Lesson 2

After creating your chatroom you probably want to customize and personalize it.

In this lesson we'll we walking through an example of customizing a chatroom and looking at some common strategies in setting up your privclasses and privileges. The hypothetical chatroom I've created is called #Oreos and is a chatroom for everyone who loves eating tasty Oreos!

Remember that in order to modify privileges or privclasses you either need to be in a privclass with the +admin privilege, or you must the original creator of the chatroom.

Renaming Privclasses

As we saw in the last lesson, the default privclasses when you first create a chatroom are: Founders, Operators, Members, Guests, and Banned.

These names don't describe tasty oreos though so let's rename them. The /admin rename privclass OldName to NewName command will change the name of a privclass:

/admin rename privclass Founders to BigStuf
/admin rename privclass Operators to DoubleStuf
/admin rename privclass Members to WhiteFudge
/admin rename privclass Guests to Mini
/admin rename privclass Banned to UhOh

After typing these commands my privclasses are now: BigStuf, DoubleStuf, WhiteFudge, Mini, and UhOh.

FYI:

• Keep in mind that privclass names can't contain spaces and can only be a maximum of 20 characters in length.


• Privclass names are case sensitive (Ex: so you must use "Founders" not "founders").

Creating new Privclasses

To create new privclasses you can use the /admin create privclass NewPrivclassName command.

Let's create a new privclass for my #Oreo chatroom:

/admin create privclass DoubleDelight

After typing this command I have a new privclass called DoubleDelight. But wait... it's at the bottom of the list above the "UhOh" privclass and I wanted it to be above WhiteFudge. That's not all... anyone I promote into DoubleDelight can't post thumbs or emotes! What's going on?!

Remember all the privileges we talked about in the last lesson? The privileges for a newly created privclass all default to being "not privileged" except for +join, +msg, and order (order defaults to being the lowest available number - usually 2, as Banned members are at 1). We learned how to update privileges in the last lesson though, so let's update them.

First I want to put DoubleDelight privclass above the WhiteFudge privclass:

/admin update privclass DoubleDelight order=60

Since the value 60 is inbetween the order value of DoubleStuf and WhiteFudge my new privclass now sits inbetween them in the list.

FYI:

• Remember that you can see the current privileges of all your privclasses by typing the command /admin show privclass
• I could have created the DoubleDelight privclass and set its order to 60 at the same time by using the command: /admin create privclass DoubleDelight order=60

Now I want set the privileges to be the same as the WhiteFudge privclass and let people in the DoubleDelight privclass be able to promote people to DoubleDelight and demote to Guests:

/admin update privclass DoubleDelight +topic +title promote=DoubleDelight demote=Guests +images +smilies +emoticons +thumbs +avatars +websites +objects

Now my new privclass is set up exactly how I want it.

FYI:

• An even easier way to update privileges for your privclasses is by using the Chatroom Setting link at the top right of your chatroom.

Removing Privclasses

The command to remove an existing privclass is /admin remove privclass PrivclassName.

Usually there is no need to do this unless you are overhauling the organization of your chatroom, but let's remove my DoubleDelight privclass to demonstrate:

/admin remove privclass DoubleDelight

When I ran this command the words ** privilege class DoubleDelight has been removed by Tachy-on -- 4 members were affected were displayed in my chatroom.

4 members affected? What's that mean?!

Well, when you remove a privclass, any members of that privclass are now without a privclass and automatically become a member of the Guest privclass.

FYI:

• If you really need to remove a privclass, move the existing members to an existing or newly created privclass first with the command /admin move users OldPrivclass to NewPrivclas

Remember I mentioned in the last lesson that the Guests privclass is special? You cannot remove the Guests privclass - even if you rename it.

Common Strategies

Keeping the Power at the Top

You want to set up your chatroom so that only the people you trust have control. Remember that the chatroom you create is ultimately your responsibility. You probably don't want Guests to be able to change your topic and title right? Or worse, let them promote themselves to Founders where they'd have the ability to modify privclasses and privileges!

You are expected to maintain a certain amount of control in your chatroom and make sure that it abides by the rules for Unofficial Chatrooms. A good strategy for ensuring this is to promote enough trusted friends to a privclass that has +kick and +ban privileges - after all, you can't be in your chatroom 7/24 to moderate it all by yourself.

Creating a Muted Privclass

Many chatrooms have a privclass with the -msg privilege. As we've learned, this means that any members of that privclass do not have the privilege to talk in the chatroom.

This is most commonly used to temporarly mute "problem" users (and sometimes it's used just for fun!)

Usually this privclass is put just above your "Banned" privclass (the one with the -join privilege set). It's usually put here because normally we want privclasses that are able to demote people to the "Banned" privclass to also be able to put people in the "muted" privclass. This also gives you the ability to have a privclass be able to demote to the muted class but not be able to ban people.

Let's create a Muted privclass for my #oreos chatroom:

/admin create privclass OreoCrumbs order=5 -msg

This will create a privclass called OreoCrumbs appear just above the UhOh privclass (Banned) and not have the privilege to talk.

Oh look! $lolly just joined #Oreos and he's spamming that Celine Dion avatar! Let's mute him!

/demote lolly OreoCrumbs

Sensible Promote and Demote Privileges

As you probably know by now, the promote and demote commands are used to allow members in a privclass to move users to different privclasses in your chatroom. /promote userName PrivclassName is used to move a user to a higher order privclass and /demote userName PrivclassName to a lower privclass.

The promote and demote privileges work together to specify the range of the highest and lowest privclass the current privclass can promote and demote.

You generally do not want to allow a privclass to promote to a privclass higher than itself because higher privclasses usually have more privileges. Although, if done carefully, you can produce a chatroom where users can freely promote and demote themselves to different privclasses and at the same time not create an atmosphere for abuse of privileges.

The bottom line: think carefully when setting up privclasses in your chatroom that the promote and demote privileges are set up exactly how you want them to be.

FYI:

• The Promote and Demote privileges have nothing to do with the +kick privilige. Members in a privclass with the +kick privilige can always kick users in their own privclass and lower.


• You can only Ban users in a privclass that you are also priviliged to promote to. Example: If you don't want to allow members of a privclass with the +ban privilege to be allowed to Ban members of the same privclass, then make sure they can only promote to the privclass one value lower.

Summary

In this lesson you've learned how to create and rename privclasses in your chatroom. Also, we've looked at some common strategies for setting up your chatroom.

If you have further questions please look at the +faq, join the #help chatroom, or contact the Help Desk.

Assignment

Your assignment for this class is create one additional privclass in your chatroom. Make sure you think about how you want this new privclass set up!

For extra credit:
Take a look at how your entire privclass and privilege structure is set up. Does it accurately portray the theme of your chatroom? Do you have enough "moderators" in place to ensure that your chatroom is running smoothly? Are there any holes in your privclass privileges?

Remember that well-run popular chatrooms have had a lot of thought put in to how they are set up.


You might want to make a copy of the privclasses with the /admin show privclass command beforehand in case you make a mistake and can't remember how to get back to where you were.


Supplimentary Resources for this Lesson

FAQ #540: How can I customize my chatroom?
FAQ #507: How do I make a private room?
FAQ #292: What are the commands that I can use on the chat network?