Once upon a time, way back in <insert date here>, I begun IRCing again. I started out again as an op in #help and #wasteland, and watching in #melbourne.
A channel bot was born, and it was named Z (or Zed for lifeless people like us); basically a direct source code ripoff from the X and Y channel bots from Undernet. Rebadged, and plonked onto "OzNet" (as it was known at the time), this service allowed someone to register a channel, and keep that channel open and controlled via a bot.
After a little normal channel brawling for ops, one guy took the chance and attempted to register Zed, and managed to succeed. This guy was Saxon, a strange lad.
Time went on, probably two weeks, when Saxon got friendly with me, looking for some help with managing the channel. He put it in such a way that he wasn't asking to share the level 500 (as it meant the world to the poor geek), but wanted me to do all the PR work; ie. take the shit for all the responsibilities that come with being a channel manger.
Shortly after, he resigned to me in effect the 500, just not actually in the registration database. I became a 499 and ran the thing to point of if needing to do a 500 command, I'd just ask him and he'd do it. As you could tell, this was plain stupid.
Another op, suggested by me, SoulBro and I begun discussing the usefulness of him being involved at all, considering he couldn't handle the heat and did nothing either way. Eventually, when getting asked the question too many times by lusers, SoulBro and I decided that I'd approach tiktok, the head IRCop, and ask her nothing more than who were the recorded ten supporters of Saxon's registration (note: to register a channel, one needs to e-mail a request, and that said request needs ten peoples' e-mail addresses as supporters).
Shortly after sending that /msg, about ten minutes later, after not hearing a word from tiktok, Zed left the channel with no warning. I promptly /msg'd tiktok again, and she proceeded to tell me that:
It wasn't long. Saxon was online, had joined, and noticed. Then the shit hit the fan. We (SoulBro and myself) tried to convince him, alas, he wouldn't buy it. In fact, still to this day he doesn't buy it. All sorts of wonderous arguments ensued, to no avail.
The channel was in havoc, had no Zed, had no direction. Soul and myself then decided to re-register it together, and came up with the plan of breaking the standard acceptance rules of registration by having two level 500 managers instead of one as a bargaining chip.
It worked, and Zed was once again with us in #melbourne. Ops were slowly decided, to get things flowing. Shortly thereafter I decided on having a more-tight-than-normal arrangement in that there were a few basic rules to be followed in channel, BOTH by lusers and ops alike. That was drafted up, and published to all that gave a shit. Anyone who didn't, bought the punishment the rules dictated. This sitch blew, but the channel was a mess and needed a bit of a kick in the ass.
Again, it worked. Things started getting back to good, ops were added; the likes of JKenett and Wolfhound showed up, and I started up a basic level structure and more importantly, an ops mailinglist. This was to be used between ops to discuss any shit that came up, or even just to share a joke.
Time went on, things got nice and quiet, stable, and people were generally happy. The people that weren't were the ones who were basic pain in the asses and could care less for just having a nice chat on IRC. The mailinglist was moved to Cynet (thankyou Mikel and Sean for greatfully hosting it from that point on), ops came and went, the core ones sticking on. Then the mailinglist became two, the new one being for what we called senior ops; those with a level of 400 or higher. A third level was created, 200, for ops considered older than 100's and capable of helping me learn up new ops with the procedures and all that crap.
There was a change in management for a short period; SoulBro left in June 1997 after mailing me with, "remove me from Z, you have my blessing." In came niggler. Shortly thereafter, AUCS once again didn't approve of dual-management, and out went niggler, and back in came SoulBro. He left again shortly after.
Things have been stable since then, and here ends the story.
Hopefully after reading this people will see just how much time and effort, with no real reward, us ops put into the channel to make it worthwhile bothering to /join. Just remember that please next time before jumping down one or more of our throats.