layout: post comments: true title: "Why I show channels that I am on at IRC?" category: [english] tags: [irc, english]


Or why I am in umode -iI

People ask this question from me a lot, often the same people as they don't remember my answer.

I am in umode -iI which shows the channels that I am on so if you think that I seem sane or interesting or whatever person and feel like you have similar interests, you can simply /whois Mikaela to see the public channels that I am on and join if you see anything interesting.

But what about the trolls? I haven't had many trolls following me around and if that happens to you, you can simply send logs to network operators and if they are good opers, they will take action. Even freenode staffers have took action which is a surprise.

Being umode -iI by yourself

Simply use umode -iI or if that is unknown command (as it's alias in most of clients), /mode YOURNICK -iI and your channel list is visible to people who /whois you.

It's not automatic though as networks set specific umodes on connect so you will need to setup that as automatic command when connecting to network. Some examples:

  • HexChat: Open network list, select network and click edit, open tab Connect commands, click add and type umode -iI.
  • WeeChat: /set irc.server_default.command /mode $nick -iI
  • ZNC: /msg *status loadmod perform and /msg *perform add mode %nick% -iI
    • The same can also be done in webadmin and if you load perform for user level, adding the command mode %nick% -iI will set umode -iI on all networks.

Update on 2015-04-13: add umode -I which is the InspIRCd way of hiding all channels from whois depending on the modules loaded and IRCd config.