Ok, I don't want to get too anal, legalistic, or dogmatic about this, especially since this is really only a set of guidelines, not an actual official (see the homepage's title, already) list of The Channel Commandments. As a general rule, just try to grant people some basic human respect. If you've already got this down, you may well be able to just skip the rest of this document. But, to be a bit more specific:

1. Whatever you do, please do your very best to avoid preaching against the current of channel topic and/or consent. You should realize that, no matter how much you may wish to tell us the GOOD NEWS OF YOUR LORD ________, you are probably the umpteen millionth person to tell us about how much we are missing as atheists, and we tend to get really quite tired of it. Keep in mind that debate is fine; chances are, you are not going to get kicked of #atheism for participating in or initiating rational, polite debate. IMHO it is easy enough to judge between this and flaming/preaching at us.

2. IRCwar attacks, for both historical and practical reasons, on either the channel or on individuals are not appreciated on #atheism. This includes clones, flooding, flashing, port19s, nuking, et cetera.

3. Please try not to jump into the channel, then jump out a second later. This practice is affectionately known as "channel fucking." It tends to get annoying, especially when repeated. To illustrate:

   [Heathen] Fundeee, a conservative skeptical approach to the evidence indicates that Yeshua probably never claimed he was the son of God, but rather that that and the miraculous narratives about his life were more or less developed by the early Christians, such as Paul, the NT Gospel authors, and the Gnostics.
   Join: chanfuckr!~cl00bie@blah.blahworld.com
   [Heathen] 'lo chan
   Leave: chanfuckr
   [Baimei] Fundeee: And all the other saviors with lives nearly identical to Jesus were liars and lunatics, right?
   [Fundeee] Heathen: oh, so the most IMPORTANT BOOK EVER WRITTEN is justa huge book of lies?
   [Baimei] hi chanfuckr
   Join: chanfuckr!~cl00bie@blah.blahworld.com
   [Baimei] bye chanfuckr
   [Fundeee] hi chanfuckr
   [Baimei] hi chanfuckr
   Leave: chanfuckr
   [Fundee] Baimei: yes.
   Join: chanfuckr!~cl00bie@blah.blahworld.com
   Leave: chanfuckr
   Join: chanfuckr!~cl00bie@blah.blahworld.com
   [Heathen] Make up your mind, chan!@#
   Leave: chanfuckr
   [Heathen] Um, so where were we?

   If the reason that you channel fuck is because you enter the channel, then realize that there is hardly anyone on the channel, then please either tough it out with few people on the channel at least for a while, or else learn to check how many people are on the channel using the /list command (eg, /list #atheism), and see the names of the people on the channel who haven't set usermode +i using the /names command (eg, /names #atheism).

4. You may swear on this fucking channel, goddamnit. Now get the hell out of my face about it, you stupid asshole!@#!@#

5. Please try to avoid SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS, or overusing such effects as bold, underline, and inverse video. While useful in moderation to accent important points, THESE TECHNIQUES ARE SOMEWHAT ANNOYING WHEN OVERUSED, MUCH LIKE SCREAMING AN ENTIRE CONVERSATION MIGHT BE IN REAL LIFE. Get my drift?

6. Don't ask for ops. It takes a lot of time input into the channel and trust from the existing ops before you will be even considered. "Op begging" is rude and you're much more likely to get kicked than to get ops.

In short, just try to remember that there are other people on the end of that IRC connection, and they'd like to chat with their friends or argue with their enemies. Keep that in mind, and try to respect their desires like you would respect the same desires in a "real life" conversation, then you should get along fine. IOW, play nice, kiddies :b