What uses are there for bots?
Bots were invented to solve several problems which plagued the original IRC users, including establishing and maintaining channel ownership, fending off hostile takeovers during the once feared ‘netsplits’, and preventing or reducing the effects of flooders. Some networks have now established SERVICES for channel and nick registration, which elimiate the need for a bot to hold open a channel. Other networks have implemented channel synch, which prevents people from ‘hacking’ ops on a channel during a netsplit. One network, EFnet, has installed a pseudo-service called CHANFIX which keeps track of ownership without requiring channel registration. Due to the active effort of the IRC administrators, the original need for bots has been greatly reduced and perhaps eliminated. However, as IRC has evolved so have bots. While most of the original reasons for bots have been eliminated, new scripts have been written and bots are now doing a host of other things including: keeping track of the las
