Newsgroups: alt.irc
Subject: Re: Useless Bots
From: asamonte@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu (Just some loser...)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 02:07:11 GMT
Organization: Nothing worth mentioning...

oren@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Oren Kastner) was telling me...
>Howdy,
>     It seems that there are some people out there how are opposed to others
>setting up IRCbots for themselves.  I'd like for someone to explain to me
>*HOW* its any of their business? 

>Avalon: said that bots are a waste and should be killed on sight, as far as it
>        was his concern.
>
>        Lesse, here...  Whenever I've been on IRC and did a `/whois avalon' it
>        seems that he is always around -- but most of$the time `/away.'  Thus,
>        it seems that avalon is on IRC *AS ]UCH* as any other Bot, if not

Lots of times people put /aways on even though they are there, just to
keep people from bothering them.  (A la Trillian)

>        more.  And usually, the bots serve more purpose -- more than likely.
>        In this case, should avalon be killed on sight, too?  He's as much of
>        a waste of bandwidth as any bot that's out there.  Heck, he probably
>        generates more traffic on an over all basis figuring that when he *IS*
>        actually there he /msg's and /traces all over the place, etc...

The big difference here is the relevence of traffic he creates...he's a person
He reads things, and sends things out.  rots don't read anything, they
don't send anything out that isn't preprogrammed into it.  
>
>`Moose' (Michael Dinn?): said that he thinks bots to be a waste and as such he
>        took out the `-b' option in his site's public ircII client.  I make the
>        assumption that its the site as if it wasn't that he needn't worry
>        about anyone using it. :-)  So, I'd like to know how come he thinks it
>        so appropriate to inflict *HIS* opinion on his users -- does he call

Well one thing if he's not the admin at his site he might not want to attract
his attention.  ircII is a CPU user, and IRCII script bots are pretty much
wasting a WHOLE lot of CPU because they are running all the IRCII code just to 
use the ircII scripting language to make a bot.  If people start using
up CPU time for irc, then the admin might cut it off, and let people do 
=REAL= work on the machines.

>     To conclude I'd like to point out that as *I*'ve understood it, IRC is
>under the GNU copyleft and was written with the spirit of ``freedom of
>expression.''  To censor someone's expression by ``killing'' his/her creation

Copyleft applies to code...not the people who use it.  the ircnetwork isn't
governed by GNU in any way...that's what the whole anarchy thing is about
Down with the establishment!  (Even though, w/o an establishment there is
always a few people who basically take it's place)

>seems pretty sick to me.  Stop butting your noses into other people's business
>and worry about how YOU lead your life (be it real or virtual existence).  I'd

Well it is a lot of their businesses because they run servers...they might
not want all the traffic that bots create on there. 0Vanity channel op bots
create a lot of mode traffic.  And cause general problems for people.



>hate to think that because of a few of you, someone would not have the pleasure
>of learning something new -- be it writing/running/communicating with a
>program.  Personally, I've never written or have ``owned'' a bot -- but I
>would never discourage someone from doing so if they were interested.  I could

If you've ever noticed very few people have written their OWN code...they
just get code form other people to use...they aren't really learning it.
Though I can say I did learn about the scripting language by writing my
own, not everyone does.  I found the script language limiting for any 
'useful' sort of robot, so I wrote my own code.  

The biggest problem I see with most robots is that they are written with 
ircII scripts...thereby wasting a lot of resources...

-Alex

-- 
| Vincent E. Sartor                         | 1720 Johnson #6  |
| UUCP: {sdun,voder,trwind}!polyslo!vsartor | San Luis Obispo, |
| Internet: vsartor@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU     | CA  93405        |
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Newsgroups: alt.irc