#53 Funbot ought to track away status

lambdabot, in #haskell tracks when people say something. Meaning, if I send a memo for foo, and foo is online, instead of immediately sending the memo to foo, lambdabot waits until foo says something, then sends a memo.

Hmmmm interesting. But do we really need that, is that approach good? I'm worried it may not be, because:

1. When people are online but AFK, their IRC client highlights their nick and they can see the message later. People who run their client 24/7 are probably used to that. So even if the message is sent instantly, it shouldn't be a big deal. People who run a client 24/7 are probably somewhat technically oriented, enough to go over their highlights when they come back to the keyboard.
2. When you send a memo, the person should see it when they return from being AFK. If the bot waits until they write something, the memo may get delayed by days. But if it's sent instantly, either they see it as a highlight or it's sent to them when they log in.

I do realize that approach also has advantages:

1. You don't need to go back in log history to go over highlights (but this is just convenience, good IRC clients make it easy to go over highlights)
2. If the memo is sent instantly and then there's a disconnection on the recipient's side, they may miss the memo and never see the message

I thought about these issues a lot, and I also considered solving them by keeping memos until the recipient actively approves reading them. It's still a possible relevant approach.

So, what was your use case, what brought you here to open this issue?

• Is it related to going over highlights? A good IRC client makes it easy
• Is it related to missing instant memos due to disconnection? Agreed, it's problem. In addition to your suggestion, I have some alternatives:

1. Have 2 variants for the memo command, one sends instantly and one waits for the user to send something
2. Keep sending the memo on user login until they approve reading the memo

What do you think?

I agree with your interpretation.