Silence

Silence

Intro

Tired of getting private messages from that one annoying user?
There is a server-sided solution to it :)
It's called SILENCE

let's see what /helpop silence says about it:

Silence 

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Ignores messages from a user or list of users at the Server itself.

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Syntax: SILENCE +nickname (Adds a nickname to SILENCE list)

        SILENCE -nickname (Removes a nickname from the SILENCE list)

        SILENCE           (Lists the current SILENCE list)

Explanation

So, in understandable words, what does this mean?
It means you can add Nicknames or (masked, so allowing wildcards) IPs/Hostnames (the unique internet-addresses of a user) to this list.
When someone matches an item on that list, (s)he cannot send you any private messages or private notices.

HowTo

This is all nice and so, but how can you use it?
It's quite simple.
Let's assume that a user called Candybar is sending you a lot of annoying private messages. Let's stop that by adding her to our SILENCE list :)

AddByNickname

Just type in the following command and press the ENTER-key :)

/SILENCE +Candybar

The plus-sign (+) indicates we wish to add it to the list.
If it went okay, you should see the following in your status window appear:

YourNickname SILENCE +Candybar!*@*

Now everybody with the nickname Candybar will not be able to send you any messages. You will however see their messages in the rooms you share.

AddByHost

Let's say that the user changes her nickname to avoid your SILENCE-treatment, well, it's quite easy to get around that, all you need is his/her IP or Hostname (doesn't matter if it is a Hidden (thus encrypted) hostname, a Virtual Hostname (VHost) or a real hostname/IP).
You can usually get this by doing a /WHOIS on the person and finding their Address.

 /WHOIS Candybar

 - ---«( /whois Candybar )

 - Name:  Raiders of the Candyshop

 - Address:  candy@NO-IP.12332.AOL.com

 - Rooms:  *#lounge @#myRoom

 - Locatie:  Commercial

 - Server:  irc.chat4all.org

 - Server Info:  Chat4All

 - Status:  Normal Chatter

 - ---«( end off /whois )

(note, this may look different, depending on which IRC-client you use and which script for it...)

okay, so the address is candy@NO-IP.12332.AOL.com, now let's add that address to our SILENCE List

/SILENCE +*@NO-IP.12332.AOL.com

YourNickname SILENCE +*!*@NO-IP.12332.AOL.com

As you can see, the command allows hostmasks that thus contain wildcards (*) to replace certain parts of the address.
Now everyone that is connected from that Hostname (doesn't matter that it is a hidden/encrypted hostname) will not be able to send you private messages :)

RequestList

Now let's request the entire SILENCE list with:

/SILENCE

As you can see, no parameters are needed and it returned the following:

 -

 YourNickname *!*@NO-IP.12332.AOL.com

 YourNickname candybar!*@*

 End of Silence List

 

As you can see, it shows the added nickname as well as the hostaddress.

RemoveByNickname

now, let's remove candybar again... All we have to do is type:

/SILENCE -Candybar

The minus-sign (-) indicates we wish to remove it from the list.
You should receive the following as confirmation:

YourNickname SILENCE -candybar!*@*

Ignore

If you wish to ignore all messages (thus also the ones in the rooms you share) from the user in question, you should have a look at the IGNORE-command, which is build in in most IRC-clients.
Please note though that /silence is a server-sided (thus not depending on which IRC-Client you use) command that blocks only the private messages and private notices from the person (or hostmask), while /ignore can block channelmessages from the person as well, depending on how the client implemented the code. So for more information about the /ignore command, you should refer to your IRC-client's manual.
A Dutch translation of this will be added later.

--FiXato 18:20, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) Last modified: FiXato 03:16, 15 January 2006 (CET)