Code of conduct

1. Principles

2. Expected conduct

• Remain courteous, including when you disagree.
• Respect a channel’s topic and atmosphere: what is acceptable in a relaxed channel is not necessarily acceptable in a support channel.
• Read the channel topic before writing there — it often sets out rules specific to the place.
• Avoid continuous capitals, repetition and strings of very short messages: that is flooding, even without intent to harm.
• Ask a question and wait. Asking again every thirty seconds does not make answers come any faster.
• Report abuse rather than answering it in the same tone: the APPEL command with any service, or the chat’s button.
• Dating — profiles, photos, and both the webcam and the microphone in video chat — is reserved for adult members (18 or over). The camera and the microphone only open with your consent, and their content is moderated automatically.

3. Prohibitions

The following behaviours lead to a sanction, whose severity depends on their seriousness and on repeat offending.

4. Channels

A registered channel belongs to its owner, who sets its internal rules within the limits of this code of conduct.

• The owner of a channel may appoint operators in it, set bans, and define a topic and modes.
• A channel’s own rules cannot allow what the code of conduct prohibits across the whole network.
• Network operators only intervene in a channel to enforce the code of conduct, or at the owner’s request.
• A channel left with no activity and no reachable owner may be released.

5. Accounts and nicknames

• A nickname is registered with the OverNick service. Registration is not required to chat, but it is required to own a channel or to obtain rights.
• You are responsible for your account. The password must not be given to anyone — no operator and no network service will ever ask you for it.
• Passwords are stored in hashed form: no one, not even an administrator, can read them.
• A nickname that nobody has identified to for six months may be released, but never without warning: an email is sent in the fifth month, and a nickname with no registered address is never released automatically.
• Misleading nicknames — imitating an operator, a service or a real person — are refused.

6. Moderation

Moderation combines three levels, from the most mechanical to the most human.

7. Assisted moderation

The network uses a statistical classifier to spot problematic messages. Out of honesty towards users, here is exactly what it does and what it does not do.

What it does

• It splits the public messages of the channels where it is enabled into words, and calculates a probability of toxicity from the vocabulary already flagged by operators.
• Depending on the mode chosen for the channel: it merely learns; or it reports a message it finds suspicious to the IRCops, and tells its author; or it applies a sanction directly (automatic mode).
• It examines a message after it has been sent: it holds nothing back, and a reported message has already been read in the channel.
• It learns from every operator decision: approving or rejecting a message adjusts the model.
• A message rejected by an IRCop leads to no sanction: the rejection only serves to train the model.

What it does not do

• It does not read private messages.
• It is only active in channels where an IRCop or the network administration has explicitly enabled it — it is disabled by default.
• It does not examine messages from IRCops, nor from the network’s owners and administrators. A channel operator, however, is not exempt.
• It does not understand the meaning of sentences: it recognises vocabularies. It can therefore be wrong, which is why the default mode does not sanction: it reports to the IRCops, nothing more.

8. Sanctions

Bans may be set for a fixed period, and are then lifted automatically when it expires. Severity takes into account the seriousness of the act, whether it was intentional, and any previous record.

9. Appeals

• Any sanction may be contested with an operator, preferably by private message and without aggression — it is the quickest way.
• An operator who set the sanction themselves need not be the only one to review it: an administrator may be called upon.
• Moderation exchanges are kept: a challenge rests on timestamped facts, not on recollections.
• An operator who abuses their rights is liable to the same sanctions as any other user, and to the loss of those rights.

10. Data kept

The network keeps the minimum necessary for its operation and for moderation.

• Messages written in channels where the network’s bot is present are kept for thirty days, then deleted — whatever software they were written with, this site’s chat or another IRC client. They are used to show you what was said before you arrived, and for moderation. A channel is a place where people speak in front of witnesses: what is written there stays there for a month.
• Private messages are analysed automatically, and only those that trigger an alert are kept — see the next section, which states exactly what is examined and what is not.
• To keep out open proxies, compromised machines and Tor exits, the IP address of every connection to the IRC network (this site’s chat included) is checked against public lists of abusive addresses: DroneBL and EFnet RBL, queried over DNS — which sends them your address, and nothing else —, and the Tor Project’s list of Tor exits, read locally without sending anything. Addresses already checked are kept in memory for one hour at most; none is written to a database. Only an address found on one of these lists, or one that opens more simultaneous connections than allowed, is noted in the network’s technical log.
• Age, sex and city are only shown to others if you ask for it. The box is unticked by default. If you tick it, these three pieces of information become visible to anyone on the network, by means of an ordinary command — that is the custom, but it is your choice, and it can be changed by coming back through the entry form. The network uses it for one thing only: the dating channel is for adults (18 and over), and a published age under 18 gets you removed from it automatically.
  Worth knowing before you tick it: this information can then be used to search for you — the network can be asked for the list of people who have published a given city — and it remains readable for a while after you leave.
• This data is neither sold on nor passed on to third parties, unless required by law.
• Video calls, microphone transcription and image analysis happen on the network’s server or in your browser: no outside service receives them.
• You can delete your account yourself: type /msg OverNick SUPPRIME <password> on the network. A confirmation link, valid for one hour, is sent to the address registered for this nickname; the page it opens shows a code, to be sent back to the nickname service from the network, identified under this nickname, before you confirm. The account, its reservation and all your access are deleted. What remains: the channels you owned (now without an owner), the messages already written in channels until they are deleted at thirty days, and the records — moderation decisions, reports, the email log, messages sent through the contact form.

What the site keeps in your browser

• A session cookie, which carries only an identifier: it protects forms and keeps you logged in to the site. A login left idle for twenty-four minutes is closed.
• A language cookie, set only if you choose a language, kept for one year.
• A few settings, in the browser’s local storage: the camera you chose, the volume and microphone gain of the video call, and a sign of life that prevents the chat from being opened twice. They never leave your browser and stay there until you clear them.
• A copy of the public pages already visited, to display them when the connection drops — never the panel, the chat or the downloads.

11. Private messages

This section exists because a protective measure that is not announced is surveillance. Here, plainly, is what is examined and what is not.

What the filter looks for

Threats, sexual solicitations, and situations where someone implies that they are a minor while being asked for a photo, a meeting or secrecy. It is these combinations that trigger it: stating one’s age is not a fault in itself, nor is asking for a photo, but the two together describe a situation this network does not let through.

What happens then

• The message is not delivered. Its author is informed immediately.
• Operators receive a notice stating who wrote to whom, and the severity — without the content of the message.
• The message is kept, viewable only by those in charge of the network, behind authentication. This is what makes it possible to assess the situation rather than sanction on a mere signal.

What is not done, and cannot be

• Ordinary conversations are neither forwarded, nor recorded, nor counted. A message that triggers nothing never leaves the path that runs from you to the person you are writing to.
• No screen and no command makes it possible to consult someone’s private exchanges. There is nothing to consult: they exist nowhere.
• An operator cannot trigger the retention of a conversation, nor ask to follow one.

The limits, as they are

The server’s filter applies to everyone, whatever software is used. This website’s chat adds a check before sending, which only concerns its own users.

An automatic filter makes mistakes both ways: it lets through things it should stop, and sometimes holds back perfectly innocent messages. If your message was wrongly refused, tell an operator — it is an error, not an accusation, and it can be corrected.

12. Video calls, webcam and automated checks

What happens during a video call — in the video room as with the chat webcam —, and what the network checks automatically on profiles. It is written here so that you know before you turn your camera on.

Your IP address during a call

• Every call goes through the network’s relay, a server that belongs to the network and not to a third party. The other person only receives the relay’s address, never yours. The relay, for its part, sees the address of both participants and records it in its log, which only the server’s administration can read and which is deleted after about a week.
• The sound and picture of the call are encrypted by your browser, end to end — the technology behind video calls on the web requires it. The relay carries them without being able to read them, and they are recorded nowhere.
• If the relay is not running, the video room does not open, and says so. There is no fallback to a direct connection: it would give your address to the other person.

Your microphone during a call

• About every fifteen seconds, six seconds of your own microphone are recorded by your browser and sent to the network’s server, which transcribes them into text with a program installed on it. The sound is not kept: it is deleted as soon as the transcription is done.
• The text is compared against the same list of forbidden words as the chat. If there is nothing, nothing is kept.
• If forbidden words are recognised, the call is cut off and a report is filed for moderation, with an excerpt of the transcribed text (200 characters at most). The most serious remarks — or those that mention a minor together with sexual content or a request for contact — automatically suspend your profile.
• If the transcription fails, the call continues: a failure of this monitoring never cuts a call off.

Your camera during a call

• Your own picture is analysed in your browser, every two and a half seconds, by a program supplied by the site itself. No image leaves your device for this, and the other person’s picture is not analysed.
• If nudity is recognised twice in a row, the call is cut off and your profile is automatically suspended. The report only carries a confidence score, never the image.

Your profile

• Profile photos are examined by a nudity detector installed on the network’s server before being accepted. A photo judged explicit is refused and deleted; above a higher confidence threshold, the profile is also automatically suspended. If the detector does not respond, the photo is refused, without suspension.
• Voice introductions are transcribed like the video-call microphone. An introduction that contains forbidden words is refused and deleted; an excerpt of the text (300 characters at most) is kept in a report, and the most serious remarks suspend the profile. If transcription is impossible, the introduction is refused, without suspension.

What “suspended” means

• An automatic suspension hides your profile and closes your website account — the website only: your IRC nickname is not affected.
• It happens without a human deciding it: the human check comes afterwards. The suspension appears with its reason in the administration, where a moderator can lift it; it is not final.
• Reports are kept for no fixed period — no automatic deletion exists yet — and remain after the account is deleted: see section 10.
• These detectors sometimes get it wrong, both ways. If you think you were suspended wrongly, contact an operator or use the contact form: it is an error to be corrected, not an accusation.

13. Changes to the code of conduct

This code of conduct may be amended to adapt to the network and to the way it is used. Significant changes are announced in the main channels. Continuing to use the network after an amendment constitutes acceptance of the version in force.