Channel Registration

Registering a channel establishes you as its official owner on the network. This grants special privileges (the ~ owner status) and ensures long-term control of your channel’s name and settings

Why Register Your Channel?

Channel registration is essential for protecting your community’s space. Once registered, no one else can steal your channel name or take over control via netsplits or opportunistic rejoins. The channel is marked as registered (mode +r) and services will remember its modes, topic, and ban list even if it empties out. As the founder, you gain the highest level of authority: you appear with a ~ prefix (mode +q, “owner”) in the user list, denoting ultimate control. You can even designate channel admins (prefix &, mode +a) beneath you to help run the channel. In short, registration secures your channel and unlocks the full toolkit of channel management features

Ownership also comes with responsibility. We won't get involved in channel affairs, if it doesn't go beyond the scope of a channel

How to Register a Channel

To register your channel, you must be a channel operator (have @ or higher in the channel) and have a registered nickname. Simply use the chanserv command:
/register #YourChannel description

For example, if you are op in #london, you might enter:
/register #london British IRC channel for Londoners

The description is a short info blurb about your channel’s purpose. Once executed, chanserv will register the channel to your account. You’ll be recorded as the Founder of #london. chanserv will also set channel mode +r (to mark it as registered) and usually give you owner status +q (if not already set)

From that point on, each time you join your channel, chanserv will ensure you regain operator privileges (it can auto-op or even auto-owner you). If the channel is empty, chanserv will hold it open for you so nobody else can create it in your absence. In effect, the channel is yours

Only the founder (you) can make certain changes like dropping the channel registration or transferring ownership. If you ever need to relinquish the channel, you can /chanserv drop #YourChannel (this will unregister it, so be careful – it opens the name for anyone to grab). You can also change the founder to someone else via /chanserv set founder #YourChannel NewOwner or set a successor (a backup owner) who would inherit the channel if your nickname/account disappears

Pro Tip

• Make sure you register your nickname with nickserv before registering a channel. chanserv will not register channels for unregistered nicknames.
• Consider setting a Successor for important channels: /chanserv set successor #YourChannel TrustedNickname. This way if you become inactive, the channel ownership can pass on to someone you trust rather than leaving the channel orphaned.
• As founder, you can always recover control. If you join and don’t get opped automatically for some reason, just do /chanserv op #YourChannel (without any further parameters) to manually op yourself (or use IDENTIFY if a password is set for the channel). To get / remove all your channel permissions, /chanserv UP #yourchannel and /chanserv DOWN #yourchannel respectively You’re the boss – chanserv will obey you. If you're using a channel bot - hosted by botserv - use .up and .down in the channel, because that will obey you too
• When you have a chanel bot assigned and it is currently in the channel, give the bot the command .help and it will open your eyes to a wealth of channel moderation control