#3 A very basic workflow

[Paul Harman]

Post is made on a Nullbot-watched forum

1. Nullbot module adds text from post to Nullbot watch
list (Nullbot database)

2. Nullbot cron kicks in

3. Nullbot scans the the watch list, and evaluates each
new entry (the hard bit :)

4. Nullbot posts a pertinent answer back to the correct
forum

5. Nullbot goes back to sleep

1.
This is pretty easy.
We write a module for each type of forum we want to
support (vBulletin, Invision, whatever) which puts the
text from the post into the Nullbot database, along with
the forum ID, username and perhaps an ID relating to
the parent post (if it exists).

2.
Cron is easy, have it run every n minutes.

3.
This is where the difficulty is. At a first glance the
difficult parts are
- Language parser. Trying to make sense of abitrary text
is something you could devote years to

- Multiple posts. If a post is part of a long thread, do we
try to evaluate the post in relation to the thread

- How intelligent should the bot be? A simple start would
be to give the bot admin rights, and allow it to shut
down a thread if a threshhold is reached, e.g. excessive
swearing, flaming, job posting etc. It's important to start
of simple, and not be too ambitious, at least in the first
instance.

4.
The response could probably just be taken from a list,
decided on by threshhold from above point.

5.
Nullbot waits for next cron job.

I think this might be on hold until after Christmas, but I
hope we could get something started after that.

[PaulMcilwaine]

Logged In: YES
user_id=1174578

Yes I believe we should get started, its quite a good
project. I think cron should be setup by a forum user
however I dont think cron should be the only way however we
need a start so Cron should be what its based around.

I like the idea of Modules maybe something we can base on
all things like Forums, another feature by bubblenet for IRC
etc, something I feel is quite capable of achieving and
something which can be used to have a default install and
IRC etc Modules easily added in, but try not to get to far
ahead.

The bots intelligence I think shouldnt be too high but it I
think we need something for maybe a Beta so Thread Locking,
Simple Replies like e.g. FAQ link, or if theres a similar
Post. So nothing on the sense of actually replying with
something like helping out a PHP Question however that could
be quite possible however highly inaccurate for making it at
first something for future I think.

But I think we need something solid soon if this project is
to get off the ground.

[Bubblenut]

Logged In: YES
user_id=1044292

Nothing more to add conceptually to any stages other than 3.
I have a couple of throughts on this area. Firstly, I agree
with pmcilwaine, it doesn't need to be very intelligent.
Second, this area could (and realistically would need) also
be based on plugable modules, allowing the forum owner, if
knowlegable to write his/her own modules to handle different
questions. This point, coupled with paulharman's points on
admin rights, cron (how often) etc naturally leads onto a
templating system with a selection of variables and switches
which can be set or left as default and then a rule (which
could be based on processed lexical data from the language
parser or from the raw post) and reply template. This method
would require quite a bit more processing but would give a
lot more flexibility and the nature of the bot would allow
it to run on a seperate server to the forum to avoid
processor load increasing exponentially with forum load.