Hey all,

A few people including myself have started to get worried about the general state of our beloved #nixers IRC channel and the sort of spam and low quality crap that's been going on on there sometimes.

Now, rather than simply whine about it and tell people off (meaning I'd have to shout at a mirror) I'd rather have a civil discussion about this and take input from the community as a whole. I'll start it off with bots: I personally feel there's too much spam coming from them in terms of auto-greetings when people join (made worse by join-spam from people on spotty connections with auto-reconnects), !np being used quite liberally and a sleuth of other things. I don't mind bots in general, but I think they should be limited in the amount of talking they do.

How do you guys feel about this?

I have no stands about the bots issues. It might be something new because at the time I'm connected I don't notice the bots.

Concerning the quality of the channel, it's true that it sometimes drifts offtopic but not to an extent where it could cause problems.

We tried having an #offtopic channel and enforce it and all that it brought was NSFW links and NSFW talks.
On the main channel we used to say "bring it to #offtopic" and it just silenced the ones that were talking trash.
They didn't even go to #offtopic to continue the conversation.

If anyone notice that the talks are drifting from the computing topic just mention it in the channel and I think it'll be enough to put everyone back on track.

I agree to some degree, but I feel like having a channel that allows NSFW stuff is heavily useful if only for keeping #nixers a channel you can keep open at work/school.

We do also actually have an #offtopic channel (of which the king is ymbx, all hail our yummy overlord) which is quite frequently used for completely offtopic conversations.

As for the bots, I hope you come on at a time when they are at full swing, if not I can show you some logs.

i'm generally a fan of bots, but i have to agree w/ dami, they've been getting out of control. if you have a bot that's silent, that's fine. if have a bot that only replies when asked, also fine. but greeters, regex'ers, and the like get annoying fast.

Nah it's ok, it only talks when you talk to them. So it's not a big deal, don't you agree?
After all, who doesn't want to know what the weather is in SKU9720239, what each nixer is listenning to right now, or what "1 + 1" equals to?
I've changed my mind. I'm in favor to add as many of these bots as possible on the channel.

On a serious note, here is what "bots that only speak when you talk to them" do to a channel:

Quote:+ cgul - cgul@CAF2ED36.4967164A.24A54587.IP
ymbx: cgul: wa integrate 1/(1+log(x)) from 0 to pi
cgul: ymbx: (integral does not converge)
vypr: cgul: wa Temperature of Detroit, Michigan
cgul: vypr: null
vypr: okay
z3bra: must be cold.
vypr: it's a work in progress
ymbx: cgul: wa integrate 1/(1+x*log(x)) from 0 to pi
cgul: ymbx: None
- paul - QUIT: Client exited
ymbx: none isnt an answer
ymbx: wat
dami: cgul: wa integrate 1/e^(x^2)
cgul: dami: None, None
vypr: heh
ymbx: cgul: integrate x from 0 to 5
cgul: ymbx: The band.
fro: haha
ymbx: vypr: cgul is retarded
vypr: ymbx: forgot the wa
vypr: nope
vypr: just you
ymbx: cgul: wa integrate x from 0 to 5
cgul: ymbx: None
ymbx: still retarded
z3bra: please test on #bot
z3bra: or #test
z3bra: or whatever
vypr: i'll test you on #bot
vypr: ymbx: the problem is that it only retrieves the plaintext answers
ymbx: cgul: wa integrate 1 from 0 to 5
cgul: ymbx: None
ymbx: cgul: wa 1+1
cgul: ymbx: 2
vypr: cgul: wa SKU9720239
cgul: vypr: None
tohveli: cgul: wa \x00\n\n\r\n
cgul: tohveli: null
ymbx: vypr: make it work better
vypr: tohveli: really man?
ymbx: i need integratiobn
tohveli: :s
z3bra: ok, let's just ignore me
vypr: okay
ymbx: +1 for ignoring z3bra -- 23:32 (28/06)
vypr: ymbx: yeah, i gotta figure it out
vypr: z3bra: i did most of the testing alone
vypr: since wolframalpha's api is fucky
fro: cgul: wa .$
cgul: fro: null
vypr: this is just my rough draft, so to speak
tohveli: does it work with private messages?
vypr: tohveli: no
tohveli: we need to fuzz that shit
z3bra: how does it explain spamming the chan with a non-working bot?
vypr: fro: it returns null if it receives a python error
vypr: z3bra: it doesn't say shit unless you talk to it
vypr: fuck off
z3bra: oh, okay.

This is not the kind of activity I seeking on IRC. Especially amongst this community.
Now if people are fine with it, and find it okay to just play with useless bots, I'll just search other channels for interresting topics and discussions.

That's hilarious, why does this always happen when I'm not online.
Seriously, bot on IRC should have a purpose, not answer random questions otherwise it's just spam.

I agree that things like fetching the title of urls posted is useful, for example. However, what I'm reading in that log is far over the edge.

Yea, bots are great if they are silent. Do it over pm, not in the main channel. No one wants to see your shit.

It's nothing more than pollution.

Irc seems like a circus- why have I not connected sooner.