In the nine years that #Christian has been an important channel on the Undernet, it has seen many changes and the ministry continues to mature with time. With any changes, there are growing pains. Despite such change, our commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ continues and it is our prayer that people who visit the channel are encouraged and inspired to walk more closely with God.

Now we are also on Starlink-IRC.org as well, we are keen to make the point that it will be "business as usual" there also, even though growing a new channel can be slow.

The channels are under the overall supervision of a number of Senior Channel Operators who are responsible to the designated Channel Owner (in Undernet called the Channel Manager) for day-to-day operations and overall mission and philosphy of existence. These people are effectively advisors whose input is sought by the head of the channel.

Minute by minute supervision is maintained by a team of Channel Operators who are each registered with the Channel Service people in both Undernet and Starlink-IRC - and while our ops are located in all of the different continents of the world, there are obviously times of the day or night when unfortunately there is no supervision available. Such is the international nature of our channel.

You may look at a pictorial view of our channel management here.

Channel Operators are helped in their task by two "bots" in each location, who are described lower down the page.

Management of all aspects of the channel is therefore vested in a group of "regulars" who are always prepared to be approached by guests in the event of a conflict.

The channel's structure can be seen from a link at the bottom of this page. The Senior ops in many ways are like the elders and diaconate in a church scenario, with the ops as those of the congregation who have "membership". Guests who choose to come in are welcomed like any visitor to any church, with love and fellowship.

To conclude, we as a channel, and individually, are grateful to all of the ops who have in the past, and who currently give their time and service to the Lord for this ministry, including those who have moved on. It is our hope, that despite changes from within the ministry, the overall effect is one of improvement for those who regularly visit the channel.

You may read a little more about this on our history webpage.

Thank you for visiting and reading our web site.

#Christian Channel Management

Bots

A "Bot" (short for "Robot") is really just a computer program which looks after the integrity of a channel, keeping a record of who have been asked not to join for disciplinary reasons (known as the "Banlist"), and those who are allowed to supervise operations (known as the "Userlist").

In #Christian, we have two bots in each location, with others on-call in the event of an emergency such as a series of netsplits over a long period.

CStar (starlink-irc.org)
The Channel Bot provided by starlink-IRC is called CStar, and is officially designated as "female" since its code is maintained by a lady Administrator!

You can enquire from CStar about who are on its databases in respect of our - or any other - channel by messaging the bot.

X (undernet.org)
The Channel Bot provided by Undernet is called X, and is also officially designated as "female", probably for a similar reason!

X's database is not accessible on its website 24/7 for reasons known to undernet. The attacks on the network starting 4th January 2001 have reduced its accessibility to the public. As Undernet's coders continue to rebuild a secure Channel Service system, we hope that facility will be restored ultimately. Go to http://cservice.undernet.org/live to make database enquiries.

You may read about this series of attacks on undernet.org at this page on our site.

Logos3 (undernet.org)
Logos9 (starlink-irc.org)
In addition to X we have a Bot of our own, known as Logos.

Logos is a highly intelligent program which does many useful things for the channel.

The bot is able to quote from a large number of Bible versions, including Greek. The way you ask him to display text to channel to support a conversation going on is as follows...

!version book chapter verse...

!kjv 1Pet 3 16

you may also ask logos to search for a particular word or phrase...

!sversion query...

!skjv seek and you shall find

You may ask Logos3 or Logos9 for personal private help with scriptures at any time, either in a message

(for example /msg logos3 kjv Mat 20 1-3)

or in a query window with the bot - (for example kjv Mat 20 1-3)

Please do not use logos in channel to merely post verses for the heck of it, or just your enjoyment. Doing this is classed as "flooding" and you will be automatically removed from channel without warning. Continuing to do so will result in a ban,also placed automatically.

Logos also looks after a range of management options for Channel Operators that are not provided in CStar or X.

Please ask in channel if you have any queries.

Sistrsara (undernet.org)
SistrSara2 (starlink-irc.org)
Sistrsara is a Bible trivia bot.

She was written by members of our ops team and will respond to instructions from any channel op or from selected regular channel guests who do not have to be opped.

The two networks have seperate and virtually identical bots which may become out of synchronisation for short periods as they are hosted on different computers.

Both maintain seperate databases of total scores,of longest winning streaks and such. The current champions have quite high scores <grin>

Check out the commands here.

Their database of questions and answers is continually expanding, and if you would like to add your own, you may email the webmaster here or may request the bot when online to accept additions. These are not added immediately, but await its owner's decision.

WingBot (undernet.org)
isaiah40 (undernet.org and starlink-irc.org)
These are both channel control bots with the ability to post bible verses.

Mention is included here because the internet being what it is, sometimes our logos bot is "down" and at those times if these two bots' owners are on-line, we are able to call upon one or the other of them to "help out" on a temporary basis.

They both have three Bible translations.

They also have ability to kick and ban on language and to moderate and demoderate the channel amongst other useful stuff.

Their commands and other details can be seen here, and also at this address.