Services - part II
Posted to #chatspike by w00t @ 2008-06-01 00:00:29

This may end up being a bit of a long post, so I apologise in advance.

If you don't want to read it, skip to the summary section at the end.

As most ChatSpike regulars will have noticed, things have been a tiny bit stale and musty the past few months - and for this we apologise profusely.

We've been busy with other things (real life, et cetera), and one aspect of things that has been holding us back and demotivating us to some extent has been the (internal) state of Services, the part of ChatSpike that handles registrations and all the cool bits (NickServ, ChanServ, etc).

Internally, we've known for quite a while that the state of affairs has been far from ideal, but recently we decided to start working on actually fixing things instead of just procrastinating.

With this in mind, we will be switching Services to a new version, which will enable us to much more easily add new features in the future (as we switched server software in the past for the same reason). This will mean more toys, less odd problems, and more flexibility - good things all round.

On the downside of this, there is quite a bit of change involved, so we've set up a test network. If you'd like to help us test, connect to irc.inspircd.com on port 6667. Services there are running a copy of the "live" setup, but any changes you make on either side won't affect the other.

We'll of course be providing more details (such as documentation etc) in the near future.

Some of the new features you may look forward to and test are:

  • A more customisable channel access system (easier to use, more flexible)
  • IdleServ gone, you will be able to get ChanServ to join your channel instead
  • ChanServ will respond to channel commands
  • New website features, more integration between services and the website
  • Channel statistics in /CS INFO
  • And more as we come up with ideas (you can help with this, by adding comments to this newspost!)
    • (no, we're not going to be using anope)

Summary: Services changes are coming up, help test them with us on irc.inspircd.com port 6667 in #chatspike.

Thanks for your patience.

User Comments

jasperdett
2008-06-01 00:09:53
you should add moraleserv
w00t
2008-06-01 00:10:26
What's it do?
eLement
2008-06-01 00:21:44
It eats your soul. MoraleServ is some lame thing from NeoStats. I never found it useful. I'm going to go to a Anope module for this next one. Extended Fantasy Commands! They have !down (to remove ops), !up (to retain ops/voice), !mute (to add a quiet ban [which you guys will be implementing]), !unmute (self-explanatory), !xop add <nick> (self-explanatory), !access add <nick> level (self-explanatory)...yeah that's my spiel. I think another one that Anope uses, is cs_accessfounder. If a user has an access level of 9999 they are considered a founder and get +q accordingly. That's my bit =)
w00t
2008-06-01 00:31:55
We have no need for almost all of those, since we aren't using anope. The services we are using will allow *all* ChanServ commands to be used in-channel. Multiple founders are also possible. The only thing we don't have on that list is !down/!up (or similar).. It's an idea. :)
Brain
2008-06-01 21:32:29
We have fixed the date for the services migration to between the 21st and 23rd of June 2008. The downtime to services and website will be minimal, and there will be no ircd downtime. We will keep you informed as this progresses.
jackmcbarn
2008-06-01 21:38:49
Yay, only 3 more weeks! Countdown anyone?
w00t
2008-06-04 13:26:38
Support for !up and !down has been added as of today.
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