FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Q. I've been Kicked/Banned from #Hottub, how can I find out why, and how do I get back into the channel?
A. If you have been Kicked and banned from the Channel, it will be due to you having broken one, or some of the rules. You can scroll back in your status window, and see which one of the Ops kicked you and why. Protocol dictates that the Op that banned you should unban you. Have a chat with them, and they may unban you.
Tip: Be polite, ops are human and have feelings, just like you.

Q. How do you get ops in #hottub?
A. #hottub uses democratic selection. You're nominated by one of the ops, then all the other ops vote on it.

Q. Ok, so how do you get them to start voting, or to get them to nominate you?
A. They nominate you all by themselves if they think you're an asset to the tub, ie: you are a responsible, informed regular, you chat to the ops like a normal person, never beg for ops, never suggest ops, demonstrate an ability to be an op via self control.
One of the most important things about having ops is that the nominee is asked to join, not the other way round.

Q. How do I get my pic and bio on the #hottub regulars' page?
A. Provided that your nick has been registered for a minimum of 3 months, you may send a short bio about yourself with a recent photograph of yourself to webmaster@hottub.za.org

Q. Someone is really bothering me in private. What can I do to get rid of them?
A. Type /ignore [nick] and they magically disappear from your life :)

Q. They're not just bothering me, it's now harassment! Help!
A. There are occasions that /ignore nick won't work (like if the user continually changes their nick to avoid the /ignore) and under those circumstances, your next best bet is to /msg an op and tell them about your problem.
If someone is continually being a pain and you think we'd better look into it, then you can mail abuse@hottub.za.org with timestamped logs of the incident (or incidents!) in question. We will then see that the offender gets treated justly.
How to keep logs is explained later in this FAQ.

Q. How do I register my nick?
A. Type the following:
/msg NickServ REGISTER password your@email.address (your password can be anything you like) then type
/msg nickserv set kill on (this will prevent other people using your nick unless they have your password) then type
/msg nickserv set hide email on (this will prevent other users seeing your email address)
Type /msg nickserv help register for more info.

Q. How do I change my password?
A. Type in /msg nickserv set password newpassword

Q. How do I change my nick?
A. Type in /nick newnick

Q. I want to see information about someone.
A. For information about a given nickname, such as the nick's owner, last seen address and time, and nick options, type in /msg nickserv info nickname

Q. Have you seen such-an-such-nick - can you please give them a message for me?
A. No - but if they have registered their nick you can check when they where last online and send them a message yourself.
Type /msg memoserv help to learn how to do this.

Q. How can I tell if xxxx is online right now ?
A. To see where a person is, type in /whois nickname. If the /who comes back with "no such nick per channel", that user is not currently on lagnet.

Q. I've registered a nickname but don't want it any more and want to unregister it. How do I do that?
A. Type in /msg nickserv drop. In order to use this command, you must first identify with your password. This is done by typing /msg nickserv identify password. If a nick is not used for 30 days, the registration will expire.

Q. How many days before my nick expires ?
A. If a nick is not used for 30 days, the registration will expire.

Q. How do I chat to someone in Private?
A. If you are using the Lagnet Java client (Using Your Browser)

• Double Click on the nick of the person you want to chat to in the nickname list on right of your screen, this will bring up "/msg [nick]" in your edit box (at the bottom of the screen where you type), type our message afterthis, and hit enter.
• You could also just type /msg [nick] [and your message], remember that [nick] is the nickname of the person you want to chat to.

Tip: Pressing the right arrow key is a shortcut to /msg the person to whom you sent a Private message (saves on typing).
Tip: Pressing the up arrow key scrolls back through the last 50 entries into the edit box, this is very handy if you are having private chats with a number of people.

If you are using a PC based chat client such as Pirch or mIRC

• You can type /msg [nick] [your message here] as with the above example.
• If you're in #hottub, you can double-click on their nickname in the nickname listbox and a private query window will open up. You can then start chatting privately to them through the query window.
• If you are not in the Channel, you can type /query [nick], where [nick] is the user with whom you want to chat, this will open a Query window as in the above example.
• The /dcc chat [nick] command is another way of initiating a private (dcc) chat, where [nick] is the user with whom you want to chat.
  

Q: How do I associate a url (my web page address) to my nickname?
A: Type in the following command: /msg nickserv set url http://www.myhomepage.co.za

Q. How do I type in colour?
A. If you are using the web based Java Client you can't.
If you are using a PC based chat Client such as Pirch or mIRC do the following:

1. Hold down the Ctrl key and Press K (this will place a funny looking block in your edit box)
2. Immediately after this character, you type n,N where "n" is a number that refers to the text colour and "N" is a number that refers to the background colour.
3. Immediately after this you type your message.
   
   
• The numbers responding to the colours are as follows : 0 = White 1 = Black 2 = Dark Blue 3 = Green 4 = Red 5 = Brown 6 = Purple 7 = Orange 8 = Yellow 9 = Lime Green 10 = Blue Grey 11 = Turquoise 12 = Bright Blue 13 = Pink14 = Dark Grey 15 = Light Grey

Q. How do I type in Bold or Underline?
A. As above, if you are using a web based Java Client, you can't.
If you are using a PC based chat Client such as Pirch or mIRC do the following:

• To type in Bold, Hold down the Ctrl key and press B, then type your text and hit enter.
• To underline, Hold down the Ctrl key and press U, then type your text and hit enter.
Tip: You can combine bold and underline. Example: Ctrl+BCtrl+U text, will give you text that is both Bold and Underlined.

Q. I've set immediate nick kill on my nick and nickserv kills me before I can identify. What do I do?
A. All you have to do is link the nick you're using now to your other one .... and then add your hostname to the access list of both nicks.
Type /msg nickserv help for more info

Q. How do I hide my email address from info queries?
A. Type in the following command: /msg nickserv set hide email on
You can hide your usermask and or quit message in the same way:
Usermask: /msg nickserv set hide usermask on
Quit: /msg nickserv set hide quit on

Q. How do I register a channel?
A. Type in /msg chanserv register #channelname password description. The last parameter (description) MUST be included and is a general description of the channels purpose.
NOTICE: In order to register a channel, you must have first registered your nickname. (/msg nickserv register password)

Q. What's DCC?
A. DCC allows you to send and receive files and to chat directly to another person.

Q. OH ? Excellent - how do I use it?
PIRCH allows you to send files using either PIRCH's DCC sender, the Drag-N-Drop Sender or by using the /DCC SEND command.
The DCC file manager is a file list dialog box that will allow you to select one or more files and send them to another person on IRC. To activate the DCC sender, right click over the Server/Status window and select the option from the popup menu.
The Drag-N-Drop file sender is simply a dialog box containing the directory, drive & file lists. To send a file, click on the desired filename, and while holding mouse button down, drag it to the target person's name in the channel's name list and drop it by releasing the mouse button. The file will then be sent to the selected person.
Receiving files sent to you from another person is fairly simple using PIRCH. When another party attempts to send you a file, a dialog box will be displayed telling you of the transaction. You can either accept the file or refuse it. If you accept it, it will automatically be saved into the directory you selected in your DCC options.

Q. How do I cut & paste ?
A. To Copy: Place your mouse pointer at the start of what you would like to copy to the clipboard. Click and hold down the LEFT mouse button. Drag the mouse over the area that you would like to copy (should become highlighted). Let go of the LEFT mouse button. The information that was highlighted is not copied to the clipboard and ready for you to paste it.
To Paste: Place your mouse on the area that you type your messages, press the RIGHT mouse button and select PASTE (or Ctrl-V or Shift-Insert). Press ENTER to send the pasted information to either the public or private window.

Q. How can I setup my client to get log files of what's happening ?
A. Pirch
Access the Preferences menu (Ctrl-Alt-O) from within Pirch or Options | Preferences, click on the Logs Tab.
Enable the options that you want to log, Channel/Private Messages/ Server Messages or DCC Chats.
Take note of the Log Directory because that's where you'll need to look if you want to find a particular log file