How do I start my own Channel?

How do I start my own Channel?

We encourage anyone (and everyone) to start their own Channels.  There are some basic things that you should keep in mind:

• Pick a good name! (Your channel name is one way that users will decide whether to /JOIN or not.)
• Set a channel /TOPIC that informs it’s users (and guests) of useful tips/news/comments/etc. (Try not to let it go “stale” — change it once a month.)
• Register the channel with ChanServ. (Otherwise, it can potentially be “taken” from you or become @opless and thus unable to control.)
• Add users to the access lists with discretion.  (Don’t add people you don’t know, to high roles.)
• TIME & Chatting is the most important ingredients to start a channel.  (Just creating a channel and idling in it, will not gain users.  Filling your channel with bots will not gain users.  The most important thing to a channel is the people and actual chatter.)

Channel “Temperature”

As a Channel Operator (@user), you should use your “powers” sparingly.  “Flexing your power” is likely to either drive users away from your channel, or may cause the “channel temperature” to heighten.

 

De-Escalation Tips

Assume good faith

When you initiate conversations, try to assume that the other person is doing what they’re doing in good faith.

Avoid public confrontation

Sometimes you can avoid escalating a situation by talking to an angry person in private rather than publicly in a channel, which they could find humiliating. They may still act like you’re intruding into a personal space without their consent. Consider asking to talk to them either in the channel first or, as your first private message:

<You> Hi, can I talk to you about <problem> here in private rather than where others can see?

Listen and ask questions

Asking someone why they are doing something will encourage them to reflect on their behavior. Once they are paying attention to their actions, they will often self-moderate. Most people do not want to be viewed as “the bad guy.”

You may disarm their defensiveness by asking for their input instead of immediately admonishing them or leveling accusations. This centers the conversation on them and their thoughts, instead of on yourself.

Try to appear understanding of their concern rather than dismissive, even if you disagree. Your goal is to calm them down, and being oppositional will not achieve this.

When requesting someone change their behavior, instead of ordering them to do or not do something, you can also ask them if they think they can. They will probably be more receptive and perhaps offer ways you can help them achieve it.

Try to remain calm

People learn by example and often respond in kind. Thus, if you demonstrate calmness when initiating a conversation, the conversation is more likely to proceed that way.

Likewise, being respectful and professional when dealing with an upset person will do a lot of work towards forming a treaty with them.

Compromising, conceding, and resolutions with no winner

Humility is essential when in leadership positions.

Sometimes, you will need to compromise or concede. Digging in when you make a mistake will not improve your community and could lead to distrust.

You can always amend a lenient decision or concession in the future if there is actually a need to do so.

Avoid policing external behavior

People are often part of multiple communities. They often behave differently in each space, as various communities have their own cultures.

Confronting and punishing someone for behavior that is happening somewhere else often escalates something small into a bigger issue affecting more people. Pre-emptive banning is rarely a good idea.

It can also make people in your channel feel like they’re being spied on, which makes both your community and other spaces feel less friendly.

Take breaks to avoid burn-out

When previously rewarding tasks, like helping in channels, become tiring and less enjoyable, this is a sign of burn-out.

If you manage a space alone, it is easy to feel obligated to spend all your energy and time keeping the place in order. This can lead to burn-out, which makes it much harder to handle channel conflicts calmly. When that happens, your community members feel like they’re walking on eggshells. It is also easier for bad actors to weaponize you against other community members.

If you are the only channel op, we encourage you to consider giving trusted channel users ops as well. Not only does this provide you with the freedom to do other things without worrying about the channel, but it also gives you another person to talk with about situations that arise.

Find others in your community who are good at talking to people to help you manage things. They don’t need to be the most knowledgeable person in your channel, but they need to be patient, fair, and approachable.

Appeals processes and accountability

Removing people should ideally not be a permanent thing. People make mistakes and have bad days. One mistake or bad day shouldn’t be the end of their participation in your channel.

Also, permanently excluding users from a channel can lead to them seeking a way of evading into the channel, becoming even more problematic.

It’s an excellent idea for your channel to have a way for people to appeal a ban and negotiate being allowed back. Consider having an “ops” channel; most channels use #<channelname>-ops for this. Request that non-ops leave the channel if they do not have an immediate issue, so that people can raise their issues with some privacy. When talking to banned users in an -ops channel, de-escalation tools and building rapport are critically important.

If many channel operators speak to a person at once in an -ops channel, it can seem like “ganging up on” the person. You may want to informally limit how many ops are involved in such discussions at once.

Operator channels also allow people a place to report issues without escalating situations in the channel. It is a good idea to advertise it in the channel’s topic. If people cannot get into your ops channel, they cannot use it, so banning from that should be very rare.