i feel like some "rules" or guidelines around xhb hosting are either old or vague, maybe both.

THERES A TL;DR AT THE END IF YOU DONT WANNA READ EVERYTHING!

the current xhb lyceum article says a requirement to host a battle is to be in the botb irc channel (or the discord channel, which is technically the same due to the vom-bridge). if you dont follow this rule, youre probably getting an ailment.

i dont know who added this to the lyceum originally but it doesnt really matter. the real question is, if this should be a rule in the first place and what the responsibilities of the host are.



my personal opinion, as someone whos a very active ohb participant and host, is: yes, they have to be in the chat during the entry period and for results.

the reasons for this are:
0) botb is a community place, not just a music(art) factory.
1) asking before hosting, if someone else is planning to host and to avoid two battles happening at the same time, is a good thing to do.
2) irc is advertised as the "official botb chat", and if you have any questions you should be able to ask them there. the battle host needs to be available for this, because they know the bitpack and format.
3) during the voting period, the host should keep an eye on the chat to see if someone needs more time to vote. also to ask if everyone is done or if someone is still voting.
4) posting the results in the chat - because its adding tension to it and let other people discuss them live. see 0)

again, this is my personal opinion, and youre free to discuss this if you dont agree.

over 99% of all ohbs are hosted like this anyway, but from time to time, someone is hosting without ever being in the chat.
im wondering if this a problem for people and if it would be a good idea to add the "join the chats before you host" thing to the begast page.

participants dont have to be in the chat, but most of them are. having a battle happening without the host in chat feels weird and odd imo. its like organizing a project and the project manager leaves the room as soon as it launches.



i also think we should come to a decision if discords chat IS an official chat now or not, because if vombot crashs and the bridge is gone, irc remains to be the official chat, but a lot of people dont care and ignore it. especially a problem with a battle host who decides to stay on discord during a battle when irc is isolated.
a reasons why i think irc should stay as the only official chat are:
- the official botb-bot lives there
- joining irc is a lot easier - it doesnt require you to create an account



another thing i'd like to talk about are alternative chats for ohb discussion. an ohb host whos not in the chat is a weird situation but even weirder are battles where all the discussion, mayb synclistening party and results are happening in a completely different chat.
examples for this are a few ohbs from last year, hosted by people on keffies server (?) with all the talk happening there. and also the currently ongoing series of wildchip 4hbs organized by maximemoring.

i know theres no rule against this, but i still dont like it. i think the official chat should always be used for discussing an ongoing battle and also to share the results in.
if this doesnt happen, the whole place and battle feels alien to me and it stops me from participating in it. like these battles are only for an exclusive bunch of people and not all of botb.
i talked about this with other people already and i know some who feel the same, but im not sure if this is only a minority.



i hope this wasnt too much at once. please share your thoughts on this.

tl;dr:
- what if the battle host isnt in the chat during a battle?
- is discords (cave dingle botb) chat an official chat now or not?
- are seperated ohb chats used for discussion and results a cool thing to have or should all of the main discussion and results happen in the official chat?

Disclaimer, despite the date, and ongoing serie of XHB with another discord server, what I post here is general opinion and not linked only to those XHB.

1) If an host is not in the chat during a battle, I am not a fan, but can works in few cases... If the hosts join the chat before the end of course! I may join a battle if the host is not in the chat right night if It is somebody I know and is often on Discord/IRC

2) For many reasons, I think discord should be optional. I use it, but I didn't want to create/use an account until I was sure BotB is a place I would be happy in. Also, when you are not at home, being able to connect to IRC is great, agree with Amy for the bots crashes too. Official IRC, even if I am on Discord 99% of the time

3) For separated discord, I think they should be used for planning, boring things, non-botb content etc. But not for the BotB rules and things. Rules are in the bitpack, not following rules in another discord is totally "legit" for me as it is not the real discord (rules are rules for everyone, even admins!). Also, results are meant to be posted to the official channel. If it is a problem to post in 2 discord servers, well, only in the official channel then. With our members, our rules and our admin. Also better for the futur, this will not disappear or be the property of someone else. Why prevent people to discuss this results, and limit them only to an outside server? IRC only people can't even join.
So short answer, other Discords are fine imo, as long as rules, tally and host is in the BotB IRC.

Bonus) Livestream are a bonus thing, hosts are not required to do them. But same, if there is one, host should be in the chat to answer question about rules or voting period, and the link should be post in BotB official chat. I mean, livestream are not required, but not sharing them in BotB would be what, promotion of someone else server? Boycott of the official server? Mean?! lol. Why doing something like that, so easy to share a link. Don't get me wrong, we can joke about boycotting BotB to talk other things elsewhere, but not giving results and livestream link in the official chat would be... Actual real boycott, and I don't want that personally. If it require work, time or else, host can ask people to help. I said it, but idk why, I think a reminder is needed: it is general thoughts, for every streams/events etc, current and futur. And personal opinion.

Bonus 2) Why doing things in another server? I think this is because we miss 1 or 2 official channels here.
- A channel with "Announcements", moderator only, with important links, rules etc
- A channel for big events, 4HB etc, big project and albums. To not spam the official channel until it is tally time! And avoid 10 different BotB servers in the futur. If one is ok, why not 2, 3, 10, 50? Rules are missing I think.

Thanks for the fish, byyeee!!

I asked about this in DMs and never got a reply lol, so I assumed it was okay

0) There is the comment threads during the ohb to discuss things
1) Fair point
2) There is the comment threads during the ohb to discuss things
3) There is the comment threads during the ohb to discuss things
4) I've never cared about that. I want my sluts now

The most critical reason for being in the chat, IMO, was always making sure folks were around & interested in an OHB and aware one was coming up rather than just surprise-beghasting, and now that there's an "upcoming battles" thing with a countdown timer, that's not really a problem any more.

I really don't like discord, and I don't have to use it because vombot connects the discord to the IRC anyway.

late on this but

1) if a host doesn't close their battle, it can fall into 1 of 2 categories: the ditcher and the sleeper. the ditcher (i.e. one who forgets to close yet doesn't request an admin to do it before going offline) gets parasite, meanwhile the sleeper (i.e. one who plans ahead and asks a mod to close for them) doesn't. simple as that, though it really depends if there's an admin available at the time when they want to close it. that's just my take on it though, i'm free to most other interpretations and solutions, as they're reasonable all things considered.

2) gonna be blunt with this one: no. hell no. lemme put it this way: discord is far, far less compatible than irc. i'd rather have the irc be the official channel as it means i still get to access the community without having to rely on an admittedly laggy browser app, despite it being where i do most of my communication regardless.
vombot++

3) i honestly don't care where sluts are taking place, so long as the battle gets closed. i mean, sure, it's nice to be in the same place as them, but so long as it isn't kept open to the point of [KNOWLEDGE INSUFFICENT TO DETERMINE OUTCOME] i'm cool.

r e p l y i n g
t o
o t h e r s

castlenes: i agree with both of your bonus points entirely. i think that, while synclistens are really convenient for huge xhbs and the like, it's ultimately kinda optional in the long run, though if you're going to do it atvl share it with the rest of us. no need to boycott.
also where tf is teh newz i nEED IT

xaser: i think that's a fine opinion to have on the chat, though i've always seen it as more a means to communicate with entrants and make sure they're in the know on how they placed, instead of having it all be announced in a surprise random message. again, that's just me.

xyz: lol

IRC is and will continue to be the official chat space so long as I'm in charge and esper.net is still up and running. This is why I capture the mIRC window during results streams. I understand that discord is much more accessible for many people; that's why the bridge was created in the first place.

This thread kind of hits at a larger problem: what's worth enforcing and/or what's worth fighting for. For example, it's a general rule of thumb that if you want to spam your entry elsewhere before the battle is over then you should promote the battle too. But a lot of people don't observe this practice. Trying to enforce this practice with punishments only seems to lead to animosity which isn't good. So after one major worth of trying to enforce this, as an experiment I guess, it was stopped.

On the flip side: if you want to create a splinter community and not use the official chats then don't be shocked if the main community feels alienated and ignores your battles.

I have so much more I could write because I've been thinking about this stuff for the past 3 hours now. Well, the past 3 months off and on too... I'm not going to pretend I understand what motivates people. If I thought the BotB community being splintered was a cool idea then the source code would be open source and public. If people want to ignore my or the community's wishes because they don't like me, or they don't like a chunk of the community, or they just aren't thinking about what they are doing, then I'm not certain how to react. In my case, no reaction is better than yelling in all caps at people. A lot of people seem to love and respect this place while some might treat it as a disposable ketchup packet to be quickly discarded and forgotten. It's still free and open to use for all regardless of attitude. Unless you're an unapologetic arse, of course, then you get the boot.

I will continue to do my best as a benevolent dictator; learning and adapting to the needs of the community. <3

Death to corporate scum.

to me it feels like, whats the point corating a dedicated discord server for XHBs when you could just use cave dingle? because you have an IRC and discord bridge.

I feel like this topic has morphed into something else entirely -- was this about Ultimate Hum? If so, then IMO the move from the dedicated discord server to a channel in Cave Dingle is a good one for sure. Keeps things under the same community roof, and allows Vombot to bridge the gap to IRC-land. Win for all, and all is well.

More generally, I don't think it's a good thing to host a 'battle chat' anywhere other than the official BotB place(s) (i.e. beghast but then discuss all happenings about it in some other IRC channel or Discord server that isn't BotB-official), but I interpreted the question in the OP as "is it OK to host an OHB using just the website?", and IMO the answer to that is "yes." The site's got all the tools necessary for hosting, including comments on the battle to do the usual countdown rituals, and keeping it all on-site leads to no fracturing since everything's, well, on BotB officially.

I just worry that there's a lot of BotBrs here who participate actively in battles but aren't on IRC/Discord for whatever reason (shy, or are like me and are on the server but don't check it often because life is busy, or just don't wish to use Discord/IRC because of Miscellaneous Personal Reason X), and it'd be a shame to effectively ban them from hosting, especially now that the site's just had a software upgrade that smooths over the roughest spot that made chat a "necessity" for hosting (see my last post).

tl;dr as long as all the hosting stuff is done _somewhere_ official (i.e. on-site or in official chat), it's fine. No fracturing, no problem, IMO.

the infrastructure of xhbs is set up to work in the case of an absent host, with battles automatically ending after a day. this almost never happens, but even in such a rare event, it's self-correcting, so I don't see the big deal. plus, I don't like the idea of forcing people to engage in the community aspect of this site if they just want to do music. being slightly autistic, it's obvious to me why it could be a problem :v

If you see me on irc, I will have the bot blocked.