EFnet IRC Network Forum

Hi, I'm writing a free web app to make it easier for the public to use IRC networks like EFnet. Basically, I think if users can see what's going on in the chat room and send messages directly from a web page without using a client, that will encourage the use of IRC chatting. This requires the web app to listen on every public channels on the network and provide the topics being discussed to end users on the web site. But, having a bot in every public channel is considered "flood" normally. Is there any way that you can provide this type of access for a partner? My web app is currently using Twitter's feed for partner. I'd like to expand it to include EFnet chats. I'm wondering if EFnet has similar arrangement? Twitter provides all public tweets for non-commercial use.
thanks,
-aj
AJ Chen, PhD
Co-Chair, Semantic Web SIG, sdforum.org
http://web2express.org
Palo Alto, CA

http://www.efnet.org/?module=channels has a list of channels that aren't secret/private, along with their topics. you don't need a bot to get those.
if you want to get a list of all the public channels yourself, try /list in your irc client. be forewarned, it'll be a big list, and your client might get flooded off.

the problem with using a web interface that sends messages through a bot is that it bypasses any bans or anti-spam policies of the network and/or channel.

it's also frowned upon by many users to have a bot in the channel making the logs available on the web. to avoid the bots being banned, you would need to ask permission from the channel operators from any channel that you wanted to integrate your service with. many websites have tried to monetize irc logs, and all have failed because in the end, either the logging bots get banned, or no one wants to read historical logs of lolcats.