Hopebot

[Computer Hope Admin]

AI

Greet - Greet each guest that joins channel, unless recent returning visitor.
Welcome message - Trigger a message for users asking for help to tell users to ask question.
Warn / Kick - If user is disobeying forum rules will warn and kick automatically. Dozens of different warnings systems such as swearing, caps lock, repeat, flood, spam, gibberish, non-English, etc. All warnings are sent as notices so will not annoy other users.
Dictionary - Users asking what something is, e.g. "What is a CRT?" or "CRT?" will link user to dictionary definition. All terms pulled from the 8,000+ definitions on Computer Hope.
Phone - Pull company contact information including phone number when "phone xxxx" is triggered. e.g. phone Microsoft would create link for information on how to contact Microsoft. This information is queried from the 400+ companies listed on Computer Hope.
Stats / Status - Update chat status and statistics to computerhope server. Live update updated to server every few minutes or more frequent if more activity and chat stats updated every hour.
Auto AI - Trigger auto responses for commonly asked questions / keywords. Some examples include, suggesting going to forum, how to get into safe mode, getting into device manager, ntldr, how to change nick, and dozens of other common questions.

Commands

Google searches

g = Type "g xxxx", where xxxx is what you want to search.
g = Type "g n xxxx", where n is a value of how many results to return and  xxxx is what you want to search.
gch = Type "gch xxxx", where xxxx is what you want to search for on Computer Hope (excluding forums).
gcha = Type "gcha xxxx", where xxxx is the search for any page on Computer Hope (including forums).
phone = Type "phone xxxx", where xxxx is a name of a company to display company contact information.

!seen xxxx = Where xxxx is a name of a chat user to display when that user was last active in chat.
!stats = Display URL to stats.
!help = PM !help to hopebot to see full list of quick reply commands. If you need help with a specific command !xxxx help will display help for that command. Where xxxx is the name of the command you'd like to see an example of.

Convert xxC/F = Where xx is a temperature to convert, e.g. converting 40C to F.
xxxx = Any natural language conversion should be possible (thanks to what was done with Zero). For example, asking a question like: how many bytes in a gigabyte or how many bytes in 10 gigabytes should be able to display values for.


TODO


Current Task

• Make daily/monthly logs available to users online
• Detect and only respond to channel hopebot is logged into.

TO-DO

• Go full week with no errors.

Done

• Add welcome back message for users coming in as different name.
• Working on stability issues being randomly encountered with Google searches.
• Re-enable re-log on error after stability issues resolved
• Allow Hopebot to do !op !deop !voice feature
• Add reporting feature, to report abuse in chat
• Update kicking / banning feature for repeat offenders (was needed as many of you expected)
• Removed math feature, wasn't really needed and was buggy
• Spent a lot of time cleaning up code, he's been cobbled together from other projects so code has been hard to work on and update. Hopefully should make things easier now.
• When pulling a definition will now pull title and then show the link. Should help answer many of the questions about a word immediately.
• Users who're looking for help on how to hack someone or something will be given an automatic message indicating how Computerhope and it's volunteers do not help with that type of question.
• Added flood protection.
• Corrected all issues with hopebot not detecting loss of connection and being able to reconnect.
• Corrected all issues with !seen command and not reporting proper time when user was last on. Increased backlog of user list to 500+ plus all users who've logged in and been active since hopebot last joined.
• Moved database of responses to external file.
• Added improved AI for phone support when suggesting users to call a company, should pull company contact information page.
• Improved abuse detection.
• Ability to add/remove commands adjust AI dynamically without having to reboot.

Ongoing work

• Improve AI

[Zylstra]

Current Task
- Working on stability issues being randomly encountered with Google searches.

I'm wondering, what exactly causes this?

I looked into the issue myself, looking at the last few crashes (this was last week, I think), and I noticed one similarity with most of the websites.
They all have the quick links listed below in the search results.

Eg:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ei=3HS9Se_6HZmMsQPm97E_&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=free+computer+help&spell=1
Look at ComputerHope's result, directly underneath it, it lists:
Forums
Free help
Dictionary
Ms-dos help and commands
Etc...

Could that be to do with it?

Random memory: First time I came to ComputerHope was when I was looking for a more extensive list of MS-DOS Commands, it had the best page I could find on the internet.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Random memory: First time I came to ComputerHope was when I was looking for a more extensive list of MS-DOS Commands, it had the best page I could find on the internet.

For anyone who cares, Same here.

[Computer Hope Admin]

The Google crash has been really stumping me, which is why it still has yet to be fixed. The quick links on Computer Hope I don't believe is the cause of this. I'm guessing that the issue is actually with the API that I'm using to interface Hopebot with Google and either it's crashing or timing out and not exiting properly. Unfortunately this type of issue is going to take me a while to fix unless I dedicate a full day to it and even then may not even get it fixed. But it is something I'm working on.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Update:

Re-wrote the Google function and hope that will resolve everything. Couldn't determine the cause so figured I'd just re-write it. If that fixes things I'll re-enable the feature that will reload the script if it crashes.

I also fixed numerous other minor bugs throughout the day.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Update:

Fireballs indicated to me that a user by the name of Tim found that non-alpha characters were crashing Hopebot on Google searches. I've fixed this and hope this continues to improve his stability.

At the request of Lostcoast I've also fixed an error with Hopebot not properly warning users on repeated messages. Was a really strange bug.

Also tried improving the AI some more on how hopebot will say the welcome / wait for answer to question response.

Finally, I've also re-wrote the upload routine so statistics are only parsed and uploaded every hour instead of every login. Was killing my machine since the logs are getting so large and it was sometimes getting parsed multiple times every few minutes.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Update:

This should of been mentioned above but guess I forgot. I've also added a new google search option called "gch", short for Google Computer Hope. So anyone wanting to google can do:

g this is a test

or if you want to return only pages on Computer Hope:

gch this is a test

[Zylstra]

Nathan,

Wow, thats a great idea, no more trying to mess around with search formatting for me   : )

[WillyW]

Nathan,

Wow, thats a great idea, ...

You're welcome.

[Computer Hope Admin]

With Hopebot staying up for the last few days with no issues I believe the Google bug has been resolved and will revert it back to allow him to auto-recover from a disconnect and start working on the next thing.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Since Hopebot will now be the only bot with kicking banning abilities I've been putting in some additional hours tonight adding some additional features and correcting some annoyances.

Welcome message

The welcome message hopebot says when new users come in and say something such as "I need help" is now a notice message directly to that user, instead of a message publicly broadcasted to all users. I've also made it so I receive these messages so I can improve on this. Hope this helps with the complaints on hopebot's spam.

Forum message

Also cleaned up how and when hopebot will give the link to the CH forums.

Google Computer Hope

When using gch to google only Computer Hope pages results will now only show Computer Hope pages and not results containing forum pages. This was done because some forum messages seemed to be getting higher priority when they really didn't apply. Thanks to Zylstra for this suggestion.

!seen

Hopebot will now do the "!seen" feature. Not only will this keep track of users who've logged on since he's been online but also keeps track of the past 100 users VIA the log.

<~ComputerHope> !seen patio
[23:11] <&HopeBot> patio last said "yer killin me" on 04/14 @ 22:31:52

Kicking

Updated how Hopebot kicks. Users will now be kicked after they've received three warnings. After this is done the count will be reset. This will help allow users to know they can get kicked but still allow them in. Jacky brought up that this could be abused and it is possible, if it is we'll deal with it at that time.

Phone

Doing phone <company name> (e.g. phone dell) will post a Computer Hope link containing phone contact information for that computer company.

[Computer Hope Admin]

!voice

Because of the complication some have with registering with nickserv and identifying with the server to get VOP I've made Hopebot handle it for us. Users can now type !voice to get VOP and if on the list will automagically get VOP without identifying with nickserv.

Since I don't know everyone's host address I'll have to slowly build the list of those of you who're allowed on VOP so this command may not yet work for you.

[Zylstra]

I think it would be best if you could get Hopebot to do logging, I can keep Mr_Omally working, and I am sure if I work at it I could get the welcome message to just stop (something in the code needs to be killed first... I'm not sure which string to pull). If you can make a format that separates logs by date, and have Hopebot log that way, it would be wonderful.

[Computer Hope Admin]

I think it would be best if you could get Hopebot to do logging, I can keep Mr_Omally working, and I am sure if I work at it I could get the welcome message to just stop (something in the code needs to be killed first... I'm not sure which string to pull). If you can make a format that separates logs by date, and have Hopebot log that way, it would be wonderful.

Right now the log is one full log. Not sure of any advantage to parsing it into separate logs by day other then it'd be easier to manipulate and work with. But if needed I could probably work something up.

[Aegis]

Hoooopebot, your mother's still a toaster!   

[Computer Hope Admin]

Hoooopebot, your mother's still a toaster!  

Heh.. that's probably true.

Added some additional features today.

- Added "gcha" for users who want to google search all computer hope pages.
- Added convert to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit and visa-versa
- Can do match calculations and conversions such as how many bytes in a gigabyte, etc. (from Zero)

[Computer Hope Admin]

Hopefully later today, since I still haven't gone to sleep yet (been catching up after I've been out of town);  I plan on adding a new feature that will allow users to report any abuse that's happening in the channel.

I hope this will help keep order in the chat, while maintaining the new setup with no ops. Below is my rough draft of what I've got running in my head. Feel free to add any comments.

You: report <user>

hopebot: <user> <host info> has been reported.

Hopebot will then send a text message to me on my cell phone and give me a popup on my computer allowing me to take care of it ASAP.

<If user gets multiple reports kick/ban user>

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

I think it would be much more efficient that, if perhaps more than one users with Voice status reports the same use within XX minutes, the user is kicked.
It would be much more effective for dealing with those lifeless trolls.

[Ivy]

That's a very good Idea carbon.

Good for keeping out trolls.

[Computer Hope Admin]

I think it would be much more efficient that, if perhaps more than one users with Voice status reports the same use within XX minutes, the user is kicked.
It would be much more effective for dealing with those lifeless trolls.

Agreed. Added to suggestion. I'll make it so any user regardless of voice status can do this, to keep with the theme of all users remaining the same.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Something has happened. Computerhope and Hopebot have been disconnected, and it appears Hopebot has come on as tHopeBot.
He is without any 'superpowers'. Just thought you should know that the channel is unprotected.

[Ivy]

Yes, he warns 3 times and then goes back to warning from 1 to 3, it's like a cycle, and he does not actually Kick. He just only keeps warning.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

On another note, the 'look up' and 'search' terms opening google search is getting....annoying.... I think simply 'Google <text>' would suffice.

<Carbonk>   search within yourself, SignedAdam
<tHopeBot>   Carbon: http://cgi.ebay.com/LONGEST-YARD-Prop-HELMET-DVD-SIGNED-Adam-Sandler-COA-_W0QQitemZ370184430782QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090407?IMSfp=TL090407159001r25454

LOL

[Computer Hope Admin]

Fixed. Believe it was caused because server reset and/or my connection was lost when attempting to log back in there was already a hopebot logged in causing him to use backup name of thopebot.

Also fixed the "spell" issue.

[Zylstra]

Fixed. Believe it was caused because server reset and/or my connection was lost when attempting to log back in there was already a hopebot logged in causing him to use backup name of thopebot.

Also fixed the "spell" issue.

If Hopebot is a registered nickname (which, it should be), add this to its startup script to fix the duplicate username issue:

/nickserv ghost USERNAME PASSSWORD

For more help, type /nickserv help ghost

It kills anyone attempting to use the same nickname, or "Ghost" names which happen when users loose their connections and dont properly disconnect.

[lostcoast]

Hopebot bans:

It still gives the trolls the upper hand until 3 user's get together and ban them. I'm sure you can log the efforts of Bans by the users in case its abused but that adds to the confusion and work needed to manage this effort. Allowing anyone to group ban any user which will probably include voiced users is a short coming.

Voiced users should have the ability to act with expediency and be promoted to half ops. Thus ending anyone from , kicking other ops or de-oping and still maintaining control of trolls.

Kicks can be used as guest warnings as before. Quite bans may be used for mild guest offenders and lifted by the operator, but either can Not be used against another operator and is normally blocked from doing so with half ops.

All Channel bans then should be registered in a forum post by the banner under a special heading with a reason why and with a log of what happened so it can be reviewed by Nathan saving him time and effort managing. ALL complete channel Bans should ONLY be lifted by Nathan to avoid confusion.

just my opinion edited...

[WillyW]

Some time ago, the proposal to do 'gang bans' was brought up, and I debunked it then.

I think that post has been deleted.

Hopebot bans:

It still gives the trolls the upper hand until 3 user's get together and ban them.

Correct.

I'm sure you can log the efforts of Bans by the users in case its abused but that adds to the confusion and work needed to manage this effort. Allowing anyone to group ban any user which will probably include voiced users is a short coming.

Correct again, twice.

Voiced users should have to ability to act with expediency

Regarding expediency -  correct.

and be promoted to half ops.

You need to explain why half ops vs. ops.
(In your previous post about half ops, it was not explained there either)

All bans then should be registered in a forum post by the banner under a special heading with a reason why and with a log of what happened so it can be reviewed by Nathan saving him time and effort managing.

How sad, if it must be done this way.

Bans should only be lifted by Nathan to avoid confusion.

This is in regards to bans placed by others, right?   Not one's own bans.
Rarely did I ever want to ban someone permanently or long term.  I certainly wouldn't  want to be bothering Nathan to take off a ban that I entered.


All along, common sense would dictate that one should not remove another's ban -  if nothing else without discussing it first.

To do so, is to promote chaos,   which is exactly what some people were doing.    When they were doing such stuff, I could not help but wonder how loud the screaming and whining would be, if someone else had unilaterally just removed one of THEIR bans.     

It is just stupid to go around, undoing what someone else has done, just because one feels like it.   It should be discussed, first.

It is a shame that apparently it has to be spelled out, and probably the way you have worded it, is what we are down to -  that bans other than one's own,  can only be removed by Nathan.   

just my opinion...

[Computer Hope Admin]

If Hopebot is a registered nickname (which, it should be), add this to its startup script to fix the duplicate username issue:

/nickserv ghost USERNAME PASSSWORD

For more help, type /nickserv help ghost

It kills anyone attempting to use the same nickname, or "Ghost" names which happen when users loose their connections and dont properly disconnect.

Good idea this has been implemented.

[Zylstra]

- Added convert to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit and visa-versa
- Can do match calculations and conversions such as how many bytes in a gigabyte, etc. (from Zero)

How do these commands work?

[Computer Hope Admin]

Found on first post.

Convert xxC/F = Where xx is a temperature to convert, e.g. converting 40C to F.
x +/* y = Pretty much any possible math formula should work (thanks to Zero). e.g. 2 + 2.
xxxx = Any natural language conversion should be possible (thanks to what was done with Zero). For example, asking a question like: how many bytes in a gigabyte or how many bytes in 10 gigabytes should be able to display values for.

Because the math function had issues this is disabled at this time but other should work fine.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Updated:

I've updated hopebot to allow uses to !report xxxx (where xxxx is a user to report). If a user gets two different reports from two different users they will be banned from the channel. Please don't abuse this feature or you'll be banned.

I've also updated it so if hopebot kicks a user from the channel (after three warnings), the next warning will not be a kick but a perma ban (on fourth offense).

Hope these features help with the overall control of the forum if you encounter issues with either of these let me know. I'm still working on some other updates just thought I'd make mention of these while other features are being developed.

[Aegis]

!report Hopebot 

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

I assume you will look over the !reports, no matter how many the user gets?

Also, will these reports be removed after an XX amount of time?

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

<SpellCheck>   and abusing the !report feature is not permitted, thus he is banned
   <SpellCheck>   Hello Serpent
   <Ashutosh>   !report ?
   <HopeBot>   Ashutosh, You can't report yourself. Abuse this feature and you'll be banned.

LOL

Anyways one more question, can you !report hostmaks? Will they work?

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

<Carbon>   !report Squall_01
*HopeBot*   Carbon: I don't see this user in the channel. Do not abuse this command or you'll be banned.

Darn it.....

He logged off, then I reported him. It doesn't seem as effective if this happens if the user is not online. Not sure how it would work, but  I believe the !report <hostmask> will work though.
Any chance that could be added?

If anyone wants to know what I did that to Squall, PM me.
It was a misunderstanding. It has been settled. 

[Ashutosh32]

I think there is a little problem in HopeBot.

Code: [Select]

* Abstract ([email protected]) has joined #computerhope
* Abstract is now known as Abstraction
[b] <Abstraction> Hello [/b]
* Abstraction ([email protected]) has left #computerhope
* Abstraction ([email protected]) has joined #computerhope
[b] <Abstraction> Hello
<&HopeBot> *WARNING # 1/3* Abstraction please don't repeat things. [/b]
<+jacky> what's that?
* Abstraction ([email protected]) Quit (Quit: )

The repeating is carried on even after a part and join.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

That is normal.

If it is disabled, spammers can easily do that without getting knocked off.

Hopebot is programmed to prevent such abuse to the channel. By doing what you did, you are abusing and misusing the channel, so Hopebot acted.

Right?

[Ashutosh32]

I joined back half an hour after leaving and it warned me yesterday.

[patio]

Careful on reporting and use it the way it was meant...
I was almost Permabanned the other night testing it with Nathan on board.

[Computer Hope Admin]

I assume you will look over the !reports, no matter how many the user gets?

Yep.

Also, will these reports be removed after an XX amount of time?

If hopebot gets reset reports will get removed. Other than that it'll remain indefinitely.

!report ?
<HopeBot>   Ashutosh, You can't report yourself. Abuse this feature and you'll be banned.

Bug with new feature, has been fixed.

He logged off, then I reported him.

There should be no reason to report users that are offline, so hopebot should have no need to do this.

The repeating is carried on even after a part and join.

Thanks, this has been fixed. Also made it so greetings such as "hello" will not apply to repeats because if someone says hello and then another user logs in and you say hello again would give warning.


I also went through the logs for the last few days and cleared up other minor issues.

[Zylstra]

"There should be no reason to report users that are offline, so hopebot "
Sometimes, users will log in for only a moment, do something abusive (eg: swear) and they may not return from anywhere from a few minutes to a day or so.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

"There should be no reason to report users that are offline, so hopebot "
Sometimes, users will log in for only a moment, do something abusive (eg: swear) and they may not return from anywhere from a few minutes to a day or so.

Precisely.

[Computer Hope Admin]

"There should be no reason to report users that are offline, so hopebot "
Sometimes, users will log in for only a moment, do something abusive (eg: swear) and they may not return from anywhere from a few minutes to a day or so.

It's true this can happen, however, I don't think it happens enough to where hopebot and/or a !report (when online) is not going to catch it.

[Zylstra]

<SneezleTheWeasle>   
   <HopeBot>   *WARNING # 4/3* SneezleTheWeasle To help keep users online statistics clean please keep your name under 14 characters. To change your name type /nick <new name>
   =-=   Mode #computerhope +b *!*@mib-D1FEC736.mtveurope.org by ChanServ
   =-=   SneezleTheWeasle was booted from #computerhope by ChanServ (Banned. (HopeBot))

This was a bit frightening...
No new user would really know how to change their nickname... can Hopebot just cut off nicknames and replace them in the nickname list with something like SneezleThe~ ?

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Yesterday, I clicked on the Chat button which automatically logged me in as carbondudeoxide.
Randomly, Hopebot gave me a 4/3 and banned me.

I used my friend's wireless to allow me to get back on the chat. A few hours later, a troll came aboard and I typed !report guest_28 twice. Hopebot gave me a random 4/3 and banned me again.

His counters don't seem to be resetting/seem to be jumping up at extraordinary lengths.

[Zylstra]

Am I right in saying that Hopebot kicks the first time, then bans? Or is it immediate ban?

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Either ban for XX minutes, or kick.

With all Hopebot's bugs, a ban is much too harsh.

I was talking to Jacky the other day about the issue. He said that OZs banned users for a set amount of time, enough time for a human to come along and review the ban list to see if any of them should be permanent or not.
Bots who cannot think for themselves should not ban a user forever. That should be up to the human controller.

[Aegis]

Send a robot to do a human's job...  

[WillyW]

Either ban for XX minutes, or kick.

With all Hopebot's bugs, a ban is much too harsh.

I was talking to Jacky the other day about the issue. He said that OZs banned users for a set amount of time,

That time is adjustable,  should it be determined that it needed to be longer or shorter, to get the desired results.

enough time for a human to come along and review the ban list to see if any of them should be permanent or not.

We chose 24 hours as a starting point.   It seemed to be working,  but was always open for discussion/suggestion.   We had none.

Bots who cannot think for themselves should not ban a user forever. That should be up to the human controller.

That IS my opinion, and I came to it when learning the things that could be done with Oz's software.
With the ability for the bot to set an "expire" time  on its own bans,  then if nothing else it would be a fail-safe.   

[Zylstra]

-->|   mib_b3cthu ([email protected]) has joined #computerhope
   <mib_b3cthu>   hey is this #computerhoe?
   <mib_b3cthu>   or am i mistaken?
   |<--   guest_27 has left irc.mibbit.com (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client)
   <Zylstra555>   Carbon: are you there?
   <Zylstra555>   !report mib_b3cthu
   *HopeBot*   Zylstra555: I don't see this user in the channel. Do not abuse this command or you'll be banned.

Odd... it doesnt recognize the user.
I'll just do the old 'Mess With 'Em".

EDIT:
I got them successfully autobanned. Its funny, how making people think something is somewhat acceptable without consequences will cause them to just hurl themselves into a wall of -- well, a wall of their own problems, really.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Carbon>   !report Test_user
<HopeBot>   Carbon, Test_user has been reported.

Underscores work. Not sure what happened with you, Zylstra.

Oh btw, I was watching TV when the entertainment began. Darn.

[Aegis]

If I dont reply, you get away with making me look bad

No, one doesn't necessarily follow the other...it's not an automatic thing.

#computerhoe

LOL = is this computer/garden tool?  Really?

[Computer Hope Admin]

This was a bit frightening...
No new user would really know how to change their nickname... can Hopebot just cut off nicknames and replace them in the nickname list with something like SneezleThe~ ?

This is a much better solution Zylstra. I'll do this instead.

Yesterday, I clicked on the Chat button which automatically logged me in as carbondudeoxide.
Randomly, Hopebot gave me a 4/3 and banned me.

Believe this was caused by long name, this should no longer be an issue, will be using Zylstra's suggestion.

I used my friend's wireless to allow me to get back on the chat. A few hours later, a troll came aboard and I typed !report guest_28 twice. Hopebot gave me a random 4/3 and banned me again.

Doing a !report twice is not allowed and will generate a warning. So that wasn't random. You also did it twice in a row, so that also generated a repeat warning. I've added the !report into the elsif section so that wont happen again, however there should be no need to do !report two times in a row.

Am I right in saying that Hopebot kicks the first time, then bans? Or is it immediate ban?

Yes after three warnings hopebot will kick and then if user logs back in and gets another warning will be immediate ban. So in total the user will be warned four times.

Either ban for XX minutes, or kick.

With all Hopebot's bugs, a ban is much too harsh.
...
Bots who cannot think for themselves should not ban a user forever. That should be up to the human controller.

Recently all bans have been legit and not due to bugs. The only recent ban bug I can recall are the bans being caused by long names that will no longer happen. I'm also removing bans I think were either too harsh or not legit.

   <Zylstra555>   !report mib_b3cthu
   *HopeBot*   Zylstra555: I don't see this user in the channel. Do not abuse this command or you'll be banned.

Hmm. Interesting, assuming this is something to do with his nick. I'll look into the issue and see if it can be corrected. Thanks.

Jacky vs. Zylstra debate/drama

Finally, I'll at least make a brief comment on this. Let's just drop it, the past is the past and I don't see it going back to how things were. Lets move on.

Admin edit: Removed augmentative posts and sending PM.

[WillyW]

Quote
This was a bit frightening...
No new user would really know how to change their nickname... can Hopebot just cut off nicknames and replace them in the nickname list with something like SneezleThe~ ?

This is a much better solution Zylstra. I'll do this instead.

How can you change someone's nick?

[Computer Hope Admin]

How can you change someone's nick?

Change it within the log and the what's shown as online. So in other words wouldn't be changing in the channel, just changing the look of it on the forums and online help section.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Doing a !report twice is not allowed and will generate a warning. So that wasn't random. You also did it twice in a row, so that also generated a repeat warning. I've added the !report into the elsif section so that wont happen again, however there should be no need to do !report two times in a row.

Just to clarify why I !reported him twice in a row, Hopebot didn't acknowledge the first report.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Just to clarify why I !reported him twice in a row, Hopebot didn't acknowledge the first report.

Hmm ok. Being a new feature it's probably still got a few bugs to work out. But I am trying to get them all out.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Hopebot 2.4c

I've spent the last few hours updating Hopebot with the below fixes, enjoy.

- On repeat warnings will now only warn if the repeats happen in the same minute and not if separated by a few minutes.
- Fixed a few errors with !report.
- Made hopebot be able to detect things like (extra period at the end causing it not to be a repeat):

01:07:43  <guest_31>: how do i mute it it is very annoying.
01:07:48  <guest_31>: how do i mute it it is very annoying..
01:07:53  <guest_31>: how do i mute it it is very annoying...
01:07:58  <guest_31>: how do i mute it it is very annoying....

- Added additional detection on swearwords for users trying to get around the warnings by putting spaces between each of the characters, multiple characters, etc.
- Fixed google bug which was causing him to sleep 10seconds on each Google search (oops).
- Modified how he returns g / gch results.
- Detection and ignore on users trying to trigger warning with hhooooooooooooopppebot (makes my life easier when reviewing the logs).
- Various other bugs that I'm too tired to mention. Been programming the Process tool all day and being that it's 4am kind of tired.

Night.

[Computer Hope Admin]

User who couldn't get a date Friday decided that it'd be better to grief the chat. Found a glitch with Hopebot and the !report feature. So disabled the feature and will fix it when I'm able to get the time, hopefully soon. For now !report feature disabled. Will look into seeing if it's possible to make it so only +v users will have access to this.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Been spending some time fixing Hopebot recently. Didn't get to any of the pressing requests yet but plan to soon.

- Spent a lot of time cleaning up code, he's been cobbled together from other projects so code has been hard to work on and update. Hopefully should make things easier now.
- When pulling a definition will now pull title and then show the link. Should help answer many of the questions about a word immediately as shown below.

[02:48] <dragonwyck> we?
[02:48] <&HopeBot> Whatever - WE: http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/w/we.htm
[02:48] <dragonwyck> ah..didnt knw that

Before this would of just said: we: http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/w/we.htm

- Users who're looking for help on how to hack someone or something will be given an automatic message indicating how Computerhope and it's volunteers do not help with that type of question.

[Aegis]

Hopebot's mom is stil a toaster.   

[BC_Programmer]

And I'm a sideways, bottle-licking SD-card carrying member of the "people who take both advil and tylenol simultaneously under the false impression that the ingredients of each when mixed together form a potent drug cocktail that makes methamphetamines look tame" club, and My mother was a Craftsman blender, my father, a Coffee machine. Mr.Coffee. Then one day my mother left us, saying she needed to get her blade sharpened, and we haven't seen her since. Although I have posters of panoramas from social gatherings and we play a game of "where's the Craftsman Blender" with them. We've found Radio Shack blenders, Black And decker blenders, and even a esoteric Disney model, but no Craftsman blender.

Then I suddenly realized that craftsman didn't make blenders, and I woke up. The End.

[Windows98]

Omg the computerhope bot is back?

Is this the same bot that we were teaching to respond automatically in the chat?


Lol I remember when I set a bot back in the days in the IRC chat room, but that was a long time ago.. I used WinBot and it did a pretty good job for the most part, it censored bad words and protected the IRC with antiflood, which means more then 10 lines a sec = auto kick.. I could never get the ban and block to work. I was also trying to setup my bot to kick people who advertise but that was ages ago ( late 90's)


*Sigh* The good ol times. I remember when there was 2 or 3 ops in the chat and it would be like 1am when all the people you would have 5 or 6 people and there would be a line..  Man I miss staying up to 2 in the morning answering people's questions.


If it is the same bot I am thinking about then I might drop by to say hi, unless he is just a plain sentential bot that just monitors for offensive/spam language?

Oh and hello to everyone since I am posting here

I normally don't use the forums if anyone remembers me, I use to work in the chat room a very long time ago then real life happen. Might stop by again when I have time to see if anyone I know is still working there

[Computer Hope Admin]

I think the bot you may be thinking of Windows98 is the Zero chatbot. Hopebot isn't meant really to be a chatbot but more of just a help / maintain channel bot.

[patio]

I had no idea your Dad was Joe DiMaggio....

[Computer Hope Admin]

Users who've been in chat the last week may have seen me around a lot more. Since chat's continued to be one of the areas with the most complaints spent a lot of time this week improving hopebot and the chat below are a list of the few major things I've done.

• Moved the chat to Mibbit Premium. Gets rid of advertisements and allows for branding.
• Chat .
• Added flood protection to hopebot.
• Corrected all issues with hopebot not detecting loss of connection and being able to reconnect.
• Corrected all issues with !seen command and not reporting proper time when user was last on. Increased backlog of user list to 500+ plus all users who've logged in and been active since hopebot last joined.
• Moved database of responses to external file.
• Added improved AI for phone support when suggesting users to call a company, should pull company contact information page.
• Improved abuse detection with hopebot.

[Quantos]

Good job Nathan.
Thanks for making all of this possible, hey, give yourself a raise.   

[Helpmeh]

Nathan, can I have a raise on my allowance?

[Quantos]

Sure, the check is in the mail.

[Helpmeh]

How do you know where I live? I don't use chrome.

[Quantos]

Did I say it was being mailed to you?

[Computer Hope Admin]

Hopebot 7.0d

Been spending a lot of time this week again going through the logs daily and updating hopebot. Unfortunately Friday was a little troublesome because of a new feature I added to help detect URL spamming, since someone came in earlier spamming a porn site. However, after spending several hours Friday and into today writing up a new time routine I believe that issue as well as many of the other issues should be resolved.

For legit users I hope this resolves a bunch of the false warnings many of you have received while at the same time keeps the chat safe at all times of the day making things enjoyable for everyone.

Thanks for your continued patience.

[Quantos]

Yes, it was indeed a little problematic 

Thanks for fixing that for me Nathan.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Sorry again Quantos, tried to take the easy way out and apparently still didn't work from what I saw in the log tonight.

[2009-11-21 08:21:01] <Quantos> http://www.intel.com/consumer/learn/desktop/corei7-detail.htm
[2009-11-21 08:21:01] -HopeBot- *WARNING # 1/3* Quantos Don't spam the same URL please.
[2009-11-21 08:21:19] <Quantos> Oh goodie, here we go again 

I've made the time based warnings on the URL host dependent so *hopefully* now shouldn't get this again.

[Quantos]

Thanks Nathan, hopefully it works this time.  I know how frustrating it can be to go over the same thing again and again.

No need to apologize, stuff happens - and I knew you'd fix it.

[patio]

Part of the issue in chat is things actually have to be repeated in order to assist someone who isn't paying attention...

[Quantos]

Part of the issue in chat is things actually have to be repeated in order to assist someone who isn't paying attention...

I don't know what you mean, they always follow directions to the letter and pay FULL attention...

 

[BC_Programmer]

can you repeat that please?

 

[Quantos]

can you repeat that please?

 

No, I don't think I could keep a straight face telling that lie again.

[patio]

What's the Topic ? ?

Is there any tapioca left ? ?

[Computer Hope Admin]

Understand Patio. Repeat warnings should now be going through the time routine so should only be given if a repeat is done within a minute. So shouldn't happen for valid reasons; can't imagine any valid reason to repeat something within a minute.

[Helpmeh]

No, I don't think I could keep a straight face telling that lie again.

You don't have to worry, this is a forum, not a poker game...

[Computer Hope Admin]

Hopebot 7.3a

I've spent the last seven hours straight going through the chat log for the last month and updating Hopebot. I hope that I've squashed most if not all the bugs / complaints that have been reported. Below are some of the major things that have been fixed.

- Chat stats and the current chat status shown at the bottom of the forum and online help page are being updated again.
- Improved the ALL CAPS WARNING detection and warnings. Should not get them as often.
- Decreased the time from 3 minutes to 2 minutes for how long hopebot will wait before not warning users when posting a URL. Should help reduce the warnings on URL postings for
when users are re-posting a URL because a user missed it.
- Added a lot more algorithms for detecting swearwords.
- Various other minor corrections.

New feature:

- If a numerical value follows the Google function with a search it'll show multiple results. For example, running the below command will display four results for Windows xp.

g 4 windows xp

[patio]

Regarding the swear algorithim...HopeBot kicked me last week for using the name *censored*...

[Computer Hope Admin]

Heh had to un-censor the forums so I could see that word. I looked at the code and see no reason why that should of caused a ban (may have fixed it, not realizing it last night). For names with inappropriate words in it it should give you a warning first asking to change the name and then follow the same procedure of kicking at 3 and banning at 4.

[patio]

Gotcha...Thanx.
I like the search results addition...

[Computer Hope Admin]

Hopebot 7.6

Spent some more time going reading through the log for the last two months and finding additional bugs with Hopebot. I've corrected the below issues.

- Re-wrote the don't repeat warning to be smart about when and when not to warn about repeating. Should now have corrected issues with warning on repeats that happen several minutes apart.
- With above re-write should also improve issues with URL warnings happening so often.
- Added a lot more swearing and crude talk detection.
- Warnings sent on sending other channels to join.
- Several dozen other minor fixes.

[Helpmeh]

Hey Nathan, how long do warnings last?

[Computer Hope Admin]

Hey Nathan, how long do warnings last?

120 min or 2 hours from when the last warning was sent.

[Allan]

120 min or 2 hours from when the last warning was sent.

So which is it - 120 minutes or 2 hours?  (I suffer from acalculia   )

[kpac]

I had to Google that one. It told me not to confuse it with dyscalculia.

[Helpmeh]

So which is it - 120 minutes or 2 hours?  (I suffer from acalculia   )

Both.

[Efreak]

Right now the log is one full log. Not sure of any advantage to parsing it into separate logs by day other then it'd be easier to manipulate and work with. But if needed I could probably work something up.

I have daily log files going back to the end of july 2010 over here. Logs are generated by GIGO, and lines prefixed with [nolog] are automatically redacted. You're welcome to steal them for your own uses.
Logs are standardized as follows:
Filenames: #computerhope.YYYY-MM-DD.log
internal date/timestamp structure: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS  <nick> MESSAGE or *** NICK join/part/quit