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See: New SE Chat Bot feature for identifying when Programmers is mentioned on Stack Overflow

Right now, the chat bot is publishing messages into The Whiteboard, the main chat room for Programmers. Should the messages be published into The Whiteboard or into a special chat room?

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The chat bot messages should go to The Whiteboard

  • Most chat users are in the Whiteboard. This gives the chat bot more exposure to where bad advice is being handed out on Stack Overflow about Programmers.
  • Unless you are in the chat bot room, you will never know
  • Makes it easier to include new and low rep users into being a good citizen (Let's face it, even gnat started somewhere)
  • I haven't heard a single complaint as of yet about the Chat Bot being annoying.
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  • +1 for "filtered" bot messages to go to Whiteboard
    – gnat
    Feb 5, 2015 at 13:07
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    I'm not convinced. I suspect gnat didn't start somewhere so much as just always was. The way I figure it the technology merely had to be made, but gnat was always there only able to commit to his acts after the creation of said technology.
    – Jimmy Hoffa
    Feb 5, 2015 at 20:41
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    @JimmyHoffa That made me smile. May gnat be with you, forever policing your policies and procedures.
    – maple_shaft Mod
    Feb 5, 2015 at 23:08
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    The bot is effectively an automated normal user. You can thus freely ignore the bot if you find it annoying.
    – user28988
    Feb 5, 2015 at 23:16
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    The bot is low enough traffic (and we continue to suggest ideas to make it even more particular) that it doesn't interrupt conversations any more than other regulars commenting on some fact of life.
    – user40980
    Feb 6, 2015 at 2:56
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As of a few minutes ago, an additional filter is applied to the comments to reduce false positives in The Whiteboard. This filter checks for for/on/to/at/try + programmers.

If you want to see all comments mentioning "programmers" you can do so in Duga's Playground.

Filtered comments goes to The Whiteboard, unfiltered to Duga's Playground.

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  • is it possible to exclude from passing to Whiteboard comments that quote SO about page: "for professional and enthusiast programmers"?
    – gnat
    Feb 18, 2015 at 19:33
  • @gnat From what I have seen, those comments are normally not posted to The Whiteboard. Could you point me at some false positives that have slipped through recently?
    – Simon Forsberg
    Feb 18, 2015 at 20:36
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    wow you're right, last leak I could find in there was posted about two weeks ago! I probably missed that because of spending too much time in Duga's playground, where there's plenty of these cases :)
    – gnat
    Feb 18, 2015 at 20:41
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A special chat room should be created

Although it may make a little extra effort, we routinely direct people who are asking discussion questions into The Whiteboard. I don't think that these people need to see a chat bot, especially if it's the most recent messages. In addition, it could interrupt communication between people. And if other bots are added to do other things or other functionality is added to this bot, it could increase the message count. Putting them into a nice, separate environment would allow the people who are interested in their content to find it, but not overwhelm people who don't want to deal with it (either at the moment or ever).

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