We have today implemented a policy to help tackle ban evasion and various privacy issues on GeekShed. This policy underwent much discussion and we are confident that its implementation is beneficial for GeekShed and its users.

Our full Terms of Service can be found at the usual location.

The changes are as follows:

  • It is prohibited to assist users who are banned from GeekShed in communicating with other users on the network. This means that bots which relay information from one IRC network to GeekShed and back again are now prohibited. This also prohibits allowing banned users to in some way proxy through your Internet connection.
  • Due to the inherently public nature of IRC it is now allowed to post or relay channel conversations to other mediums (including the web, IM networks and other IRC networks) without warning the channel’s users or asking the permission of the channel owner. Channels which are an exception to this policy are those which are secret (chmode +s), private (chmode +p) or have ChanServ’s “Restricted Access” set on. It is prohibited to post or relay conversation from these channels to other mediums without the permission of the channel owner. Naturally, channel owners can modify this policy in any way they like for their own channel. For example, a channel owner of a public channel can prohibit the creation of channel stats by users or the posting of logs to quote databases, etc..
  • It is now prohibited to run any service which allows real time two way conversation between users who are directly connected to GeekShed and users who are not directly connected to GeekShed. This policy prohibits the use of relay bots which bring data from real time external sources such as IM and IRC networks and post it in GeekShed channels or private messages. This policy does not, however, prohibit the use of bots which provide services such as twitter feeds and RSS update notifications. If a user who is not connected to GeekShed would like to converse with users who are connected to GeekShed, they are more than welcome to connect and do so. This is unless, of course, they are banned.


If you have any questions on these changes, ask in #help on irc.geekshed.net.