[Pierre-Marie Baty]

I have no preference for whether or not a trial term should be given to newcomers. The advantages of it have been sufficiently mentioned, but I see a drawback consisting in that our selection criteria will be lowered just because of this trial period which will be supposed to act as the final validation criterium. Problem is, many a lamer would prefer being hosted on BU for only one month (trial period), than not being hosted at all. How not to associate the name of Bots United with those who failed during this trial ? This is the main problem of this idea in my opinion. For myself, either someone is in, either he is out - there isn't "half out" or "about to become in" or such things. Either we caution a bot, and this bot has its name associated to Bots United and vice versa, or we don't caution it yet. That said, I understand very well the advantages you mentioned. I was just pointing the pending drawbacks in order to equalize the balance a bit.

Which brings me immediately to the next problem. What to do with the abandoned bots ? Do you want to continue associating the name of Bots United with these ? Consider this:
1. - about 90% of the public of these bots use them because that's the only bot they know, or, because they remember that some enlightened mate told them, 6 months or 1 year ago, that these bots were worth the try. Many of these guys simply haven't tried anything else. Face it.
2. - I defy anybody to enumerate me the differences worth of attention that exist between IvPBot, E[POD]bot, and the bare bones POD-bot 2.6. Any impartial eye who has tried them all can't say anything else than: they are rigorously identical. Some of them might have more bugs than the genuine POD-bot 2.6, even.
3. - Both KaCaT and LightNinja were pretty much aware of the requirements that being part of Bots United imply. They nonetheless disappeared from the traffic completely, without a single notification, a single explanation for their supporters, abandoned us completely, and I want for proof that they haven't even visited the place for months. KaCat: last visit on 27-02-2004 07:11 - LightNinja: last visit on 01-04-2004 13:52 .
These guys are not serious. The problem is not that they don't have time to update their bots, the problem is that they are simply not here for helping others out like it is their duty to be. Stefan is pretty damn well right saying that we're in fact doing the work for them. The people who use IvPBot and E[POD]bot are fooled into thinking that these bots are still in development and that they can expect help from their author here at Bots United. And WE, Bots United, are deceiving these people. Why ? Because we still caution these bots.

No mercy.

Even botman who drops here from time to time deigns helping the guy who is still fighting with his good old HPB_bot. And he's not forced to !!! since in order to thank him for his continuous support (YEARS of helping others out for free!) we assured him that we would ourselves provide the necessary support for this bot.

My opinion is that IvPBot and E[POD]bot should be given a short ultimatum (sending a nth email to their authors ?) and if nothing happens, boot the crap outta em. Simply. We did this already for PoXBot and we still know perfectly, all of us, that it was the best thing we could do.

And my opinion is also that all the users of these bots should be hinted to use another bot which would be worthier of Bots United. I'm sure sPlOrYgOn and his crew of coders would be happy to welcome new supporters. No shit. Keeping archives for outdated, abandoned, and buggy bots ? for free ? providing support for them ? whereas hordes of better alternatives already exist ? Now, to what FUCKING avail ?

Oh well, I guess you see my point.