TalkIRCnet

“Help, we lost all ops!” This will happen to you sooner or later, so you might as well start planning now. (See “Maintaining Your Channel” later for tips on how to avoid this as much as possible.) For example, you might all get disconnected such as from a denial of service attack, or the network may suffer from serious problems. If your network supports channel services, try those options to regain ops. Failing that, you may have to cycle the channel, whereby everybody leaves and the channel is recreated from scratch. It’s not easy, but if you run a stable, well-organized channel, it should be possible. You can use autogreets to tell visitors to stay away or go to an alternate channel for a while. You can then contact all the regulars who are offline, using email, IM, phone, etc. With some patience, you should be able to regain ops.

We hate to tell you this, but if you lose ops frequently (more than once in a few months, or especially if it happens within just a few days or less of creating your channel), you really should take that as a strong hint that you are not ready yet. That’s not an insult, after all, it takes tremendous experience, knowledge, patience, and resources to run a big, stable channel. Probably less than 1 in 1000 IRC users have what it takes. Your options are to (1) keep trying by starting a new channel and learning from your mistakes, (2) give up and just chat on existing channels run by others, (3) consider moving to a smaller network that supports channel registration, at least until you get more critical mass going, or (4) go running to outsiders for help. The last option tends to invite ridicule and even attacks. If you want to be a good channel op, then take responsibility for your channel, including handling problems and learning from mistakes.