Ewww!!! They've got poop on them! What do I do?

Well, duh!  Wash them!

When dealing with dirty diapers, you need to consider a few things.  

*Where do I keep the dirty diapers?  
That's up to you.  Some sites mention using a covered pail full of water and baking soda for your diapers.  This will keep stains from setting.  There are disadvantages to this method, though.  Keeping a pail of water in the house with a baby poses a drowning risk that has made many sites and experts recommend not using a wet pail anymore.  In addition, you have to deal with a full pail of dirty water.  I don't know about you, but I don't relish the idea of spilling that water, and that's exactly what I would manage to do on a regular basis.
You could buy a dedicated diaper pail that doesn't have those bag cartridges like the Diaper Genie does.  One of my favorites has a little dome in the top where you can put an air freshener.  You could use a kitchen garbage pail with a lid and a pail liner made of PUL.  You could even just get a hanging wetbag and put them in there.
Wait, just put them in a bag?  What about the stink?  Get this, if your diapers are exposed to air, they will not stink!  Some people, myself included, leave the lid to the diaper pail or the zipper to the wetbag open and have no issues with a stinky room.  The only time my eyes water when I take out my pail liner is if the lid to the pail has been closed.

*What is in the laundry detergent?  
My favorite baby laundry detergent when I had my first son (before I learned about cloth diapers) used to be Dreft.  It used to make the clothes smell like baby powder and feel all cuddly.  I never knew that Dreft wasn't a cloth diaper safe detergent.  Why not?  It had a few of the big cloth diaper no-nos.  Whitening enzymes, brighteners, fragrances and dyes can all irritate your baby's sensitive skin, especially when kept wet in an overnight diaper.
One of the best resources for figuring out which detergent is best for you is Diaper Jungle's Cloth Diaper Detergent Chart.  I have been hearing great things about soap nuts lately.  I'm going to give them a try when I run low on detergent.  I'll definitely let you know how it goes!  I currently make my own using a recipe from The Eco Friendly Family.  I use the recipe without Borax.  It's just equal parts of washing soda, baking soda and OxyClean Free.  It's been working pretty well so far!

*Do I add fabric softener?  
Fabric softener, whether in the detergent or added in separately, is an even bigger cloth diaper no-no.  It might make your clothes feel softer and reduce static cling, but it coats the diapers, causing the liquids to repel and diapers to leak.  This includes dryer sheets and bars.  Even the residue from the sheets in the dryer can cause repelling.  There are other more natural softeners that can give you the same benefits as softener without the repelling problem, such as dryer balls.

*What do I do if I have hard water?  
Hard water can make washing cloth diapers difficult.  It can make any of your laundry difficult.  You will have to use special detergent or add in a water softener in order to get your diapers fully clean.  Many moms recommend using Calgon water softener or Rockin' Green Hard Rock cloth diaper detergent when washing the diapers.  There is a ton of information online on what to do if you have hard water.  You could read a blog (besides mine because we don't have hard water in NYC), or join a message board to find out from other parents who are dealing with hard water issues firsthand.

*What should my wash routine be?  
It varies depending on your washing machine and water, but the general rule of thumb is cold rinse without detergent, hot wash with detergent, cold rinse.  The first cold rinse washes away as much of the waste out of the diaper as possible.  The hot wash sanitizes your diapers and kills any bacteria, getting your diapers truly clean.  The final cold rinse washes away all of the detergent and any leftover muck.
I live in a small NYC apartment, so I can't have a large washing machine.  I'm lucky that my landlady is nice enough to let us have one at all!  I wouldn't be able to do cloth if I didn't have my machine.  It could be done, but I'm being honest.  My washer is a tiny compact washer by Haier and it's not as powerful as other machines, so I have to make allowances for that.  I do a cold quick wash, a full hot wash with detergent and another cold quick wash.  I get a lot of rinses in that way, so my washer gets the job done.

*What about the poop?  What do I do with that?  
It always comes back to the poop, doesn't it?  Well, your routine will depend on how old your baby is.  
Newborn meconium poop (that black, sticky poop) scares new CDing parents, including me!  My son pooped all that out in the hospital in the disposables that they used so I got lucky, but I would have put cloth on him from birth if we were home.  It should be rinsed off before you put your diapers in the wash.
EBF (exclusively breast fed) poop is yellow and seedy.  If you have a regular sized washing machine, you don't need to rinse off the poop.  Just toss it in your wetbag or pail and wash it with the other diapers.  I can't do that with my compact washer.  I rinse off the poop and give them a scrub in the bathroom sink.  I've seen them come out of the washer still stained if I didn't.
When your baby starts eating solids, the poop will be the consistency of peanut butter, if not firmer, and needs to be either sprayed off with the diaper sprayer, dunked into the toilet and swished around until the poop comes off or scraped off into the toilet.  As he or she gets older, the poop will become ploppable, meaning that you can just turn the diaper over and the poop will plop into the toilet.  That's what many CDing parents hope for because it ploppable poop so much easier to deal with!  Liners, whether they be disposable or not, help with this process.  It's easier to flush a liner or rinse a cloth liner than the whole diaper, especially if you're using pockets or AIOs.

What do I do about stains?
First, the sun is your best friend!  Sunning your diapers is a natural way of getting stains out of your diapers.  Hang your wet diapers in the sun and the stains will fade.  If they're not gone by the time they're dry, they will be the next time you wash and sun them.
Unfortunately, I don't have the option of sunning the diapers.  My apartment is surrounded by buildings all around it, so we don't get the benefit of direct sunlight unless I put them on the roof.  Seeing as how I tend to be really, really clumsy, you can imagine that I'm a little apprehensive of going that route.  I use a mixture of water, hydrogen peroxide and a little bit of blue original Dawn to get the stains out.  My diapers and inserts go into the wash with very few stains on them so that they come out clean.  I hang them on a small hanging rack in my house.  I rarely put them in the dryer because it's smaller than my washer.
The thing about stains is that one way or another, they will come out.  Besides, your baby poops in them.  Once you get the stains out, they're going to get pooped in again.  The baby poops inside the diaper.  No one is going to see it.  It's a personal thing.  The only time you really need to worry about stains is if you're going to sell your diapers.  The resale value on cloth diapers is higher than you would think and people pay more if there are no stains in the diapers.

Now you've got a wash routine.  You might need to tweak it to better suit your needs, but now you know where to start.