Java Channel Stats

m · Guest

Hi,

I've recently added stats for my IRC channel to my website using your great new Java thingies, which are fabulous Smile

I have one comment, though - when the channel is empty, the output says:
"Channel #channel does not currently appear in the Search IRC database"

It would be much more helpful if instead it said:
"#channel currently has 0 users"

As that's in the same format as the output when there is one or more user, and those using my site are more likely to understand what it means!

Any chance we could have this as an option?

Thanks,
m

Jason · Posted: Mar 15, 2004 7:41am Post subject:

Hello -

I don't know if I like that idea because:

1) There really isn't much reason for a channel to not appear in the database if it's alive and active on a network. In order for a channel to be purged, it would have to miss being seen 24 times a day for a week.... that is difficult to do.

2) The error message would be misleading and make people think there is something wrong with the script or indexer when the issue would likely be the channel +s, or the indexer being unable to connect to the network.

Jason · Posted: Mar 15, 2004 7:57am Post subject:

...in case I wasn't being clear: The java stats doesn't say a channel has no users when the channel has no users. It will continue to use the last seen user count until a week has gone by and it hasn't seen the channel again. Then it deletes it from the database, and then it will claim it can't find the channel.

m · Guest

Ah, okay, I didn't realise that's how it worked.

I seem to have continuous trouble with the accuracy of the channel stats - I posted some time ago about how infrequently the stats seem to update (for DALnet), although that seems to be working better now. But my channel does seem to vanish from the database quite regularly, despite the fact that it is in regular, although not continuous, use. I had assumed, therefore, that it vanished when there was no-one in it, rather than when no-one had been seen in it for a week.

Perhaps a combination of it not being in constant use (we have a weekly meeting on a Wednesday evening, when there's always people there for hours, but the rest of the week it's a bit erratic whether anyone's there or not) and the stats not being updated all that often means that it's being missed by bad luck and therefore deleted from the database.

However, you mention that it continues to show the last seen user count when there is no-one on the channel - could this be changed so it actually says there are 0 users? After all, if there are 10 people chatting who leave within a few mins of each other, and then no-one else turns up for a day or two (as regularly happens to us - Wednesday evenings are busy, but then no-one might be in the channel for the next 24 hrs), to have the stats saying that there are 10 users for all that time is rather misleading!

Thanks for your help!
m

Jason · Posted: Mar 15, 2004 8:34am Post subject:

Thus the problem with polling. Unfortunately there is no way to do realtime stats without doing something like linking a server to each network we monitor.

We have no iline on dalnet, and the robot doesn't always get on the network. Add in that the robot only checks every 30-60 minutes, and if your timing is off, the robot may not see your channel during an hour long meeting.

We can't assume that the channel has 0 users anymore than we can assume the channel is even still around.

Fact is, the bot can't always get on (no more connections, dns problems, network died, network merge, network split), channels can become +s, etc. So we assume the channel continues as normal, but show the fact that the channel listing is slightly outdated by the freshness rating.

http://searchirc.com/faq/?At%20a%20glance

Just keep in mind that the purpose of SearchIRC is to allow people to find channels to chat in. If your channel doesn't meet much and has no users most of the time, SearchIRC isn't going to provide you with the best possible stats or numbers.

m · Guest

Fair enough - thanks anyway!

So, as a final request, how about adding the freshness rating to the stats that are produced by the java thingies? That would be useful!

Thanks again!

m
Who feels she's being very demanding, but does appreciate all your hard work really..... Wink