echbot is the oldest pickup bot running on any network, and began running Quakenet's #q3pickup channel back in 1999. Since then echbot expanded to 15 running bots, but has suffered from no code improvements in 7-8 years now.
Tragically, last year my long term helper Mattias (aka Revok) committed suicide. At that point I decided that was the end, and I would open source echbot, but it has taken me until now to actually do it, sorry about that.
A few warnings:
I intend to continue running echbot on Quakenet for now, but will look to retire it in the coming months. It had a good run, but I just don't have time any more with work, and the fact my wife is expecting our first child!
-- ech [chris@echbot.com] (09:26 BST, 6th Apr 2010)
From about 1.05am this morning until 2pm today, we suffered a server outage. All echbots were offline during this time. Apologies for the inconvenience.
-- ech (16:45 BST, 21st Sep 2006)
It's been a while, but everything's back up and running now. echbot's back with stats, so hopefully everything should be working no. Apologies on the delay with the stats - there's a four day gap but everything after that should be intact, and the stats from before of course.
Please let me know (ech on Quakenet #echbot) if something's still broken.
-- ech (13:00 BST, 6th Nov 2005)
echbot's back! But not properly fixed :) Stats are still broken so you can expect a restart in the next day or so when I've figured out what's wrong with them. Still, it's progress, right?!
-- ech (04:30 BST, 18th Oct 2005)
Spent Friday night at Telehouse reinstalling the server. Took longer than planned, but we now have a working Debian system. I've just got back from a weekend away I couldn't avoid going on, and have begun to sort things out. It will take a lot of sorting out, but I plan to have echbot up in a day or so.
-- ech (21:00 BST, 16th Oct 2005)
Hi,
First, apologies for the inconveninence of echbot being unavailable. I am trying my best to put echbot back up, and will have it up as soon as possible. In the mean time I have just put a temporary echbot up on Quakenet called echbot. This will service channels who request it in #echbot who are judged to need it badly to keep running.
There are two problems, which is why echbot is not running currently.
The echbot config is 0 bytes long, and I have no recent backups. Not having backups is totally my fault, and was stupid. However to get things back I need to find RICO or revok, and ask them for the most recent replies to the !channels command in the admin channel. Please email logs to me at my non-server email address, chris@formicary.net !
The config is 0 bytes long, presumably with an unlucky timing of a kill. I suspect the code was such that if the file was about to be written when the bot was killed, the config is lost. It's something I've not seen in the yaers it's been running, but looks like I got hit by that too.
The config stores all channel lists, all colour settings, all lastgame info, etc. It does not store !top10 stats, webpage stats, etc. All this will be preserved. So all of this info has been lost. This is very unfortunate, and perhaps worse than the server being rooted, but I've only got myself to blame!
We discovered the problems last night, about 11pm BST. I was in New York, about to fly back, so could do nothing useful. I arrived in England this morning, and had to go to work. I've now (5pm BST) not slept for over 24hrs and will go home to pick up a monitor and keyboard, and head into Telehouse London to reinstall the server.
Once the server is reinstalled, I will attempt to get all websites, bouncers, and echbot back up and running. Optmistic ETA for this is tonight, around 11pm BST. Pessimistic ETA for this is Sunday night, since I'm leaving for a weekend away early Saturday morning, and I'm going to need to sleep soon!
Anyway, I'm sorry for everyone who's inconvenienced by this, and I hope people will continue to use echbot, even though it's been missing for over 24hrs now. Maybe it'll encourage some people to go out tonight instead :)
I'll keep regular updates whilst the bot is down..
-- ech (16:45 BST, 14th Oct 2005)
I'm working on the new echbot, and I'm going to come across things where I'm not totally sure how people would like them to work, what features they'd like to have, etc. If you'd like input into the new echbot, join the mailing list. Feel free to suggest features, complain about current ones, etc! :)
To subscribe, send an email to dev-subscribe@echbot.com
-- ech (8th Jan 2005)
This morning echbot's trust was deleted by an IRCop. The trust has now been restored and all services are back to normal.
The reason was the exact same reason echbot was banned a little over five months ago. An IRCop looking at old logs decided echbot was a spam bot, claimed it was connecting with names like ^echbot^ and idents like moo636 where 636 is a random number. It was therefore evading a ban (apparently). However, echbot has not been using nicks like that, it has not been using random idents. In fact, the ident server (fixed to reply "echbot" to all requests) has been running and replying since May 2nd.
So in summary, it was banned for a problem I fixed five months ago, and has not happened since.
All credit to the Quakenet IRCop meeb who has once again sorted me out. He spoke to the other IRCop and reassured him/her that I am providing a useful service. Let's hope this is the last we see of this issue...
-- ech (5th Oct 2004)
This morning echbot's trust was deleted by an IRCop. I have spoken to meeb (who didn't remove it) who said that it may take a little while for him to sort out. Presumably he needs to find who removed it, and why to decide if I should get it back.
Unfortunately echbot will have to remain offline until meeb has been able to trace this, when hopefully I will be able to continue running the bots. Sorry everyone. Please remember this is a free service I provide to the community (abt 120 chans), and I want to keep it online just as much as you do.
To try and stop this problem recurring, I will be trying to release a new echbot that people can download. Don't hold your breath, I am extremely busy at work :(
-- ech (5th Oct 2004)
Regrettably the service has not been as reliable as I would like in the last few weeks. On Friday (30th April) Quakenet IRCops banned echbot from Quakenet and revoked the trust I had. Here's why:
Oops! Thanks to Kat I was able to get in contact with a helpful IRCop, meeb, who was willing to help me get the bots back online. We agreed the following compromise (since echbot is actually useful to users):
If only all Quakenet IRCops were as helpful as meeb, and willing to LISTEN. I spoke to various people, including Jack (an IRCop) who were willing only to tell me to read the ban reason again and again, and didn't give a toss that a service I was providing, for free, for thousands of his network's users was offline due to a misunderstanding leading to a ban it was within his power to remove.
I resent the fact that users are typically treated like dirt by Quakenet administrators, and the only way of getting in contact with someone who is willing to treat you as a competent user is through people who know people who know people, etc.
So, thanks to meeb - problems are solved for now.
-- ech
-- ech
-- echQuestions / suggestions / bugs? > Email me here! <.