ideas to improve ircnet (was: where are we heading to)

[Thomas Kuiper <engerim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There have been some flames on this list (ircnet@modeemi) about
that icq is a lot of nicer and ircd 2.10.x sucks and all this not
so nice stuff.
However, I'd like to discuess some 'features' to improve Ircnet's
ircd and use, so here are my beginning ideas to get something rolling.

1. New user modes

  +h : This will add a new nummeric to the ircd, named:

  RPL_WHOISHELPER    320
      "<nick> :looks very helpfull"

  Comes from Dalnet (yeah I know dalnet sucks, ircd isnt portable,etc),
  such users won't have a local penalty and would be there
  to help users on the server actively. Remember, operators are there to
  keep servers running and maintain, and not to help users
  normally. This would give users the chance to get online
  help from their server. The helper would have the possibility
  to do the command /helper <nick> <password> to switch in this mode.
  This would require a "D" Line (next free letter) in the ircd.conf
  who would be organised like a O Line. There should also be policies,
  how such a helper must deal with different problems.

  How can a user find a helper and check if he is availiable?
  This is the intresting part about it,there must be an extra command
  like /listhelp or something. Or the MOTD should tell about this.
  The usermode +h is only used on Dalnet right now to my known.
  I'm intrested what powers such a helper should get or what you think
  about this stuff.

  +m

  If users whine that they got nuked, this is the solve of it.
  hello.world.org would gets translated to *.world.org, 192.168.10.22
  would get translated to 192.168.10.* so that you see the users
  like this if you do a WHOIS:
  311 User is user@*.myserver.com (Realname)
  319 on channels: @#dont_nuke_me
  312 on irc via server my.server.tld (blah)
  317 Engerim has been idle 12 seconds
  318 Engerim : End of WHOIS list.

  Once +m is set, it shouldnt be possible to remove it again from you.
  Opeators, and users with the +h flag should still be able to get
  the full whois if the users did /mode <hisnick> +m
  Any user can get this mode (even restricted) and requires "only"
  a change of the WHO,WHOIS and PRIVMSG commands I think.

2. Command addons

  LIST -> sucks, cause it generates a really huge sendq
  (its like doing /NAMES in the current net) so this command
  should allow wildcards in some way that it doesnt flood you off.
  Ideas: /LIST *linux* ,  /LIST -topic "gulfwar"  /LIST -l 200
  (this -option stuff is new, and was never yet in a irc command,
  but some others could need it though).

  At least I want some ideas how this problem could be solved.
  LIST was never made for more than 10000 channels (I think).

What do you think? Does this all suck? :-) Better ideas to make
IRC a bigger and nice chat system?

Greets,
Engerim