Dearest WebTV User: you pay to get online. You don't pay to chat on IRC. We do, however, spend both time and money to set up and run the IRC network you chat on. We're not paid, and we're spending money out of our own pockets. We try our best to make sure things work out for you. We offer extra services. We spend hours of our time trying to set up things for you. We're doing our best to make your IRC experience comfortable and fun, even if that involves us coding something we have no way to troubleshoot or doublecheck because we don't have that abortion of a box you're using to get online WebTV. Whining that typing out commands is too much work and demanding that we do something Right Now Immediately to cater to your laziness and your inability to wait while we are doing our best to work things out for your convenience is so the wrong thing to do. Telling us that "if we can't open doors you may have to think twice about staying here" when we're doing our best to set things up and running into repeated failures because of that piece of shit you're using to get online the fact that your WebTV box is an environment that's impossible for us to test in, nevermind that WebTV does not offer any coding documentation is such a crap thing to do I can't even find the will to shout at you because of it. You know what? If you want to leave, leave. The health of our network does not depend on you staying. I'm not going to be begging you to stay. I am, however, going to smile, and turn my back, and go back to working on things for the people who appreciate it.

Dearest Paragon Of Brightness: if we tell you to type something exactly as it is, just replacing one single word in it, follow the instructions. Do not, for the love of all that is sacred in this world:

• Arbitrarily remove bits and pieces from the line you're supposed to type


• Arbitrarily replace bits and pieces of the line


• Ask "should I type xxx and yyy or leave them out?" (well gee, what do you think I put them in there for? just for fun?)


• Arbitrarily remove spaces from the line

Dearest User In A Hurry: if you're going to quit or part in the middle of my explanation, at least don't complain that what I told you to do "doesn't work". Of course it doesn't work. You didn't bother to listen to the complete instructions.

Dearest Shit-for-brains: do not waste my time asking for help with another IRC network. I know nothing about the commands on that other IRC network, whichever it is. Ask them for help. They're not as helpful as I am? Well then, maybe you should move your channel to here. Either that, or deal with the unhelpfulness on your current network. I'm not going to help you with that.
And if you pretend you need help with something on this network, and get help from me, then say it's not working and you're being told "unknown command" when the command exists on here; and I ask what channel are you trying this on; and you reply with "oh, it's on another network"; do not get annoyed when I tell you I only help you with matters on this network.

Dearest Selfish Bastard: no, there's nothing we can do about people idling in their own channel. No, we will not tell them off for you because they all happen to be idling at whatever ungodly hour you join their channel and try to chat. No, we have a rule against bots idling in a channel and holding it open, not people. No, we will not akill them for idling in their own channel. They have a right to do it. Get lost.

Dearest Annoying Twit: if you ask us a question ("who was xxxx he gave me shit in my room"), and two of us give you the same, very simple answer ("it's a spambot, it's gone now"), and for some reason you do not understand it, the good thing to do would be to say you didn't understand it and ask for clarification. The worst thing you can do, on the other hand, is leave the help channel with a "ok got no answer bye", then proceed to join a different channel (a "chat with the opers" channel) with the same opers in it, ask your question again, and when told you already got your answer, and it's a spambot and it's gone now, say "wasn't a good answer at all, ok, bye" and leave that channel too. The only thing that will do is make sure none of us will go out of their way to help you out anymore. You'll only get standard help from now on.

Dearest Moron: our network's policy is that we don't allow warez or any sort of illegal material. Now I'd like you to write a list of all the reasons why kickbanning an IRCop who just joined your newly registered #XDCC channel to inform you of that policy is wrong and stupid. Think about it, I'm sure you'll get it someday.

Dearest Person Who Would Like To Link Their Server To Our Network: loading a bunch of clones in your newly registered channel isn't exactly the best way to make a good impression on us.

Dearest Spambot: no, I'm not interested in joining that site and giving whoever sent you to our network referral points. And it takes quite a dumb spambot to spam in a channel which has only one person in it, and that's an oper. kthxdie.

Dearest Jerkwit: you may not remember me, but I remember you. Oh, do I remember you. You are the WebTV user I stalked for ages on another net, due to the inability to permanently akill you because of how WebTV is set up, even if you were a harassing fucktard. Seems you've graduated to computer now. Congrats! Aw, you didn't get a braincell upgrade with the computer? That's too bad. But hey, at least you'll be easier to akill, eh? Incidentally, "fuck you" is not really a good answer when you're being told to stop banevading and harassing a channel. I'm just annoyed another oper got to akill you before I did. Ah well, there's always a next time.

Some days, I really feel the need of a mousepad with a target and "bang head here" on it. x_x No, I didn't get all of those idiots today, luckily, but they're all relatively recent. Go hug your nearest IRCop, it's not always the funnest job in the world.

It occurs to me that after a year and a half of IRC I've not once seen a WebTV user stay in a channel for more than a handful of seconds, and that I have no idea what this WebTV thing actually is. I've arrived at the conclusion that it's something designed for and monopolised by idiots though, mostly due to the utter lack of counterexamples.

I imagine the other varieties of idiot aren't much fun to deal with, either...

A WebTV is basically a box you hook up to your phone and your TV, which allows you to connect to the internet without using a computer. It's very, very limited, of course. It's also known for having quite a high percentage of idiots, though I've met a few WebTV users that were really quite decent.

We in Tech Support salute you. And give hugs. *hug*