From: gjm5@po.CWRU.Edu (Gregory J. Meyers)
Newsgroups: alt.irc
Subject: Re: Bots and Common Sense
Date: 27 Jan 1993 23:29:43 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: gjm5@po.CWRU.Edu (Lord Maximilien of Myragorthia)
NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, smcmilla@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott A McMillan) says:
>gjm5@po.CWRU.Edu (Gregory J. Meyers) writes:
>>In a previous article, smcmilla@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott A McMillan) says:

[IRC as more than chat service; some "good" bots]
>So do you want to turn IRC into a MUSH? Shaz, and Nickserv and all other useful
>bots should be improved and I have no problem with them at all, I even encourage
>people to write them.... all because they do things that the average user can
>not do by themselves...

Actually that sounds cool.  A friend of mine has a theory that addiction to
MUDs, and addiction to IRC, is mutually exclusive.  But consider that no MUD
has more than about 300 users at a time, whereas I've seen IRC with 1300 plus.
No MUD (that I am aware of) takes advantage of the resources of more than
one computer, while IRC uses hundreds.  You could make one helluva MUD with
all that.

>[stuff on owning channels]
>I will grant you this for established channels... however, usually at least
>one ircop is on #hot*, so the offender better watch out...

I wasn't thinking of #hot* -- no one owns those channels; they're both very
close to anarchy.  I'm thinking more along the lines of #sherwood.  Often
hovering around ten people or so, with a few old-timers (sometimes as old as
*three whole years*!  A long time in the fast-moving computer world), and lots
of semi-faithful visitors who can only get opped by a lot of major kissing-up.
It's pretty disgusting to watch.

>[stuff on owning and registering nicks]
>Let them register from different accounts (possibly 2-5, unless they have hacked
>root somewhere...) This will still prevent nick duplication, although some
>users will have more possible nicks than others, but this is a small price to
>pay, in my opinion.

What about those people who modify their clients to allow them to set their
own IRC username?  This will have to be prevented in some way.  ... Yes, I did
this myself.  I only had to change about twenty characters of the source code
to do it.  Did all sorts of fun and annoying things with that ability.  Nearly
lost my UNIX account as a result.  But if there is ever going to be any sort
of nickname registration, this sort of bug will have to be eliminated first.
     I realise that every time I admit publicly, on Usenet, that I've done
this or that, I've stuck my neck way out.  I only take that risk because it
shows what's wrong with the system.  We have to be aware of the obstacles to
be overcome, and that includes making the system much more waterproof.

>[channel-reserving bots...]
>Emotions aside for a minute... An ircrc can act as a channel cop... it's
>quite easy to deop anyone who deops someone else or changes nicks or whatever...
>I admit that I don't like talking bots, but pubserv (from what you have said,
>I have never personally run into that bot) sounds more like channel atmosphere..
>As long as it's not annoying, I'll put up with bots...

One thing a bot can do that (most) human users cannot, is be on the system 24
hours a day.  That allows people to log in from anywhere, at odd hours, and
hold conversations and read postings, etc.

>[the inevitability of mode wars; how could they be accomodated]
>This sounds like quite a good idea to me. Sorry, no ideas here... You have a 
>very good point about granting and revoking power. Maybe a new type of op
>status should be used....

Someone once suggested that when you op someone on a channel, you should lose
your own op status.  Not a bad start--a problem arises if someone leaves a
channel without opping anyone else.  Perhaps the person who forms a channel
would have a higher level of op status, the channel owner.  The channel might
then be branded with his/her username and host, so that it would still be
theirs if they came back later (eliminating the need for a bot to reserve it).
A minor "channel controller" status could be passed out by the owner, and then
distributed or not the way chops are now.  For this to work, the channel would
need to stay in existence even when empty--that might lead to the registration
of channels, just like for nicks.  Hey, I'm just thinking out loud, I know
this idea is just half-baked, but there is definitely some potential here.
Maybe we could cut down on mode changes, instead of demanding that the server
handle the large load being dished out with this system.

>[ircrcs and bots and aliases and modules]
>why duplicate a command? anyway, most bot users (95%) don't use /load commands
>(the number is a guess, but probably close to the mark)

Then they're not very bright, programming-wise, or are just copying someone
else's old code--either way I don't want to hear about it.  I don't respect
such people, and it's a shame that they are taken as representative of bot
programmers.


>Scott Andrew McMillan             University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
>socket@uiuc.edu        "Fighting for peace is like fornicating for chastity"
>smcmilla@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu            What about my ontological predicates???

                                        Greg Meyers
                                        Lord_Max
                                        meyers@alpha.ces.cwru.edu