IRC cloaks
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On freenode, the network which hosts the Wikimedia IRC channels, an IRC hostmask cloak replaces the display of your IP address or host name with a cloak. For example, i=ajvol@123.45.67.89 could become i=ajvol@wikimedia/Alexander-Sigachov in several IRC-related messages (/who, /whois, and various join/part/quit notifications, depending on the client of the person seeing the notification). Note that they have no effect on nicknames.
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[edit] Purposes of a cloak
- The primary reason to wear a cloak is to prove that you are the user on-wiki that you say you are on IRC. For example, jwales'
wikipedia/Jimbo-Walescloak shows that he is who he says he is, as you cannot add a fake cloak onto yourself. - According to Rob Levin, the late ex-head of freenode, user cloaks are a way to show off your pride as a Wikimedian to those who see you in other IRC channels, and are intended to help build a sense of community.
- They are also a way to hide your hostname for security and privacy reasons. freenode provides an "unaffiliated" cloak to those without a cloak for a particular project.
[edit] People who deal with Wikimedia cloaks
The following people are involved in communicating with freenode staff about authorizing the use of a Wikimedia user cloak (the Wikimedia Group Contacts):
- James F. (talk) (IRC nicks James_F, James_F|Away)
- Sean Whitton (talk) (IRC nick seanw)
All cloaks must conform to the DNS hostname specification as described in RFC 1034 and RFC 1035. They may include upper- and lower-case Latin characters, Arabic numerals, periods and dashes. They may not include spaces or underscores; dashes should be used instead.
- As of February 2005, language codes in any Wikimedia cloak are no longer allowed. All cloaks will take the form of
project/Username. Name conflicts will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
- As of March 2006, contacts may set cloaks for Wikimedia projects other than Wikipedia. See the list below, and if your project isn't listed, speak to a contact.
[edit] Obtaining a cloak
- Cloak requests for any "tag" other than Wikimedia are unavailable right now. This is outside of the Group Contacts' control, and due to actions - and primarily, inaction - by the Freenode team. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Cloaks can now be requested here. The same requirements freenode staff use for unaffiliated cloaks apply to ours as well:
- Users must have a registered nick
- Users must have an alternate nick linked to their master nick
- Users must have set an e-mail address on their master nick.
As part of the cloak request process at the above location, you will be given instructions to prove that your IRC nick and on-wiki username belong to the same person (proof is needed in both directions). The system will try to help you fix mistakes in your request in real time.
In order to keep the system moving, no notification is given when a cloak is set. Also, requests which are found to not meet the specifications exactly when they are reviewed by a contact are rejected and a memo is sent to the submitted nick asking for another submission. This is done with the best of intentions, for keeping the system useful.
[edit] Activating your cloak
Once you get a cloak, you need to identify yourself to NickServ to activate it. Type /msg nickserv identify your-nickserv-password or just put your NickServ password as your server password in your IRC client.
[edit] Cloak options
In the past, only Wikipedia cloaks have been offered; these cloaks took the form of wikipedia/Username (your cloak is made of your on-wiki username, not your IRC nickname). Users are now permitted to request a project specific cloak (but not a language-based cloak) using the normal system.
Currently permitted cloaks include:
- wikimedia/Username (for users who identify with a number of Wikimedia projects, or the foundation)
- wikipedia/Username
- wiktionary/Username
- wikiquote/Username
- wikisource/Username
- wikispecies/Username
- wikibooks/Username
- wikinews/Username
- wikimedia-commons/Username
