too many "looks like nobody's around just now" messages

[pdurbin]

I've been hanging out in the main Public Lab chat room for a few weeks now and it's very nice except that plotbot keeps spamming the channel with "looks like nobody's around just now" messages. Examples below from https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab?at=5ae228a12d0e228d7bb6fb9d are highlighted in red:

Please note that above I've also highlighted in green a welcome message from plotbot that I think should remain. It's nice to greet new people like this and remind the channel about the code of conduct.

[jywarren]

Yes, I think we need to move that message to a DM, potentially... @ryzokuken, any progress with the DM function or need some help recruiting folks into this?

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On Sun, Apr 29, 2018, 9:49 AM Philip Durbin ***@***.***> wrote: I've been hanging out in the main Public Lab chat room for a few weeks now and it's very nice except that plotbot keeps spamming the channel with "looks like nobody's around just now" messages. Examples below from https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab?at=5ae228a12d0e228d7bb6fb9d are highlighted in red: [image: nobody] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/21006/39407319-374230ac-4b92-11e8-952e-9bfc44c24008.png> Please note that above I've also highlighted in green a welcome message from plotbot that I think should remain. It's nice to greet new people like this and remind the channel about the code of conduct. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#108>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AABfJy0BfqFHtjYx8V5_wt5nFRbYTx0tks5ttcTIgaJpZM4Trzqu> .

[pdurbin]

@jywarren hi! I assume @ryzokuken would link you to #104 where the conversation about DMs as a solution is happening. In this issue I'm trying to be agnostic about the solution. 😄

[ryzokuken]

@jywarren me and @pdurbin have been working on a pre-requisite step for it, by making an excel sheet full of alternative chat platforms.

My point here being: we'd first need to bring the community to a single unified platform in order to make DMs work. As of now, the community is fragmented, with plotsbot itself sticking to IRC, which means that it cannot DM non-irc users (the majority of our community) and has to rely on sending messages on the channel, which remains the single common medium of communication between plotsbot and the user.

Once we choose to and move to an alternate medium, plotsbot would need a new interface (which shouldn't be too much work, thanks to our modularization work last summer), and added DM functionality which again, is trivial to develop.

Honestly speaking, the actual elephant in the room is the shift to a more appropriate communication medium.

[pdurbin]

Yes, I linked to the spreadsheet about various chat platforms in a comment with some additional context at publiclab/plots2#2590 (comment)

Here's a direct link to the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V-L55OusMKgZNkbc_yarASQuWa9JoJzxkjqjCxfLOkw/edit?usp=sharing

[icarito]

Hi @ryzokuken! I think an alternative to insist everyone use the same software, is:  - to give Plotsbot a presence in Matrix.Org proper (not bridged irc bot)      - here's docs for a matrix.org bot: https://gitlab.com/argit/hello-matrix-bot  - to use each platform's mechanisms for greeting if available (Gitter offers one). These are main ideas taken from #104 Chat is currently fragmented across the ecosystem - until this is better standardized we should avoid to insist people change what they use, imho. Regards! Sebastian

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On 29/04/18 11:00, Ujjwal Sharma wrote: @jywarren <https://github.com/jywarren> me and @pdurbin <https://github.com/pdurbin> have been working on a pre-requisite step for it, by making an excel sheet full of alternative chat platforms. My point here being: we'd first need to bring the community to a single unified platform in order to make DMs work. As of now, the community is fragmented, with plotsbot itself sticking to IRC, which means that it cannot DM non-irc users (the majority of them) and has to rely on sending messages on the channel, which remains the single common medium of communication between plotsbot and the user. Once we choose to and move to an alternate medium, plotsbot would need a new interface (which shouldn't be too much work, thanks to our modularization work last summer), and added DM functionality which again, is trivial to develop. Honestly speaking, the actual elephant in the room is the shift to a more appropriate communication medium. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#108 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAMMS_IjUu3vZhERIiVkTtu7Zcf66lsgks5tteOXgaJpZM4Trzqu>.

[pdurbin]

@icarito you're saying that plotbot would be able to connect to as many chat services as Public Labs uses, right? It's not a bad idea but it would be a lot of work because so many services are used. As of this writing I believe they are Matrix, IRC, Gitter, and Slack.

[pdurbin]

It dawned on me today that plotsbot always gets the last word.

@icarito @ebarry and I can be chatting away for quite a while and say goodbye quite naturally but plotsbot always chimes ten minutes later saying that nobody's around:

It makes me wonder what message we are trying to send. The message seems very well-intentioned. Presumably it's supposed to help newcomers to the channel know that we care what they think even if no one is available to chat. The newcomers are offered alternative ways to get in touch. But shouldn't channel regulars be free to converse and allow ten minutes to pass without receiving this message intended for newcomers? As the clock ticks I start feeling pressure to say something so that the bot doesn't interrupt the conversation. Can the bot track channel regulars and only send the "nobody's around" messages to the non-regulars? Or should we just kill the "nobody's around" message for now?

[jywarren]

Hi all - I think @pdurbin has something here and perhaps there's a shorter term improvement we can make that will skip the cross-platform-DM issue (also will chime in there, however):

The "nobody's here" message (called the idle behavior) is triggered if someone asks something but doesn't get a response in 10 mins -- so newcomers don't feel unsupported if nobody's there to answer a question.

What if we modify the "idle" plotsbot message by adding one more condition: that it only replies with the idle message if BOTH:

1. (current condition) 10 minutes has passed since the last message
2. (new) the last message was sent by someone it doesn't "recognize" from any prior interaction (modularize .recognize function for re-use in Idle behavior #101) say, no messages from that user older than 20 minutes ago

This seems easier (though still would take a little tweaking) since we already have a good template for "recognizing" -- from here:

plotsbot/src/behaviors/greet.js

Lines 4 to 9 in d87ef5d

	let greeted = [];
	const greetAction = (channel, username, botNick) => {
	if(!utils.contains(greeted, username)) {
	greeted.push(username);
	return `Welcome to Publiclab, ${username}! Here's a link to the Code of Conduct that's in effect in this, and all other spaces of Public Lab: https://publiclab.org/conduct. For a quick walkthrough, send the message: \`${botNick} help\``;

[jywarren]

Here's a very rough initial attempt at this behavior: #109

I'm not great at this... any help appreciated!

[pdurbin]

@jywarren thanks so much for weighing in on this issue and making the pull request. I left a review on it.

The "nobody's here" message (called the idle behavior) is triggered if someone asks something but doesn't get a response in 10 mins -- so newcomers don't feel unsupported if nobody's there to answer a question.

It's nice to hear the intent but the reality is somewhat different in the sense that people aren't necessarily asking questions. People are having a nice chat and ending with "whelp, good chat. good night!" But then plotbot always has to have the last word. "Nobody's around!" 😄

Over in #openhatch of freenode Welcomebot has existed in various forms at various times and I like the model it uses where is remembers people by persisting their nicks in a file on disk (nicks.csv) and then never bothers them again. You can read about Welcombot at https://github.com/shaunagm/WelcomeBot

Just some thoughts for you. Thanks again for the pull request!