The New IRC Channel Operator's Guide: "1B. Pop quiz: Are you ready for ops?

People often say, 'I'm ready because I have been chatting for years!' That's like a kid who thinks he can drive a car just because he's been riding in one for years. Being an op requires a lot of patience, experience, resources, and knowledge. Just chatting on IRC does not make you ready.

You don't need to be an expert to be an op, but you should not be new to IRC. You should already be very familiar with the classic IRC help guides, especially the IRC tutorial which covers all the basic IRC commands like how to op, kick, and ban. Or just test your knowledge with these questions, listed in increasing order of difficulty:

* Do you know how to use basic IRC commands, such as /msg, /notice, /join, /part, /who, /whois, /list, /ignore?
* Do you know how to use more advanced IRC commands, such as /topic, /mode, /kick? What are the channel mode letters n, t, s, l, i, k, b, m, o, and v?
* What is the difference between a channel operator and IRC operator? Does your current network have services, and if so, how do they work?
* Have you ever held ops on somebody else's channel, preferably one with at least 10 active people 24/7?
* Have you ever dealt with trouble such as spam or flood?
* How do you set bans to keep out a troublemaker who changes their nickname, username, or dynamic hostname?
* What is a trojan horse, denial of service attack, or channel takeover? Have you dealt with any of these problems?
* What is a bot or script? How can bots/scripts help to maintain ops or enforce bans?
* What is a shell access account? How do you get one? What are the advantages compared to a dial-up account for a home Windows machine.

If most of that sounds like technical mumbo-jumbo, then chances are you are probably not ready yet. You are, of course, welcome to read on and learn more. After all, everybody has to start somewhere... but we must be honest, you hav"