IRC/Cloaks
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 to show your affiliation to one of our projects. For example, alex@123.45.67.89 could become alex@wikimedia/AlexZ in several IRC-related messages (/who, /whois, and various join/part/quit notifications, depending on the client of the person seeing the notification). Many people make use of cloaks because an exposed IP can often be considered sensitive and private information. However, using a cloak will not securely hide your IP and users who are concerned about the visibility of their IP address should use a VPN or bouncer/VPS instead.[1]
Purposes of a cloak
- Verification on IRC: The primary reason to use a cloak is to prove that you are the user on-wiki who 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. - Community pride: According to Rob Levin, the late founder 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.
People who administer 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):
- Az1568 (talk) (IRC nick
Az1568orAlexZ) - Dungodung (talk) (IRC nick
dungodung) - Fox (talk) (IRC nick
foks) - Snowolf (talk) (IRC nick
Snowolf)
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 and dashes. They may not include spaces or underscores; hyphens 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.
Obtaining a cloak
Cloaks can be requested by sending a private message via following command: /msg wmopbot cloak and follow the link in the response given. Please submit only ONE request. Submitting duplicates may cause your request to be rejected.
If you do not have a freenode account, you must set one up first. Our project cloaks are only issued to users who meet the following criteria:
- User must have a verified e-mail address (throwaway/disposable emails are not acceptable)
- User must have at least 250 edits on Wikimedia projects
- User must have a Wikimedia project account registered for at least three months
- User must not be actively blocked from a project
The requirements are designed to prevent abuse of cloaks around freenode. It is hoped that the vast majority of the time they won't prevent genuine contributors from getting cloaks. In the meantime while waiting to meet these requirements it is pointed out that unaffiliated cloaks can be acquired from freenode staff by asking staff listed on /stats p. Wikimedia Foundation staff are automatically exempt from the requirements for edit count and account age.
Please note that you will only be contacted by a group contact if there are questions or issues regarding your request. You will otherwise not be notified.
Activating your cloak
Once you get a cloak, you need to identify yourself to NickServ to activate it. Type /msg nickserv identify <your password> or just put your NickServ password as your server password in your IRC client.
There is normally a few seconds delay between identifying to NickServ and your cloak being set. This can result in the following:
[21:00] » Join: An_IRC_User (~User@11.22.33.44)
[21:00] × Quit: An_IRC_User (~User@11.22.33.44) (Changing host)
[21:00] » Join: An_IRC_User (~User@wikimedia/Example)
This usually happens because the IRC client has been configured to automatically join channels upon a successful connection to the server. You can use SASL to prevent this from happening as SASL allows identifying to NickServ before anything else happens such as automatically joining a channel. See the page on freenode.net for more information.
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.
Cloaks may (depending on your preference):
- Have the first letter of your username be upper or lower case
- Be entirely in lower case
- Begin with a letter and contain only DNS compliant characters a–z, A–Z, 0–9 and the hyphen (-)
Currently permitted cloaks include:
Notes
- ↑ "Cloaks do not effectively hide your IP", freenode knowledgebase
- ↑ For users who participate in multiple projects or are affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation.
- ↑ For MediaWiki developers with +2 access or otherwise sufficiently involved with MediaWiki development.