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Why Are Canadian Sympatico Users Being Banned On EFNet?

Posted by Cliff on from the one-bad-apple-spoils-the-bunch dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "After being away from IRC for over a year, changing ISPs and moving my physical self to another apartment, tonight I tried to get back on EFnet. With a brand new IP, and a brand new computer, I discovered that all over EFnet, all channels related to Linux are banning all Canadian Sympatico users, this includes high speed customers, dial up users, and business users. In fact, the ban is quite severe and bans the entire sympatico.ca domain. I've tried to message several operators in #linux, #linuxhelp, and #slackware, but nobody is responding. What's going on?"

3 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. .RO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What's funny is that on UnderNET, several channels are (or are considering) banning whole countries.

    Most notably these days is Romania (.RO) - not for the DDoS kiddies, they bounce off BNC's and shell servers you know, but for the sheer idiocy of these NORMAL romanian users.

    This is how IRC works. You don't like how a channel is operated? Don't BITCH you moron, start your own or find some other channel. Grow a brain please.

  2. Re:IRC Politics by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1, Flamebait
    The real problem is perhaps that original poster seems to think that he has a "right" to be on a certain irc channel/server. He does not. Running a channel/server/channel website/ftp/fserve is a hassel. For every nice user you seem to meet a thousand assholes.

    Some domains seem to contain more assholes then others. AOL users are clueless, braindead and stupid. No not really, but the ones who keep asking stupid questions in caps in bad english and don't listen to answers are. The silent ones you never notice.

    For some reason a lot of the newbies seem to presume that noone in the channel has anything better to do then hold their hands. What they seem to forget is that they are not alone.

    A well operated channel has rules to make life bearable. No color, no requests, no away messages whatever. If people then pull tricks to evade these rules there is really only 1 workable solutation. Domain wide ban.

    The solution perhaps would be to create somekind of authenticated irc version. I believe MS is working on something like that. Personally I rather live with banning a few domains.

    Is there any other way to operate a channel? So far the discussion doesn't seem to have listed one.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  3. Re:#linux policy by Harik · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    The very method of banning people using their ip or domain is wrong. Ive been behind multiple domains that have been banned by various channels and irc servers because ONE person did something undesirable. In Pakistan, there is a government-run ISP that hosts hundereds of thousands of people behind ONE ip address. Dont expect anyone from Pakistan at least to be a part of your channel.

    As a result of such banning practices, Ive quitted using IRC in the first place. Most of my discussions are through yahoo messenger, newsgroups and mailing lists. IRC's technology, or at least its operators' mindsets arent keeping up with the technology....

    And please dont give me I'm not running an ident server. I tried various ident settings, fake and real, and even tried using a personally-registered domain.. but either they ban blocks of IP or reverse domain resolutions dont work for personal domains unless you fork out $600 per month for a business internet account. Go check out other channels related to linux and ask the people in there why they arent in your channel

    HI! I am a complete and utter retard! I curse at chanops, harass people, evade bans and can't spell worth shit. I feel that I have a God-Given Right to use IRC. I don't understand how IRC works. I don't understand that ISPs make users anonymous so we can't ban just one. I don't understand that allowing Just One skript kiddie into a channel makes it unusable for everyone else.

    I'm too stupid to figure out how to make reverse DNS work. I think it's elitist that people with clue can get it to work and they won't give it to me for free. I have no friends, or all my friends are as stupid as I am and cannot give me a proxy to get on IRC with.

    I just can't seem to get my mind around the fact that the IRC protocol is old, and has been having problems for what, 10 years now? Obviously AIM and ICQ suck because they don't have 'Netsplits' to op-surf on.

    I don't understand that ident is a complete joke and should be ignored. It hurts my head to try to understand the difference between authoratative and spoofed.

    Also, I don't think my linux box works right unless I'm in #linux on EFnet. It's an integral part of the operating system.

    In short, I'm wasting valuable oxygen. Someone please kill me.