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NewsSpike
Viewing the newsfeed for channel #chatspike  |
| Upcoming upgrade and short downtime -- IMPORTANT! | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Sat 16th Jan 10 @ 11:35pm |
Dear ChatSpike,
As you may know - we were recently looking for a new server name.
This is because we are preparing some software and structural changes to the network - nothing too noticeable.
Tomorrow, at 4PM GMT, we will be restarting the whole network for a number of software upgrades. Estimated downtime is minimal, but let's say 15 minutes just to be safe. When we come back up, we will have a number of new features available, including the ability to mute individual problematic users within your channel, restrict colours to specific users on a channel, and other more fine grained access controls. We will be introducing the "new" bender.chatspike.net to the network at the same time.
Should you wish to preview the 'new' network, connect to irc.chatspike.net on port 16667. A copy of Services is running, but any changes you make will not exist on the live network, and will not last beyond tonight.
Questions, comments, and discussion to #chatspike as always!
Thanks!
ChatSpike Staff |
| 8 comments |
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| Communities (and website additions!) | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Wed 12th Aug 09 @ 7:37pm |
First, the important news: we're looking to modernise and update the text on our front page - and as a community driven network, the text is about *you* - our communities. If you have a community hosted by us that you would like mentioned on the ChatSpike website, please reply to this newspost with a bit of information about your community, what it is, and what channel you're in.
--
In other news, the website homepage (go over to http://www.chatspike.net/ and take a look) now has a newsfeed of all the happenings on the network. We will add RSS to this eventually, and the position is also not final (we're thinking of making it a ticker.)
Images post on the gallery were also added to the list of 'things that spam #chatspike', so if you're interested in nosing around what people look like, pop into #chatspike and keep an eye out. We don't bite.
(You may now also register your nickname on here, but I doubt any of you lot need that.)
Keep your eyes open for more changes!
-- ChatSpike Staff |
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| Staff applications | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Wed 12th Aug 09 @ 10:52am |
We recently announced that we were looking for staff -- we expected a response, but your response completely blew us all away!
Thanks for all your applications, we appreciate them - we are now currently closed for new staff positions (so don't send any more applications).
We will go through remaining applications that have not received a response and respond to them over the following week -- if you haven't got in yet, don't give up hope: you still might.
Thanks again!
ChatSpike Staff |
| 4 comments |
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| Site improvements | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Mon 10th Aug 09 @ 10:13pm |
We got bored. That's usually a dangerous thing. In this case, however, it had a good result!
Polls (see http://www.chatspike.net/index.php?p=poll ) now send a message to the channel(s) that are associated with them when they are created, or people vote.
News posts (what you're reading now) already do the same things.
We intend to keep on introducing nice things like this for channel owners, so, keep your eyes tuned.
In the meantime, I'd like to encourage you all to stop being lazy, and go to http://www.chatspike.net/index.php?p=poll&a=4&pi=95 - and vote your little hearts out.
Thanks!
ChatSpike Staff |
| 4 comments |
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| We want you! | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Fri 7th Aug 09 @ 10:01am |
ChatSpike is seeking staff, and we want YOU to help us.
Needed:
Friendly people who talk a lot, who are willing to help others, and want to learn more about Services (NickServ, ChanServ, etc) and the network itself.
If you're interested, please mail w00t@inspircd.org - or leave a message in this thread.
Thanks! |
| 9 comments |
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| Instability | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Tue 31st Mar 09 @ 12:44pm |
It appears that early this morning European time, we were experiencing a little instability.
We have disabled the affected servers temporarily until things stabilise, and are continuing to monitor the situation.
Should you have any questions, feel free to bug us in #chatspike - thanks! |
| 2 comments |
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| Site and network stability | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Mon 1st Sep 08 @ 8:05pm |
Just a quick note to let everyone know that the site is working again, thanks to Brain for fixing it (or just blame him, whichever you'd rather! :D).
Also, better late than never - I should have posted about this earlier, but anyway..
As some may have noticed, one server was splitting away from the network frequently. It has been removed so that no connections will go to it for the immediate future, meaning no more disruption, and we are investigating the problem more.
Thanks very much for your patience!
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or require help, feel free to poke your head into #chatspike |
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| Services aftermath: your say | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Tue 24th Jun 08 @ 8:17am |
Now that most of the dust has settled after the services changes, we're curious as to what you think so far.
Please, vote here (http://www.chatspike.net/index.php?p=poll&a=4&pi=84) or add a comment to this newspost (after logging in) as to what your opinion is on the changeover and the new services.
Especially, if you're displeased with anything, *please* tell us why :)
Thanks! |
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| Atheme services now live | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Mon 23rd Jun 08 @ 5:53pm |
We have successfully migrated from ircservices to atheme today, with only a few minor teething problems.
A few things need setting up again, namely session limit exceptions. Please get in touch with an oper if this needs fixing for you.
Apart from that everything has gone as planned and all vhosts, access lists etc have been copied over. You might want to take a look at our FAQ and other documentation:
http://www.chatspike.net/?z=76
If you have any comments please feel free to comment on this newspost, or speak to any staff member on #chatspike.
Thanks for flying ChatSpike! |
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| Services Switchover Date | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Mon 2nd Jun 08 @ 12:04am |
Okay, I promised details would follow soon, so here they are.
Unless things change, we'll be switching Services packages on the *23rd* of this month (June).
This means you will have an (estimated) hour's of Services downtime on that day, probably less - assuming things go to plan, which they rarely do :).
What can you do to help: First of all, read the last post - and connect to the test network, make sure things you use are working, tell us about things you want in comments on here, etc.
We could also use some people to help write documentation, so if you've some spare time... :)
For any questions or comments - please don't hesitate. This change will take time and patience, and does involve some differences, so the sooner you test things out and talk to us - the less surprises will be in store :) |
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| Services - part II | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Sat 31st May 08 @ 11:00pm |
This may end up being a bit of a long post, so I apologise in advance.
If you don't want to read it, skip to the summary section at the end.
As most ChatSpike regulars will have noticed, things have been a tiny bit stale and musty the past few months - and for this we apologise profusely.
We've been busy with other things (real life, et cetera), and one aspect of things that has been holding us back and demotivating us to some extent has been the (internal) state of Services, the part of ChatSpike that handles registrations and all the cool bits (NickServ, ChanServ, etc).
Internally, we've known for quite a while that the state of affairs has been far from ideal, but recently we decided to start working on actually fixing things instead of just procrastinating.
With this in mind, we will be switching Services to a new version, which will enable us to much more easily add new features in the future (as we switched server software in the past for the same reason). This will mean more toys, less odd problems, and more flexibility - good things all round.
On the downside of this, there is quite a bit of change involved, so we've set up a test network. If you'd like to help us test, connect to irc.inspircd.com on port 6667. Services there are running a copy of the "live" setup, but any changes you make on either side won't affect the other.
We'll of course be providing more details (such as documentation etc) in the near future.
Some of the new features you may look forward to and test are:
* A more customisable channel access system (easier to use, more flexible)
* IdleServ gone, you will be able to get ChanServ to join your channel instead
* ChanServ will respond to channel commands
* New website features, more integration between services and the website
* Channel statistics in /CS INFO
* And more as we come up with ideas (you can help with this, by adding comments to this newspost!)
* (no, we're not going to be using anope)
Summary:
Services changes are coming up, help test them with us on irc.inspircd.com port 6667 in #chatspike.
Thanks for your patience. |
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| Services | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Tue 27th May 08 @ 1:22pm |
Just a short post - we're looking at doing some work on the Services ChatSpike provides to you all - that is, NickServ, ChanServ, et cetera.
In the spirit of community involvement, I'd like to ask you all what things you might like to see in the future to make things better, easier, or more unique / nice for you.
Be as wild or out-there as you like, even if it sounds complex or unmanageable... We might just do something about it.
Please, keep all ideas to comments on this post, but feel free to come have a chat with me in #chatspike (or wherever) about the feasibility or details of your idea.
Thanks guys!
- ChatSpike Staff |
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| megumi.chatspike.net returns! | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Tue 7th Aug 07 @ 9:58pm |
After a year without the megumi.* server, we have returned it to operating status on the network, bringing us back to a more healthy four client servers.
Things are looking bright for ChatSpike! |
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| Kenny returns! | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Fri 3rd Aug 07 @ 9:12pm |
After a year, kenny.chatspike.net is back and dying quietly while people idle on him.
Great news to have the third client server back on deck :) |
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| Network ircd upgrade | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Sat 28th Jul 07 @ 6:11pm |
At 5pm today, we finally upgraded from 1.1.0 of InspIRCd to 1.1.10, which has many new features and a raft of fixes.
Some of these new features include:
* User mode +d (deaf), which prevents you receiving channel messages while it is set
* Channel mode +u (auditorium), for more information see the website: http://www.inspircd.org/wiki/Modules/auditorium
* Improved bot protection, to keep annoying bots off our network
Along with these extra features, the ircds are now faster and more reliable.
With the introduction of this new server, you can expect the return of other servers to the network soon as the last of the desync bugs that were preventing this were fixed a few versions ago.
If you have any comments, please feel free to reply to this news item. |
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| LoveServ returns! | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Fri 8th Jun 07 @ 8:47pm |
After a long and lengthy absense after LoveServ broke (for which we naturally blame Brain), we have now found the time to fix it, and add 'SLAP' to it's repotoire of commands!
Happy days are here again.
For those of you unfamiliar with what LoveServ is, see our Services page on it at http://www.chatspike.net/index.php?z=13 - and browse around the others (like WhoisServ) while you're there.
Suggestions, comments, flames and general lovin' to #ChatSpike on IRC
Enjoy! |
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| Happy 5th Birthday! | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Mon 23rd Apr 07 @ 5:39pm |
For those of you who don't already know, today is ChatSpike's fifth birthday! There will be virtual beer and virtual music in #chatspike to celebrate this special day, and pleanty of virtual getting drunk!
Those of you who wish to raise a glass to celebrate ChatSpike's age in real life are more than welcome to do so!
Thanks everyone, users and staff alike for making ChatSpike the huge success it is today :) |
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| New? | Posted by Ib to #chatspike on Wed 14th Mar 07 @ 1:59pm |
Sick of networks that split, dissapear for no reason, got idle or cocky IRCops?
Welcome to ChatSpike!
Considering Chatspike as a potential chatnetwork to host your community? Stop by our channel and talk to the staff to hear what we can offer you.
ChatSpike - The Users network! |
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| dexter.* returns! | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Mon 1st Jan 07 @ 5:41pm |
Today marks the return of dexter.chatspike.net, our second of many client servers which have been down for a few months. This should make chatspike more reliable and scalable, and make it easier for you to chat :)
Thanks again for using ChatSpike! |
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| InspIRCd 1.1 migration | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Sat 21st Oct 06 @ 3:57pm |
As the more astute of you may have noticed, we have now migrated from InspIRCd 1.0.x to InspIRCd 1.1.x. As well as being about three times more efficient in terms of CPU usage, and neater and more expandable, it should be more stable, which means in the near future our other servers will finally be making a comeback :)
...So, have fun! :) As always, bug reports and annoyances are to be reported initally in #chatspike. |
| 8 comments |
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| Excess Flood | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Wed 26th Apr 06 @ 6:50am |
[16:37:23] * Peng (~itoldyoutos@PenguinsRuletheWorld) Quit (Excess flood)
For those of you who have lately been having problems with excess flood, here is the reason.
Lately, we have had some issues with a number of bots connecting and making life havoc for large numbers of users.
While we are working on a more long-term method of preventing this problem, in the meantime, we have lowered the allowed flood rate of the server back to (more sane) levels -- you may perform roughly 30 commands in 3 seconds before being disconnected.
For those of you who are now being 'Excess Flood'ed off, you may want to investigate /NS AJOIN to join your channels, and client-side throttling in order to slow down the rate at which your client sends commands to the server.
Thanks, and sorry for any inconvenience caused. |
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| InspIRCd on ChatSpike and Keyed Channels | Posted by w00t to #chatspike on Wed 29th Mar 06 @ 1:24am |
As you all may have noticed, we are now running InspIRCd on ChatSpike.
We have experienced a few teething problems, such as a server crash or two, but things seem to be running smoothly.
One outstanding issue that seems to affect a number of users is that of keyed channels - this was recently fixed, but we have not yet restarted the server software for this.
If your channel is keyed (/mode #chan +k somekey) - or a key is set by /cs set mlock - your channel, and people in it - will NOT be seen by ChanServ.
You will either be told the channel does not exist, or that user 'x' is not in that channel.
To remedy this, remove the key (/mode #chan -k) - and preferably mlock it off (/cs set #chan mlock -k), and get everyone to rejoin (need not be straight away, but eventually).
This should fix any problems you will encounter.
As a replacement for setting a channel key, we recommend you use /cs set #chan restricted - which will kick/ban any users not on the channel access list when they attempt to join. |
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| InspIRCd Trial move! | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Sat 4th Mar 06 @ 3:29pm |
On the 25th March, we will finally be moving to using *InspIRCd* as our server software (http://www.inspircd.org). Please note that this is a trial move and in the event that the world ends (or ChatSpike explodes, which we _doubt_ will happen) we will be able to temporarily revert back to Unreal while we fix it.
Thank you for flying ChatSpike :) |
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| The InspIRCd Move.. | Posted by FrostyCoolSlug to #chatspike on Mon 6th Feb 06 @ 12:09am |
| Three years have passed since we set out on this mammoth of a task, to create our own custom IRCd software for ChatSpike, and as i write this, the initial stage of 'Final Testing' has begun! Opers, helpers and developers are all gathering as we work on building a 'dummy' network for the users to take a look at and play with. A list of funky features will appear when we open it up to everyone, but it's exciting times for chatspike and it's staff :) If you wanna check out the new software, check out http://www.inspircd.org as well as it's features, and modules :) |
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| nibbler.* downtime | Posted by Ib to #chatspike on Wed 25th Jan 06 @ 1:31pm |
| nibbler.chatspike.net is scheduled for hard- and software upgrades and will have a brief downtime from 0500 GMT 26th of January. |
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| New DarkGalaxy Round | Posted by FrostyCoolSlug to #chatspike on Tue 22nd Nov 05 @ 6:52pm |
Darkgalaxy is ChatSpike's longest running IRC Community, and it's new round is about to begin, with more stable and enjoyable code, it's looking to be the best DarkGalaxy round yet!
If you haven't already done so, head over to http://www.darkgalaxy.com and check it out :) |
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| Currently Seeking European/Australian Servers | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Tue 22nd Nov 05 @ 10:43am |
ChatSpike is currently seeking european and australian servers to link to the network. Please see the following forum post for more information which states the requirements for linking to ChatSpike:
http://searchirc.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=27459#27459 |
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| Server Downtime, 13th November 2005 | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Tue 15th Nov 05 @ 9:21am |
Hi everyone
As you no doubt noticed on sunday there was a significant issue with one of our servers (dexter.chatspike.net) which is now hopefully resolved. A full explaination of what happened (straight from the hosting provider's mouth) can be found here: http://www.chatspike.net/?z=58
Please feel free to comment, and thank you for using ChatSpike! |
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| New features | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Fri 11th Nov 05 @ 11:32am |
Hi everyone, it's that time of the year again where new features spring up all over chatspike!
As well as our new load balancing system, we have now added three new website features:
* The ability to comment on news posts (try it out on this news post!)
* URLs in news posts are automatically made clickable.
* Poor-mans formatting such as *bold* and _underline_ automatically translated
As always, have fun! |
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| Blame Brain Day | Posted by FrostyCoolSlug to #chatspike on Mon 17th Oct 05 @ 10:30am |
| Blame Brain Day is nearly upon us again, and we have decided to have a little competition, for all the info about it, as well as details about the origin of this day, check out http://www.chatspike.net/?z=22 |
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| New WhoisServ service | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Thu 21st Jul 05 @ 2:07pm |
Today marks the first day of our new WhoisServ service, of which more information can be found here:
http://www.chatspike.net/?p=whois
The WhoisServ service lets you set your own custom WHOIS fields (even with colour if you're that way inclined!)
-- Enjoy! |
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| Quotes searching added | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Wed 20th Jul 05 @ 12:02pm |
We have now added the ability to search quotes in our quotes section, plus a list of the bottom ten quotes!
The new facility can be found here: http://www.chatspike.net/index.php?p=quotes&t=5
Have fun! |
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| Services Server Restart | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Fri 1st Jul 05 @ 9:07am |
In the early hours of friday morning a hardware issue caused the restart of our hub/services server. We have since resolved most of the issues this caused (restarts as always cause a ripple of issues) and are back up and running as normal.
Thank you for using ChatSpike! |
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| Current Minor stability issues. | Posted by FrostyCoolSlug to #chatspike on Mon 20th Jun 05 @ 6:36am |
Over the past few days we have been experiencing some difficulties with stitch splitting from the rest of the network. We are currently attempting to identify and resolve the problem, and apologise for any inconvenience caused.
As far as we are aware, the issue is in the data centre in which stitch is located and we are working closely with the providers in order to stabilise the situation. |
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| Problems with Kenny.* | Posted by Ib to #chatspike on Wed 1st Jun 05 @ 8:40am |
We are experiencing some problems with Kenny.* after a upgrade on the server. Will be fixed shorty.
(09.43 GMT 06.01.2005) |
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| Chatspike Counter-Strike Source | Posted by Ib to #chatspike on Mon 25th Apr 05 @ 11:26am |
ChatSpike has now its own dedicated Counter-Strike:Source server for our users to play on!
For more info, visit http://www.chatspike.net/index.php?p=cscss
Server provided by Monil at Reload-Network.co.uk |
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| Redesign! | Posted by Ib to #chatspike on Mon 25th Apr 05 @ 11:20am |
After abit of nagging from the staff (me) the news section is now on the front page of the site :)
Im gonna try kicking the rest of the staff in the groin to become better at updating and posting news in the future too.
(this is mainly a testing of the system) |
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| ChatSpike Game of the Moment: | Posted by FrostyCoolSlug to #chatspike on Wed 12th Jan 05 @ 6:42pm |
| Remember lemmings? Well, heres Pingus - ftp://pingus.seul.org/pub/pingus/pingus-0.6.0rc1.1-binary-win32.zip Give it a go, its fun, and if you want, make your own level! :D |
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| Thanks to the userbase! | Posted by kujoe to #chatspike on Mon 1st Nov 04 @ 7:41am |
Thanks to the people that chatspike holds most dear, the actual userbase, and we've had the motivation to make such improvements as this new site.
One thing to remember is that this network is run completely on the kindness of everyone involved and on donations.
If you would like to donate, please click the donation link to the left under the "General" tab.
Thanks,
The staff. |
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| ChatSpike site development | Posted by Brain to #chatspike on Sun 31st Oct 04 @ 1:57pm |
| As you can see from this page, development of the chatspike website is moving on at full throttle. You can add news posts, post gallery and poll items and quotes. You must be logged in to access the functions described here, by entering your nickserv details in the box on the top right. |
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