From: phone@coombs.anu.edu.au (matthew green)
Newsgroups: alt.irc
Subject: Re: Bots and Common Sense
Date: 28 Jan 93 10:07:36 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.76.2

gjm5@po.CWRU.Edu (Gregory J. Meyers) writes:
| In a previous article, smcmilla@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott A McMillan) says:
| >Let's start with what IRC is: Internet Relay Chat. Okay, so the purpose of
| >IRC is to chat. I take that to mean to talk, to hold a conversation. From the
| >ardent supporters of vanity bots, I must be wrong...

You must..  ahh well, such is life.

| IRC began as a chat service, but I don't see why it has to remain just that.
| When you connect up hundreds of computers around the globe, the possibilities
| are endless. 

Ahhh..   hundred of computers..   pity there is that many servers on the net..
(actually over 200) ...

| Almost none of these possibilities have been exploited yet.  I
| see NickServ, and Shaz (the GIF-distribution bot), and NCC-1701, and little
| else.

Someone meantioned on #Twilight_zone last night that there was about 1000
clients connected on irc...  he then went on to meantion that 100 of these
clients had names in the form of *serv *bot or *srv.  If you can only see
the 3 'bots you meantioned above, then you aren't looking too far.
Personally, there are only three 'bot's that I like.  NickServ, NoteServ,
and Lumberjak (the third merely because all it does it log server messages
and talk on #twilight_zone, which I have several times used).

| These bots all share a common feature: they interface a useful program
| with an easily understood network interface.  With more creativity we might
| see better netgames, some ongoing MUD-type environments.  The difference is,
| anyone with a little skill can write a bot, whereas starting a MUD and getting
| people to try it out is more difficult.

If you want to play these games, and use irc as the place to start them,
write some other interface that create connections outside of the main 
irc net...  something like using DCC in ircII does...  its not hard..

| >Vanity bots... I'll admit that I have written a bot, and ran it for about
| >two days. Then I wrote an ircrc. For better or worse, bots are good as
| >sources for ircrc's. Bot's that just hold a channel are wastes of IRC
| >resources (for the reasons mentioned above.) Bots that op users are also
| >a waste.

| Depends.  A well-written channel holding bot is a bit like a government in a
| tiny country.  If it performs valuable services, like keeping track of
| messages and maintaining the peace (rather than instigating wars), then it can
| provide a safe haven for regular users, and even enhance conversation.  I
| remember channel #pub not too long ago, and its bot #pubserv, which was a
| bartender of course.  All it could do was pour you a Coors.  But people on
| that channel talked as if they were really in a pub.  One guy came on the
| channel to tell us he'd just lost a friend.  Man, I sure needed that Coors
| right then.

"channel-holding-bot".   Why does that term seem so completly ugly to me ?
Lets see..   Why does a channel need to be held ?  Why can't you have the
people actually on the channel look after the channel ?   Hmm..  as to 
'bots keeping the peace, its when the 'bots start having fun that there
channel wars..  but.. for some reason I don't see that sort of play
much..  perhaps because I tend to avoid places it happens...

| >Let's go back to what IRC is: chat. I sure don't need an op to
| >chat. Some people sure think they do. Maybe if people didn't throw around
| >ops, they wouldn't get kicked off 'their own' channel. I personally auto-op
| >three people when they join (from an ircrc.) I know lots of people on 
| >IRC, but I op three. Point made? I refuse to join #hotsex and #hottub because
| >of the number of opings and deopings that just clutter the channel and 
| >interfear with talking, the supposed purpose of IRC.

| No one joins those channels to talk.  They're way too clogged up with people
| for anything that laid-back.  People go on #hot* because they want to have
| mode wars--it's like a huge wrestling match, everyone jostling for position,
| and I often find it's fun to watch as well as to participate.

Not really.  I know people how join those channels and talk to people.  I
even remember having a conversation there once..   it was purely amazing..
I think the fact that someone had kicked and banned all the 'bots helped.

| OK, I know it's
| wasteful of bandwidth.  This point has been made so many times, it's begun to
| lose its bite.  But when channels get as huge as those two, things can easily
| get volatile, and after a while a reputation builds up that perpetuates the
| situation.  Seems to me that whenever you give some users power over other
| users, along with the ability to grant or revoke that power, you're gonna
| have a little rivalry.

As big as those two.  #twilight_zone and #hack are often as big as #bot*, but
they rarely have the mode war/'bot kicking problems..   perhaps its just that
the people in #twilight_zone and #hack have more clues about life.. .. ahh
well..

|      Instead of trying to stop it, how about finding ways to accomodate it?
| Perhaps if the system were organized differently, so that it weren't necessary
| to transmit mode commands to *every single server* on the system, there would
| be no more complaints.  How to do this, I'm not sure yet, but I'm working on
| it, just give me a couple minutes... *Grin*  I've suggested this before.  I'll
| keep thinking about this one until someone comes up with an idea, or proves to
| me why it's impossible.

There are lots of `solutions' around to fix this problem..  but I've yet to see
one that actually works, in all cases.

| My bots are all written with various modules strung together.  My .ircrc and
| my bot scripts are both just series of /load commands, and the two share many
| of the same modules.  So I don't have to tell my bots to /op suchandsuch, I
| just do it myself.  But my bot could do it if I told it to, since it has the
| same alias.

Well, ircII 'bots are probably the lamest 'bots around...  ahh well..  I once
wrote a 'bot in ircII..  I don't remember ever it being on a channel with
anyone more than me..  I got bored after the first 1/2 hour.. 
Then I wrote a 'bot in perl..   and learnt how to program in perl... 
I guess I gained something from that....

| >Plus, ircrcs are written from the ground
| >up, therefore the user gains some knowledge of IRC script. I know of bots
| >created by just changing the /nick at the top and the op list. Can't learn
| >much from that...
| All my modules were written by myself only.  I think all bots should be
| written by their owners.  Otherwise you have no idea what you're getting into
| when you run a bot, and the dangers are numerous.  People who run bots written
| by others should be aware that the owner can turn around at any moment and
| use the bot to annihilate the owner's account.

Well, you contradict yourself later..  ahh well..   I too think that someone
just "has to" write a 'bot should know what they are doing..  write it
themselves.  .but not in ircII..  you any 'bot written in ircII can and
should be included as part of the `owners' irc start-up (.ircrc) ..
Else it should be written in perl (great learning execise) or in C..

|      I *did* add some neat programming techniques to my modules which someone
| else authored (public domain), but that's different.  I understood what I was
| doing, and wasn't copying lines of code directly.

..

| [stuff deleted... basically restating earlier argument]
| >I hope that makes sense to most people. I do not believe that bots can ever
| >be banned from irc, so we have to put up with them. We SHOULD however, make
| >sure that they never flood and avoid loops. Hopefully, users will progress
| >from using bots (at least harmful ones) and become mature IRC users, and
| >not out to only op your friends and ban your enemies.
| Since the client program has developed into an operating system all its own,
| the knowledge necessary to write a bot has diminished.  I applaud this,
| because I still feel bots could be used to foster creativity in a flexible
| environment.  But if the bot-writing feature of client programs goes away, it
| won't be all bad.  At least this will single out the *true* programmers, who
| will have no choice but to write their bots in C, Pascal, assembler, etc.
| Many of them already do.

I assume you are talking about ircII here.  It is not an operating system
(yet) and I can't see it getting like one..  ircII makes interfacing with
ircd easier...  and the `bot-writing' feature of ircII is what makes it
the client I use..  it is not just useful for writing (copying) 'bots..  I
sure as hell wouldn't want to write the `netsplit' or `tabkey' scripts 
in C code.

blah..

phone..
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