Userlist Status Icons

What do the dot images in the Userlist mean?

- 2 levels above Op
- 1 level above Op
- Operator
- Half-operator
- Voice

What is a Half-operator?

A half-operator or "halfop" was introduced to some networks a means of allowing moderators who could kick troublesome users, but would be unable to kick the normal "staff." What exactly these users are able to do differs between networks (and sometimes between channels depending on other channel modes), but in general, they are given partial power to voice, kick and ban some users (those lower than them), but may or may not be able to change other channel modes, or kick other halfops. Many networks do not have this option, including the largest networks (QuakeNet, Undernet, IRCnet, FreeNode, EFnet, and DALnet, according to irc.netsplit.de), but many others do. These users are designated by +h or the ASCII % (percent).

What do you mean by "2 levels above Op" and "1 level above Op"?

Just that, not all networks call this the same thing, or even have this channel mode available, and so the accompanying symbol would be different on different networks. These levels are only available on some networks that use halfops. If the network you are on doesn't have halfops, it is very doubtful they would have levels above op.

Normally these modes aren't available by default, but are set as an option on that channel after having been registered. When a new channel is created, the first user still becomes a normal op, but after registering, the other options are available. In general, the only difference between ops and one above or two above is that only those of a lower level cannot kick those of a higher level. Depending on the setup, they may be able to kick others of their own level though.

The largest network which uses all of the above modes is Rizon (currently ranked 6th,or tied for 6th, in users), which is running Plexus IRCd. On Plexus, as well as Unreal IRCd, 1 level above op is called either Admin or Protected, given the mode string designation +a, and is represented by the ASCII & (ampersand). 2 levels above op is called Owner, given the mode string designation +q, and is represented by the ASCII ~ (tilde).

On the IrcHighway network, which is running UltimateIRCd, there is only one level above op, which is called admin, or +a. When represented as an ASCII character, UltimateIRCd chose to go with !. The same case applies to the Abjects network, where ! applies to one level above op.

euIRCnetalso uses ! for one level above op, designated as +a, but also has a mode for two levels above op, which it considers the "founder" represented by +q using the ASCII representation of * (asterisk).

So why not just use the ASCII representation in the userlist like other clients and $3 in Text Events?

Because XChat is a graphical client and it can... The author of this document isn't the author of XChat and doesn't try to get into the mind of the person who originally created this feature years and years ago.

But you can disable the pixmap version of the status if you are on 2.8.7d or newer.

To disable graphical modes:

/set -on gui_tweaks 64

To re-enable graphical modes:

/set -off gui_tweaks 64

After this, the next time you join a channel, the setting will be applied, but may not look right until after you restart XChat.

What about the WebChat Network?

For some reason, WebChat decided to have a mode below voices, but above normal "guests." They appear to have designated this group as "Users" with the mode string +u and the ASCII representation of -. Why? The author of this page doesn't know, but it is worth noting that XChat does group these "Users" below voices and above normal peons, although there is no pixmap available for this mode, so the user list doesn't look right.