The role of the Committee Ops is to support the Chat, answer complaint mails, determine a fair course of action, and talk to and take action against abusive Ops.

Committee Ops are appointed or selected in various ways. Those who were on committee before can be kept. New appointments to committee will depend on recommendations from the Gold Team members, current Committee, Associate Office recommendations, and/or successfull application to the Gold Team.

Gold Team members do not automatically get put on committee, but must be approved by Alamak Staff. Gold Team members can get higher level than basic committee level by getting referrals through the Gold Team.

Note that this is a reversal of our previous policy of offering committee status to Gold Team members. All committee are now by appointment but we need a good reason to appoint someone before they can be considered.

Gold Team members can be removed after 3 warnings and 3 account suspensions if serious enough. Warnings will be given improper behavior in the chat, breach of guidelines, or any other reason we deem fit. They get 3 chances and if that isn't enough then they can be removed.

The administration reserves to right to remove any Operator from Committee at any time for any or no reason without personal affront.

Do not distribute lists or reveal committee names to anyone. Committee Ops deserve the right to come on the chat and not be constantly bothered by other users.

Do not release any information available by committee commands including /id, comlist, comBB, abuse logs, ban logs, etc.


Do not /kick, /ban, or /deop on user request

Do not /kick, /ban or /deop at the request of a user who has used your name and Committee status to threaten another user. This will reflect very badly on you and on the Committee. If any of your friends do this, I suggest you take them aside and let them know you take your committee responsibilities seriously, and that you will always act fairly even if it means at times you have to take action against friends. It is important that you are seen to be impartial.


Do not show favoritism

Please treat all users equally, whether you personally like or dislike them or know them well or not. Do not /unban one address because you were asked by a friend but not another.

Be aware that it is very easy for people to make subtle decisions that show favoritism without doing so overtly and deliberately.


Contribute to Committee Responsibilities

All committee members are asked to either answer committee /com BB complaints and or to go over the ban logs and /abuse logs to report serious abusers.

Currently all commiteee members on a particular server share in handling the /com complaints. Usually one person organizes who will answer different sets of emails.

The committee should repond to /callcom requests in a helpful and positive way. Callcom is a new command whereby an Operator can request help or guidance from committee who are currently online.


Pursue permanent solutions to repeat offenders

At present, Committee Ops /deop any Operator who seriously abuses, supporting this action with a banlog report to Alamak office with a copy of the banlog section with kick and ban times shown. The office then closes the Operator's account.

However, we see /deop as an emergency measure and we are pursuing other options that will provide a long-term ban for repeat offenders.


A Thanks to the Committee

We would like to acknowledge the support and help of our Committee Ops. They are volunteers and work hard, and their contribution is much appreciated by the chat administration. It should equally be appreciated by all Alamak users and Operators.

So thanks to the committee. We really do appreciate all your hard work and help!

The /clear command has been upgraded so that regular Ops can not clear thier own postings or system messages starting with '***'. Since regular Operators can use this command it could potentially be used to abuse. The clear command will now send a notice to any committee online that a /clear has been done and some text cleared.

Clearbuff is a new clear option for committee only. The contents are strictly confidential but may be used to see why a particular Operator has done a clear. As clear can be used for abuse, you can use this to see what was most recently cleared.

The /proxy command is being depreciated somewhat because the Alamak server now screens commonly used proxy ports for each IP that logs in to check if it can be used as an open proxy. If it is an open proxy it is added to our list.

The /noproxy command now blocks new logins from IP's on this list and a few other commonly known proxy identifiers. The /noproxy commmand automatically clears after 30 minutes. This means all open proxies can now access the server till the /noproxy command is typed.

This command is used to permanently ban open proxies. Proper setup of proxies is such that only users connecting from the local network can use the proxy, sometimes they are forced to use the proxy by a firewall. Open proxies do not have proper access restrictions (hence anyone on the net can use them) and these proxies can be abused to fake IPs and get past bans.

People who keep coming in after being banned are probably using open proxies to switch their IP. These IPs should be added to the permanent ban list. It is worthless to use /proxy for banning regular addresses as this is a full IP ban and most dialup connections are dynamic addresses (the last part changes every time you dialup). Additionally, if you ban a closed proxy and users on that local network need to use the closed proxy, you will unfairly and permanently ban many users from access to Alamak.

Use this command wisely as abuse of /proxy will result in severe penalty. When adding a proxy to the list, your nick is recorded and only the administrator can remove the proxy setting.

Flushes all bans out of the server. This command is more fair than just /unbaning addresses of your friends. Do not use the command too much, because Ops get frustrated when they just ban an abusive user and then it keeps getting removed.

Clear on its own will remove all of the text from a room if it has been flooded with vulgarity.

Clear has been upgraded and you can type /clear [text] to remove any lines containing [text] from the room. This also works to remove everything said by a specified nick.

Multiple kick is for use when one user logs in with many nicknames and then proceeds to flood or use vulgarity. This command will kick all users off with the exact same IP address as in XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX. To prevent winnuke the server only displays the first 3 sets of numbers but it still does know the full IP. Use this with caution since all users on a single proxy will be kicked off by an /mkick.

MULTI-KICK has been upgraded. If the user has a cookie then the cookie will be used to identify duplicate logins, if there is no cookie the full IP address will be used.

If a user complains of being unfairly kicked off by /mkick tell them to enable thier cookies as only exact cookies or full IP matches are kicked off. The full IP match ( without cookie ) will not cause another person with the same IP and ( with a cookie ) to be kicked.

Use /deop on an operator to prevent them from using /kick, /ban, /summon and a few other commands that affect other users. If the reason for the /deop is serious you should report the person to the admin with a copy of the banlog so we can permanently suspend the abusive account.

If the reason is less serious the /deop should remain for 1 or 2 weeks and then be the account restored.

A /deop is also the command to use to permanently remove access to a registered nickname.

The operators status can be reinstated using the /restore command.