AustNet supports it's users in various ways to reduce the level of abuse by and to clients, servers, operators and channels. If you are wishing to lodge a complaint about one of the above, it is important you read the correct category and follow our recommendations. This will ensure your complaint is dealt with as quickly as possible and assist us in our mission.

When you connect to our network, you agree to the Terms and Conditions set forth in our Client Agreement. In this agreement, we outline that AustNet is an unmoderated medium. By this we mean that we are unable to watch the messages passing through our network from user to user. It is, therefore, very difficult to remove someone from our network if they are abusing you by way of flooding or harassment. We strongly suggest that you use the /ignore command to ignore those users who are annoying the crap out of you.

If all attempts to ignore the user has failed, and they are being a bit tricky about the whole issue, we recommend two things. Firstly, join the channel #Help and ask for assistance with the issue. You should find someone who can help you with the problem. An IRC Operator has the ability to remove/ban users from the network, and will do so if they agree that all attempts have failed to ignore the other user/s. Secondly, if you are unable to contact anyone to help you, or are unable to resolve the issue, we recommend you email us on [email protected]. This mailing list has both operators and administrators of the network on it. They will receive your email and you should receive some form of online/offline assistance thereafter.

If you are finding that your channels is being flooded or bombarded with people trying to cause havok, we suggest you get familiar with banning people based on wider hostmasks. If they are from different hostmasks, as in clonebots, we ask that you /join #Help and let us know. This is against our policy and we will ban them on sight. If your enquiry on channel abuse relates to access or channel takeovers, then we recommend you /join #asd and talk to a representative in that channel. This team will help you put things back on track.
Please note that the IRC Operators and Administrators of the network do not get involved in channel disputes. If you wish to lodge a complaint about a channel takeover, or seek assistance with an abusive user in the channel database, we recommend asking for assistance in #asd.

If you believe a channel op (@) is abusing their access on a channel, you need to contact the channel owner. You can establish the owner of a channel by typing:
/msg chanop info #channelname
#asd and IRC Operators do not get involved in disputes of this kind. If you cannot resolve the dispute with the channel owner, you may have to find another channel to chat in:
/list

We have created an abuse team who deal with abuse by IRC operators and administrators. This is to ensure there is a fair level of management within the network. If you have a case against an IRC Operator or administrator, please email us on [email protected] and we will endeavour to look into the issue. Moreover, you can email us on the above address if the abuse relates to the network by means of it's servers.

If you have a complaint about an ASD helper abusing their ASD access, a management team will look at logs from both sides and determine what action, if any, should be taken. Abuse complaints about ASD representatives should be directed to [email protected].

Please note that you will be automatically banned from further posting to these two addresses if you email us with complaints relating to personal abuse, channels or channel access.

If you have a question that is not answered here, please contact [email protected].

Many people ask us what they can do if someone is determined to be abusive. Here are some pointers:

Don't answer back. Most people will get sick of abuse if you do not answer them.

If they are flooding (sending a large amount of text or repeating), use /ignore nickname. This will have the effect to stopping you seeing their messages.

If a channel name or topic is offensive to you, don't contribute to the channel. Find another channel in which to chat (/list) - AustNet has thousands of channels to choose from.

If someone is evading bans in a channel, make sure you are banning them effectively (ask in #help or #asd for help in doing this). Do not engage in arguments with the person. They will get sick of the harrassment if you don't reply and ban them immediately they enter. If someone is repeatedly evading bans, then see an ircop
(/msg sprint listadmin)
as this is against Austnet rules.

Be very careful about giving out personal information on the net. If someone is giving out your personal information (in a channel topic for example) see #asd or #help.

If all else fails, and the abuse continues over some time, contact the abuse department at the offender's ISP. eg:
[email protected]
They will contact AustNet administration to get further details if needed.