to change your name for it, then it's too far. Go elsewhere.
• Be Civil: Anything excessively derogatory, racist, sexist, homophobic, et cetera, will not be tolerated. This being the internet, we do expect people to play around, even disagree with each other, but flaming and nasty behavior is strictly discouraged. "Just stating your opinion" or the like is not an excuse.
• Leave your baggage at the door: Disagreements outside the chat should stay outside the chat. This is not Facebook. We're not interested in your personal drama.
• Be Understandable: This is a writing community. The primary language is English. We expect you to use the language properly so we can understand you. This also applies to your chat nickname: Names with unnecessary numbers or alternative characters in them are discouraged though not strictly prohibited. Don't use colored text in chat. Don't spam. Don't use excessive formatting. Don't lay on the capslock too thick.
• Maturity: The SCP Foundation is a creepypasta wiki that covers some fairly mature subject matter. We expect chat users to be able to handle the same level of mature subject matter. For this reason, children under the age of 15 are strictly forbidden from entering the chat, as are any people who have a similar maturity level. If you're under 15, don't advertise it.
  • On that note, any NSFW (Not Safe For Work) content MUST be tagged as such. This applies even if you think it's obvious from the link name: tag ALL NSFW content. NSFW generally covers nudity and gore, but final discretion goes to OPs.
• Special Snowflake Rule: If there's some aspect of yourself (a mental or physical condition, a fetish, a lifestyle, a nationality, some other quirk, etc.) that you feel the urge to bring up in order to bring attention to yourself, don't. Of course, we're not asking you to not be that thing, or to deny it if asked directly, but don't interject aspects of yourself into a conversation to get attention, or in a manner that unnecessarily draws attention to you.
  • As a side note, your mental problems are not an excuse to act inappropriately or idiotically. You will be held to the same standards as everyone else.

Chat OPs

Chat OPs are the people we trust to run the channel and keep order. They have the following powers:

• Bossing you around: This essentially means ending a discussion or calling for a change of topic, or telling one user or group of users to shut up. If an OP tells you to drop a subject, drop it immediately: don't get in the last word, don't say one more thing, just stop and move on.
• Kicking users from the chat: This just removes you from the chat until you rejoin. If you're kicked, feel free to re-enter unless told otherwise. However, if you were kicked, it's for a reason, so if you get kicked for doing something, stop doing that thing. OPs used to be able to kick for lulz, but that's no longer allowed.
• Banning users: Prevents the user from speaking or joining the chat; often accompanied by a kick. Usually preceded by a warning (except for egregious offenses), bans can be temporary, usually 24 hours, or permanent. If you get permabanned, wait a year or so, and if you can show that you've improved, you might be let back in.
  • If you see someone kicked and banned for something that isn't banworthy, and then unbanned shortly afterwards, that's just to stop people's autojoin from activating. Don't sweat it.
• Setting Channel Modes: The only one of these you really have to worry about is +m, which prevents anyone who doesn't have OP or Voice from talking. If an OP sets the channel to +m to talk, listen up, and don't change your name to comment on the situation.

Respect the OPs: The Chat OPs in #site19 are, for the most part, not evil. They're there to keep the chat moving smoothly and to deal with any problems as they come up. Don't make their life harder.

• In particular: if an OP is carrying out disciplinary actions, that is not the time to make stupid smartass comments. It's also not the time to "backseat mod". Hopping in on berating a user who has broken the rules is unhelpful and makes you look bad.
• If you think a chat OP is abusing their power, tell someone. Start with a different OP first. The final authority in the chat is Waxx, the Chat Owner: report any serious misuses of authority to him.

While there is quite a bit of overlap between wiki staff and chat staff, they are not one and the same: we have several Chat OPs who are not Wiki Staff and should not be treated as such. Likewise, not all staff on the wiki have power in chat, and should not be expected to wield any.

Discussion Suggestions

The primary purpose of #site19 is the discussion of the SCP Foundation wiki and its related works. Secondary discussions, like socializing and such, are also allowed, but not to the detriment of the main subject. It is up to the chat operators to decide if a topic has gone too far and too long and should be stopped or taken to another room. The decision of the operator is final; complaining about it is annoying and unproductive.

The following topics have a tendency to take over and disrupt the chat when brought up, so do your best not to. If you must discuss them, make a separate room for it, or if there's an existing room for it (see below), go there. This list may be added onto or expanded in the future.

• Politics
• Religion
• MLP
• Firearms

In addition, we're not interested in talking badly about people behind their backs. Several prominent site users left under inauspicious circumstances; don't ask what happened to them. If you must know, PM someone instead of bringing it up in public.

One last note: #site19 is a strictly out of character² environment. No roleplaying is to be done here, with /me's or otherwise acting like the chat is anything but a chatroom. If you must roleplay, we have a variety of wonderful roleplaying chatrooms to participate in, as listed below.

Secondary Chatrooms

The following chatrooms are associated with the SCP Foundation Wiki and #site19:

Roleplaying:

• #tamlinhouse - The current official roleplaying game based on the Foundation run by Bright.
• #307ale - Tamlin House's out-of-character chat.

• #farrecon - Far Recon - Foundation-based RP run by Mr_Wilt.
• #farreconooc - Far Recon's out-of-character chat.

Extracurricular:

• #scpminecraft - All discussion of the game Minecraft takes place here, plus some shenanigans every now and then.
• #scpguntalk - All things firearms and political.
• #scp-ponies - All discussion on MLP takes place here, not in the main chat

Miscellaneous

• Do not bring any of your own bots into this chat. Do not abuse bot functions by spamming commands; if you must, PM the bot instead. Don't force the bot to update unnecessarily, as it puts strain on several things.
• Nala is a chatbot provides a variety of features within the chat, many of which were previously performed by a variety of currently non-functioning bots (Magic-8_Ball, Grapewhistle, etc). Nala is maintained by Mackenzie (Aelanna in chat) and is currently our primary bot. Nala has recently been upgraded to include almost all of Grape's functions, as well as several new, unique ones. Type .help for a command list, or go here.
• If you have any further questions, contact an OP. If they have time, they should be able to give you an answer. If they don't they can point you to someone who can.