Wanting to join --

[Grok]

I think it is fair to say we are a bit off-topic at this point.

!~!HaZaRD!~!

Nah.  vL members talking about vL channel is never off topic in the vL general forum.

The vL ops bot has two primary purposes.  The first is to allow members guaranteed access, on their appropriately registered name.  The secondary is to allow members, at will, to remove any non member from the channel by kick or ban.  Unfortunately there had to be a Zeroeth purpose added.

Any other purposes are secondary by design.

[iago]

I think that idle-kick and fast-rejoin-ban together are nice, but a bit spammy...

[Kp]

I am not sure if you guys have allready jumped to this solution, or have allready implimented it, but here is my suggestion: Why not simply just add an Auto-Rejoin on Kick?  It allows users to just be kicked for being idle, and at that point they should know to get their buisiness done with, or stay out.  People on Auto-Rejoin can get a clue, not to rejoin, and never to come in again?

We have a fast-rejoin ban implemented.  It predates many of the other automatic moderation rules, actually.

I think that idle-kick and fast-rejoin-ban together are nice, but a bit spammy...

Exactly.  That's why idleban got implemented.

[Adron]

I still think it'd be better with a longer idle kick timeout. And 7 eastern sounds bad.

[Adron]

I agree about the value of idle kick, but it is rather useless when almost everyone that the bot kicks just rejoins immediately and automatically (and continues to be idle for many hours to come).  I'll add an option for controlling whether to ever idleban (and default it to off ("kicks only")).

If idle kick were to be a rare event, then the spam effect of kick + fast rejoin ban would be limited. With an appropriately high idle kick timer, idle kick will be a rare event. Solved!

The option to not idleban sounds good.

That is the purpose; I don't quite see what extra work is involved.  Could you clarify?

That was just a complaint at iago's comment: "Nah, when the burst in and talk right away, they get banned by a member! "

I.e. idle kick teaches them to burst in and talk right away which we also don't appreciate, and so we are teaching them to do something bad - which as iago suggested will make a member (have to) take action.

[Adron]

Nah.  vL members talking about vL channel is never off topic in the vL general forum.

It's off the subject topic though, and people who would be interested in talking about the ops bot might miss it because of the misleading subject. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd split this topic so we get another one with a fitting subject.

[iago]

What's wrong with people idling in the channel, anyway?  If they aren't making any noise, there's no spam.  Even idle-ban is noisier than a quiet person.

The only time idle-kick/ban would be good is if the channel was nearly full, so if (UsersInChannel > (MAX_USERS - 5)) { IdleKickOrBanPeople() };

[ShadowEmpire]

If you don't like people jumping right in to speak - then why not add a ban to where when a user talks before a timer is up, they are banned.  Example: ShadowEmpire joins Op [vL] - ShadowEmpire says: "sup" before 30 seconds - ShadowEmpire is banned.
Example: ShadowEmpire joins Op [vL] - ShadowEmpire says: "sup" after 30 seconds - ShadowEmpire remains in Op [vL].

That could be a good solution to your problem.

[Grok]

The channel is for members, not for bots.  Automation should be limited to necessity, allowing an option to turn the automated feature off or on, such as how "protect" works now.

I don't like the whole concept of idle time automatically causing anything.  If a guy idles for a month in the channel and no member has objected, then obviously no members who are present care that he's there.

So get rid of the idle timer.  Replace it with idleban+idlekick commands that knows how long each person has been idle, and acts on them.

This puts the channel back in control of the members, where it should be.

[Denial]

Just stick with the idle bans. They seem to be working fine. I doubt members are that lazy to type ban user or protect on whenever they don't like someone in the channel. I shouldn't even be stating my opinion because I am not a member of [vL] but I read and many other non-members are posting along with this subject. There is always something people like and don't like just come to a agreement that fits the needs of both sides.

[Skywing]

The channel is for members, not for bots.  Automation should be limited to necessity, allowing an option to turn the automated feature off or on, such as how "protect" works now.

I don't like the whole concept of idle time automatically causing anything.  If a guy idles for a month in the channel and no member has objected, then obviously no members who are present care that he's there.

So get rid of the idle timer.  Replace it with idleban+idlekick commands that knows how long each person has been idle, and acts on them.

This puts the channel back in control of the members, where it should be.

It seems plenty in the control of anybody with access if it can be turned on or off.

[Grok]

It is not control when bots make "seemingly random" decisions to kick someone from the channel.  Just because a member can "turn that feature off" is not members controlling the channel.  Instead, it is members controlling the schizophrenic behavior of the [vL] op.

There shouldn't be a feature that bans people for not saying something fast enough.  If a member wants to ban someone for not talking fast enough, that's an entirely different matter.

I've been watching a conversation between several people, none who have F on their names, and suddenly [vL] starts kicking them out of the channel, and when then come back to continue chatting, they get banned.

If I complain about it what am I told?  That I should have to give all those people F flag if I want them to be able to not be idle kicked.

[Raven]

Why not just leave it the way it is and stop complaining about trivialities that really don't matter that much?

[Kp]

I had previously not heard views from anyone who found it desirable to listen to a batch of unknown users talking among themselves without any input from the members / channel regs.  In all the occasions of that which I have witnessed, the unknown users are acting inane or discussing topics in which I have no interest (and I would be surprised if it interested others, since the topic is frequently the number of wins/losses on [vL]Grok and Winner[vL]).

Also, to address a minor point, the decision is not random at all.  All automoderation is fundamentally event-driven -- the rules are only checked when the bot wakes up to process incoming traffic from the server.  Thus, you can predict with pretty good accuracy when a "random" event will occur, providing no one else intervenes first or reconfigures it.

[Soul Taker]

I realize I'm not a member, but I would rather see 'random people' talking in a channel I ran than have it be silent 50% of the time.