From: scott@sfi.santafe.edu (Scott D. Yelich)
Subject: Re: Bots, WarBots, Fun?
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 17:00:27 GMT
Organization: Santa Fe Institute
	<avalon.721836847@coombs> <Bxsn5s.8x1@news.cso.uiuc.edu>

>	   It does have something to do with "Attitudes" I suggested
>	   that after meeting a person who created a "warbot" that
>	   such mentality might be more appropriate for a place that
>	   was meant for more of this type of entertainment such
>	   as some muds. And that bots that allowed for creative
>	   expression and did not take away from the computer 
>	   mediated communication for IRC should be allowed, tolerated,
>	   created, <whatever other verb you may use to say accepted>.

I think I know why monie puts her text way out in the middle-- it's so
there can't be long-winded follow up threads, unless someone either
drops her text or edits it.

,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^Monica
(Waving to monie....)

Why do people whine about a proposed news group alt.irc.bots?  It's
trivial to make a new alt.group.  I've been thinking about doing it,
myself, just to shut up the whiners.  If your news admins won't make
the spool dir-- read the group in ``junk'' and explain to them that
they're being childish.  Besides, its your problem and your loss--
either get a net news admin or whine to them until they do what you
want-- just don't whine to the world about them.

I personally won't help people who simply want to make a "chopbot."
IMHO, 98% of the chopbots in IRC are trivial and complete jokes.
Channel modes are neat...  but they fail when coupled with IRC's brain
dead protocol and implementation.  Anything that can be exploited via
a net.split will, and these IRCII chopbot scripts are simply a joke.
It is trivial to ban any chopbot from the channels it is supposedly
monitoring.

I think it would be possible to discuss "better bots" in alt.irc.bots
without having everyone simply wanting a cookbook for a chopbot.
Someone can just make a FAQ giving a one line chopbot and let it die
at that.  Wasn't it the Athena lab at MIT that not only gave out the
root password to their machines but had a "crashme" (whatever) file?
I think there are two things that can happen... (1) people will become
bored with the maintenance on a stupid chopbot and/or (2) they will
want to learn more about programming and possibly do more than a
stupid chopbot.

Aw hell, lets just make alt.irc.warbots and use IRC as a "core" for
core-wars, IRC style (Don't even think of harping on bandwidth-- we
all know IRC is no where near as wasteful as XGIFs, voice-transmission
(voice-mail and real time transmission) and talk....).  Besides that,
the IRC operators already use IRC as their personal playground:

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*NICK* Yes, I am accusing you... as does Trillian...  we need some hard
+evidence though so we can run you up a flagpole.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<Flatline> jupe the puppy
<Daemon> That might be fun..
<mlv> i'd be willing to jupe if ya think it'd be a good idea...
<mlv> my 386bsd ircserver loves to jupe :)
<Vesa> why don't you talk to oper on *.mx ?
<Vesa:#TWilight_Zone> ok, who wanted to play with jupe? Maybe a couple are
+needed..
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why not allow some bots to do the same?  IRC is already a pathetic
online dating service complete with a sandbox (which, after some
virtual water is added, alternatively serves as a mud wrestling arena
for the #sex'rs).  So, anyone up for a little one-on-one, bots only?
Hell, lets make a channel #BotSex for all those who wish to
participate.  Forget using IRC to attack another person, write a bot
and allow your hostilities to be released as the bot battles it out
with all the rest.  Will you really lose sleep if a bot has a grudge
against you or your bot?  Will you send a death threat because a bot
is "hitting" on your bot's cyber.friend?  Yeah, some wimps will
continue to abuse /kill for their quick release of agression, but all
/kill does is possible remove channel modes-- and, hey, if your bot
can't handle a /kill -- you're out of your league.

We could have contests for things like:
Ownership/Dominance of a channel
Ownership/Dominance of a channel mode
Ownership/Dominance of a channel topic
Ownership/Dominance of a nick

All of these could be evaluated over continual time and from the point
of view of some central hub location (ie: netsplits and non linked
servers don't count.)

I'm willing to bet nearly 95% of all bots could not do any of the
above EFFECTIVELY and CONSISTENTLY (/join #hotsex and watch).  For
real entertainment, watch as a new country comes online in IRC-- join
a channel where people migrate and watch the mode wars.

We could make a list of bots and problems with them... like "/help" vs
server flood control.  IRCII and its race conditions.  Or, all the
bots that aren't programmed to ignore certain things after the
billionth time, etc.  Some of these bots in IRC are really fun, you
can access the owner's files and even modify these files (That ought
to get a few people out of the bot business-- hell, we could have a
bot worm.).

However, why be destructive, eh?

We could make a "bot" olympics and have different events.  Heck, the
entire thing could be automated... I'm sure many Universities would
love to test AI code in this fashion.  The thing that I noticed about
IRC a long, long, time ago was that it was a perfect testing ground
for AI.  Are people just not interested in AI?  Would they rather just
have their +o?

So, why not make:

A bot that actively sought out all other bots and learned (ahem), er,
did something to figure out how to access them and then pretended to
be a META [service] bot.

A bot that tries to provide an "appropriate response" (ie: reply to
/msg, /kick etc).

An AI bot that was more than a look up / expert system.

An Alife bot that "lives" in IRC.

A Game Bot.  I thought there would have been many more GAME BOTs in
IRC by this time.  There's an idea for a possibly creative, useful and
non-destructive bot.

A bot that PLAYS a game bot.

If you're going to flame-- we're probably already heard it, so whine
to /dev/null, it will listen.  My sand box is already full, I don't
need your so don't throw any (if the virtual water has been added..
then I don't need your mud).

If you have ideas or something to add, follow-up and share.

Scott

Hmm, some are missing... wow, bots run (possibly) as root!

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IRC Log *** Mon Nov 16 09:53
*** There are 759 users and 251 invisible on 132 servers
*** There are 259 channels.
*** I have 17 clients and 13 servers

Channel    Nickname  S   User@Host (Name)
*          WildBot   H   jlw5@CS1.CC.Lehigh.EDU ( - /msg WildBot Info - )
#startrek  trekbot   H@  sdew@pasque.usd.edu (You can dew me in the mornin'...)
#amiga     AmiBot    H@  umueller@amiga.physik.unizh.ch (Zop's Amiga Archive)
#Bussi     BussiBot  H@  spiegl@langtry.cs.utexas.edu (BussiBaer's Bot.)
#ourhome   Twiggs    H@  caldwem@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Twiggs' robot)
#AppleIIgs SpecBot   H@  jwhoward@sacam.oren.ortn.edu (!id The Spectre)
#Netrek    netrekbot H@  g0nitzer@topaz.cdf.toronto.edu (/msg netrekbot help)
#pakistan  poondbot  H@  smc2103@hertz.njit.edu (Shoaib M Chaudhry)
#AppleBot  LeechBot  H@  thejazz@rever.NMSU.Edu ( /msg Leechbot help )
#espanol   SadusBot  H@  ruprect@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (!id <-->)
#MrBen     SpesBot   H@  rittiman@lonestar.utsa.edu (Johnny W. Rittimann)
#Vampires  Dracbot   H@  mubpb@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (!id NOBODY KNOWS)
*          BagBot    H   oscar@iastate.edu (Douglas E Schmucker)
#Jungle    JungleSrv H@  sng@uafhp.uark.edu (<Experiment Bot>)
*          dulceBot  H   vencill@iastate.edu (C bot programmer extraordinaire)
#firehouse Firebot   H   trixter@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (2 HOT 2 HANDLE)
#israel    FoxyDude  H@  peter@astro.ocis.temple.edu (A weird bot from Foxtrot. /msg FoxyDude help)
#initgame  LogicBot  H@  nbrao@M11-116-11.MIT.EDU (Black wind come carry me far away...)
#taiwan    wontbaby  H@  wontbaby@BASS.BU.EDU (Cutest and smartest taiwanese robot)
#PSB       PetBot    H@  amills@guinevere.st.nepean.uws.edu.au (A.C.M.Enterprises)
*          DiceBot   H   cs922006@iris.ariel.yorku.ca (!id Hey!  You in the mirrored shades!)
#Chinese   IOSrv     H@  eater@ios706.ncu.edu.tw (BOT here)
#Archi     Archi     H@  gr2108@iuta.univ-lyon1.fr (Archi Bot)
#francais  BoyBot    H@  montaron@eurecom8.cica.fr (-smile-)
#yazbot    yazbot    H@  yaz@phoenix.oulu.fi (Tuomas K Kaikkonen)
#ASM-PC    NiceBot   H   lohmann@black.iesd.auc.dk (I'm 'nice'd. Figure me out.)
#Dutch     NederServ H@  richie@dutentc.et.tudelft.nl (Nederlanders Service Bot; "/msg NederServ help")
#HipHop    HipBot    H@  richie@dutentc.et.tudelft.nl (My name is HipBot and I am FUNKY)
#electra   Leif      H@  nv92-jru@dront.nada.kth.se (!id Bot)
#eu-opers  EU-Oper   H@  eubotty@tiger.itc.univie.ac.at (/msg EU-Oper info)
*          BooBot    H   peterb@hops.compnews.co.uk (/msg BooBot help)
#rpg       Bilbot    H@  mcfly@anatsg1.unil.ch (/msg Bilbot help)
#AppleIIgs Cougarbot H@  kressa@NEPTUNE.ELE.URI.EDU (!id --> URI <--)
*          CrazyBot  H   td1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Tahir Dildar)
#hk        BrainDead H@  leungk@Soccer.MIS.Arizona.EDU (BrainDead Bot)
#HappyBOT  HappyBOT  H@  pl581310@131.178.51.42 (RaxxaR)
#uow       UoWBot    H@  root@gorgon.cs.uow.edu.au (University of Wollongong Services)
#utsa      longybot  H@  smiguel@lonestar.utsa.edu (Brandon  S. San Miguel)
#hh_athome HHBot     H@  tucker@156.151.1.104 (The Original Hardware Hacker(Tm))
#Limbaugh  EIB_Serv  H@  chaneysa@nextnet.ccs.csus.edu (The Rush Limbaugh  Backup DittoBot)
#Devilish  DevilBot  H@  crawford@vodalus.acsu.buffalo.edu (RedDevil's Personal Slave)
#Blaklife  ZuluBot   H   root@infrared.creol.ucf.edu (Reggie's #Blaklife Robot)
#          ssdbot    H@  ssd@istef.engr.ucf.edu (Steve's Robot)
#Yale      Cogbot    H@  ching@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU (/MSG Cogbot HELP)
#hotsex    TechnoBot H   bmd@reef.cis.ufl.edu (*** ANONYMOUS ***)
#hottub    LedBot    H@  jdportwi@maxwell3.ee.mtu.edu (!id I am the ultimate LedBot)
*          Bottle    H   jain@bartok.CES.CWRU.Edu (Re-Cycled)
#drugs     LearyBot  H@  fm@sandman.cco.caltech.edu (!id /msg LearyBot info)
#amiga     Merbot    H@  wright@merlin.etsu.edu (Merlin's Amiga Archive)
#ctyers    Votobot   H@  dbw1@CRUX1.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (!id Chief Military Advisor)
#Yale      YaleBot   H@  erikr@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU (!id /msg YaleBot help)
#travel    TravelBot H@  bhall@doc.cc.utexas.edu (Bowman Hall)
#blf       BlfBot    H@  blfbot@hub.cs.jmu.edu (/msg BlfBot help)
#goshguys  Snowbot   H@  rpointe@hubcap.clemson.edu (msg me 'help')
#hotsex    dfoxbot   H@  deltafox@dumbo.cc.utexas.edu (Take care buddy Hammer!!!)
#hottub    Flash_bot H@  FBOT@sleepy.cc.utexas.edu (Flash's Bot)
#hotsex    Rbot      H@  kobrajon@dumbo.cc.utexas.edu (Brahma and Shiva - The Creator and Destroyer)
#AppleIIgs GSServ    H@  daveh@huey.cc.utexas.edu (GSServ Test 'bot)
#hotsex    tigercub  H@  dpizzull@muselab.ac.runet.edu (I'm a bot , /msg me for help!)
#SEAC      EnviroBot H@  msantoro@muselab.ac.runet.edu (Sandalwod)
#FAF       FAFBot    H@  ninja@halcyon.com (/msg FAFbot help)
#services  InfoServ  H   InfoServ@dsrbg2.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Experimental Information Service)
#services  NoteServ  H   NoteServ@dsrbg2.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Experimental Notification Service)
#services  NickServ  H   NickServ@dsrbg2.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Experimental Nickname Service)
#jessie    JessSrv   H@  wacc8@iastate.edu (Mei-Chun Yee)
#amiga!    KickServ  H@  archive@naf1.zool.iastate.edu (v5.1 UNO)
*          IlServ    H*  choo@techunix.technion.ac.il (Israelis LinkServ, /msg IlServ help)
#services  NOTE-NO   H*  jarle@lgserv0.cs.UiT.No (Try /msg note-no help)
#services  WebServ   H   webster@copper.uio.no (Mr. Webster)
#services  ConvServ  H@  ConvServ@129.177.230.3 (Conversion Service)
#Esperanto EspServ   H@  belinfan@utis179.cs.utwente.nl (Esperanto Info Server (/msg EspServ help))
#UPlink    UPserv    H@  jcrich@sacam.oren.ortn.edu (Operation UPlink New User Help (v4.5))
#Dutch     NederServ H@  richie@dutentc.et.tudelft.nl (Nederlanders Service Bot; "/msg NederServ help")
#uow       UoWServ   H@  UoWServ@gorgon.cs.uow.edu.au (/msg <mynick> help)
#Limbaugh  EIB_Serv  H@  chaneysa@nextnet.ccs.csus.edu (The Rush Limbaugh  Backup DittoBot)
#wicca     OccultSrv H@  jt1o@FREEHOLD.ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Occult Info Service)
*          help_AU   H   IRCIIhelp@babel.cltr.uq.oz.au (Regional IRCIIhelp for Australia)
*          servdiver H   jws1@CRUX1.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (!id Just too much reality...)
#gblf      gblfserv  H@  latenite@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Can't kiss him goodbye, but I promise to try)
#SEAC      SEACserv  H@  msantoro@muselab.ac.runet.edu (Sandalwod)
#IrcHelp   HelpServ  H   ckane@CyberDyne.ece.uiuc.edu (/msg HelpServ help)
#AppleIIgs GSServ    H@  daveh@huey.cc.utexas.edu (GSServ Test 'bot)
#remsrv    RemSrv    H@  neds@rever.NMSU.Edu (/msg RemSrv help)
#jessie    JessSrv   H@  wacc8@iastate.edu (Mei-Chun Yee)
#Jungle    JungleSrv H@  sng@uafhp.uark.edu (<Experiment Bot>)
#hottub    ScorpSrv  H@  dsadmdx@masonsgi10.gatech.edu (*I* can't dance.. *I* can't sing .. *I* don't care)
#Chinese   IOSrv     H@  eater@ios706.ncu.edu.tw (BOT here)
*          TurrSrv   H   turtle@thumper.cc.utexas.edu (the Cure)
#+hottub   TubSrv    H@  jefbrown@break.engin.umich.edu (!id GoBlue)
Newsgroups: alt.irc