Qwbot

When .spam and .qw were still new, I had an idea I was really proud of because it was something I thought of on my own. It would be an IRC bot that did the same thing as .qw, but without the broadcast spam. I implemented it in about 100 lines of PHP, but it never caught on because, fundamentally, people like reading spam.

But in the interest of spreading "good ideas", heres the concept:

• The bot idles in a bunch of channels
  • (possibly using a network of bots with one centralized storage space, like serveme, because theres a limit to how many channels you can join)
• Somebody types "!1on1"
• The bot stores that persons nick, channel, time, and "1on1" in the centralized storage space.
• The bot then looks in the centralized storage space for other "1on1" entries, and prints them all out, sorted by time.

The result is this:

I type "!1on1" in my channel, and I see who some of the most recent people that also wanted to 1on1, and their channels. At the same time, I also put myself on the top of this list, and anyone who types "!1on1" in another channel, will see me.

So instead of scrolling up through a bunch of .qw and .spam to find a 1on1 or 2on2 or whatever, you just type "!1on1" and get your list instantly, without spamming anyone.

In other words, this eliminates spam because only those who are actively looking for a game will get the bot's output.

Code available upon request :>

(Some time later, I remember ETG running a similar bot with basically an identical idea, except it served multiple games. I think they have dropped the idea since then, probably for the same reasons: users like spam, even if they say they don't...)