First, if you're not familiar with IRC, check out Tarkenfire's post about using an IRC client.
Channel Information
The channel is moderated (+m) at all times so users who are not voiced (+v) cannot talk in the chat room. Users are automatically voiced when they enter the channel by Chanserv.
Generally, we don't bother devoicing people, since they can just leave and rejoin the channel to get voiced again; however, in the event the channel is being flooded or attacked the auto-voicing feature of the channel can be disabled by LordKaT. In this instance it's your responsibility as a moderator to voice legitimate users.
How to deal with specific situations
Unbanning
If a user speaks with you about being unbanned, and you feel they probably won't continue their negative actions, you're free to unban that person, even if you did not place the ban.
Flooding
Kick & ban.
Spam
We generally let people promote themselves, so it's cool if they ask for feedback or just ask people to check out their stuff once or twice. If it's a continuous problem then kick & ban the user.
Obvious Trolling
Ninja kick. Don't bother talking to or explaining why. Ignore private messages from said user.
Arguments/Topics that offend you
Tell people to cool down/stop. Continued arguments get de-voiced. If they STILL insist on being stupid, kick and ban.
If a topic personally offends YOU, but not others: bite your tongue. People are allowed to be people and don't have to conform to your ideals.
Illegal and/or Copyright Infringing Materials
Ask people involved to stop talking about it in the channel. If they don't, kick and ban them.
Everything else we generally let fly under the radar
For everything else, we generally ignore it. If something happens in the channel that you feel should be handled with a de-voice, kick, or ban then I leave that up to your best discretion.
--LordKaT
