This has been on the cards for a while but hopefully it shall soon come to fruition.

We plan to write a modular system which links directly to WyldRyde (as our existing services package does) and provides bot features to channel owners. These can include things like the ability to add !command triggers, parse RSS feeds, update your topic in a specific format and anything else you might want.

However, we need your help. We need to know what you, as channel owners, want from a system such as this. We can then use this information to create a decent modular system that can be constantly added to in the future.

Let us know your channel requirements!

It needs flood protection, obviously. A topic script would be good, maybe games, since a lot of user bots have that. When the channel goes into moderation, saying something that can be customized. All I can think of right now. Cool idea too, thanks Phil!

Sounds great. Is there any way us developers can help and speed up the process? Is this an Anope Module or a completely seperate system? If so, what language will it be in? I'd love to help as much as possible.

Thanks for the question, DigitalMan. I plan to write it in Java. I will be unable to release the actual system code because this kind of thing will give us a huge competitive advantage over the 'kiddie nets' that do insist on trying to clone our every move. It will, as I said, be modular and I can/will write extensive documentation to the API so that other devs can submit modules. It may also be possible to create some form of XML controlled module to allow other languages to interface with the system.

It's something we'll definately look into.

Interesting. Yes, unique features are the key to a successful IRC network. It's odd how kids think people will choose their networks over larger networks just because they run the standard Unreal/Anope deal. That's why I'm proud to call myself a WyldRyde user. WyldRyde has taken the initiative to customize the ircd as well as offer great extra services such as this; All with a strong community backing it up.

Unfortunately I do not know Java. However if you need any help with HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, and soon to be C++, let me know. :P

Some good features to add would be social networking API's. Being able to "tweet" from your channel would be very nice. Heck, you could even have an Anope Module that exchanges data between services and this new system, so your Twitter credentials could be set directly in your services account. Anything is possible.

I like what Bkil is saying, but I was wondering if we could have the freedom to put in custom scripts like we would usually do with traditional bots.

That exists as a channel mode, although I'm not sure of its sophistication (e.g. banning repeat offenders), so a feature integrated into services would not be bad at all. For example, one could turn flood protection on and set it to silence the offender (a ~q and ~n ban) for a set amount of minutes. If multiple users are silenced for flooding within a set time period, the channel could be moderated (though this should be on a timer and considered with caution - this could easily be abused as a denial of service vulnerability)

Just my 2¢



I don't think writing a script parser and dealing with a multitude of potential vulnerabilities is worth it, really.

Since the core of the system will be hosted by WyldRyde I don't see this possible. Unless they have some sort of Web based channel management system where you could add scripts for your channel.

DigitalMan: I think an Anope module will be necessary because the two systems would need to share the same channel access credentials.

hsushoe: Not for a long time - it's a massive job to write an interpreted language. The basis of it will be that it's a modular system and feature sets (modules) can be requested by users. It is designed as a system for the non-coders and it will never be as powerful as a custom bot a coder can create but it shall hopefully provide some useful features.

Remote channel operations from iPhone/iPod Touch apps even when not in IRC (enables you to see what the bot sees and performs actions through it); has the ability to lock modes the channel owner set until he logs in next.
Using a command to advertise your IRC channel over Twitter, Facebook, etc.