Implement IRCv3 chathistory

[pr1m07]

Feature Description

It would be great if you could log channels in public mode. Currently is working great in private mode.

[pdurbin]

I love this idea! Would the public logs be visible before you sign in? Below is an example of public logging (anonymous read access) from Gitter. Note how at the bottom there's a button that says, "Sign in to start talking."

[xPaw]

This would require a separate user to always be in a channel for it to be logged fully. How would you tackle that when public users can join any channel on the server.

The solution here is chathistory in ircv3 which means IRC server can send the client their history.

[pdurbin]

What if I have my own IRC logging bot and do a one time population of the public logs in The Lounge based on this TSV file? http://dvn-vm1.hmdc.harvard.edu/data/mysql/irclog/irclog.tsv

And then going forward maybe I could teach my logging bot to write to the logging format for The Lounge? (And continue to write to a database like it does now.) This is the bot I use: https://github.com/pdurbin/philbot

[pr1m07]

This would require a separate user to always be in a channel for it to be logged fully. How would you tackle that when public users can join any channel on the server.

The solution here is chathistory in ircv3 which means IRC server can send the client their history.

Then we can wait for IRCv3 to be implemented. Temporary solution could be simple bot which connects and track specific / pinned channels?

[xPaw]

Discussing logging bots quickly gets out of scope for TL.

chathistory is what we would want to support ideally in core. I've renamed the issue to reflect this.

Stuff like logging bots and idling in specific channels would be something a plugin could eventually be able to do.

[pdurbin]

@xPaw do you (or anyone reading this) know if freenode or any other popular IRC networks have at least experimental support for IRCv3 chathistory? I'm aware that ircv3/ircv3-specifications#393 hasn't been merged yet, which seems to be the latest version of the (work in progress) spec.

[AlMcKinlay]

I do not know of any popular networks having it.

If you look at the issue, it has the label "Implementation needed", which means that no one has properly implemented it. That, combined with the fact that there is no one commenting that they have implemented it, implies it isn't actually implemented anywhere yet.

If I have time at some point, I'm tempted to implement it in McIrc but life is so busy.

[pr1m07]

@pdurbin @McInkay seems like UnrealIRCD is working on it: https://forums.unrealircd.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8918

@xPaw I agree with your proposal.

[pdurbin]

There's a related discussion in "Document how to set up a Gitter-like user experience" at modernxmpp/modernxmpp#21

The protocol is different (XMPP instead of IRC) but it's related in the sense of user experience.

[poVoq]

@pdurbin I think Oragono IRC implements IRCv3 chathistory and thus could be tested with it.

[slingamn]

Unfortunately, the spec is still in flux: I am trying to have some changes merged into the latest version (ircv3/ircv3-specifications#393).

[slingamn]

Update, this is a public draft now: https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory