by

Peerbot Factoids

Providing software support in a IRC chatroom can prove daunting at times. The users seeking assistance will have varying levels of familiarity with the software in question, and oftentimes lack a basic understanding of how to use the software at all. Online documentation is quite helpful,  pointing them in the way of this documentation can be time consuming and require a personal index of helpful pages. That is where IRC bots come into play. Over the years, I have used a couple of IRC bots to help with recalling factoids, as well as other duties. The first bot I used was called Infobot, it was a basic bot and did everything I wanted it to do at the time. However, the project has since become abandonware, and continued development is usually always a bonus in software, especially that of web facing software. Before long, I was looking for something else to run as a IRC help bot. This is when I was recommended Supybot. Supybot, and its forks are quite active in the world of IRC bots, and quite capable of many different tasks. I have been now running a supybot for many years without much trouble. Although the software that the bot was providing support for has since itself been hinging on becoming abandonware, the bot will remain for the time being. I would also like to extend a thank you to the many helpful people, and bots in #supybot on freenode. A list of my bot’s (Peerbot)  factoids can be found here.