Introducing AdminServ

After nearly 2 years of work, we're proud to announce the release of AdminServ.

What is AdminServ?

AdminServ is a system that allows us, the operators, to grant non-operator users (#support members) operator style powers.

What does this mean to me?

With the addition of this system, this means that daIRC now has even more staff available to support you, the users, maintain your channels and just make your stay as enjoyable as possible. Staffers that are a part of the AdminServ staff will be able to assist users with ban evasion, spam, channel annoyances and spam/botnet's joinging your channel.

How did AdminServ become?

During daIRC's early years, countless abusive staffers linked/joined the network, hurting daIRC's image, making it seem like we had no control over our staff and allowed them to be abusive. A decision was made soon after to not accept leaf offers to the network and to simply absorb all costs my self. Thankfully, this stopped unwanted staff from becoming a part of our community, but also cut back on the amount of good staffers - and so AdminServ was born. After countless weeks of spec'ing the system, we finally got together a development team. After many fall outs, in some cases costing us hundreds of dollars, the system was finally completed this weekend and introduced into the network!

Who is helping take care of the AdminServ?

Currently, we've hired the following staffers to help you, the users:

Staff Member	Country (Timezone)	Work Hours
Talleh	Australia
Paul	USA	Online between 9AM PST to 9PM PST
Ether	USA	Work hours are random.
ViciousPotato	Australia
W1N9ZR0	Canada	Usually on during 3PM PST to 8PM PST
Dilt	USA	3:15 PM - (9-11 PM) CST

Horray! more upgrades~

So after a lot of fighting with the first kasumi host, I decided to leave since we could get a better deal. The server was moved to FDC servers since they gave us a box for $79 and all was well for the most part. In the past two weeks, though, FDC has been breaking it self by either blowing up a router, or hosting some large ddos targets that they refuse to remove.

Because of this, we simply got tired of it and decided to finally put the box with someone would would be willing to give us a killer SLA (100% SLA on network & power), AlphaRed. The box was even cheaper than FDC by an additional $20/mo, but also gave us much better routes (Time Warner/Global Crossing/Level 3). On top of this, we finally have a IPv6 supported server.

For those that wish to play around with IPv6, maybe connect to:

2610:138:2:e0:250:8dff:fe30:3f07

It's still in very early testing, but seems to be working just fine.

This, coupled with all the upgrades we've done with the webservers, we've been able to bring our total operating costs down another $300+ /mo :-) I think it's safe to say that DA and all its sub-projects are finally in the black! Quite the accomplishment, considering that this time last year we were still running upwards of $2500/mo. I figure our current costs are in the area of $500 - $600/mo to operate everything.

On top of this, we finally have a stable sorata! Hurray! Our old friend Azuretek was able to sponsor 1U of colocation space at his new datacenter with bandwidth at no cost, meaning all we had todo was purchase a cheap server (ebay) and be golden! So, we did that.

So, for $200 one time, we cut our costs by a badass $80/mo - meaning the hardware breaks even in only 3 months - sounds good to me! I'd like to thank Azuretek & NetRiver for the colocation and helping DA become stronger!

~Francisco

New webchat!

The day has finally come that we're not using that god awful, slow server to run our webchat.

We're happy to announce that after a good day of coding, we've completed our new webchat located at

http://chat.dairc.net

Not only is there a new "java" based client, there is also a faster CGIIRC client there for those that need it. It sports a new layout and can actually be read for once. On top of that, we've made it so notices finally go into the active window with the CGIIRC.

The generator will be back online later this week to help you with your webchat, it'll also sport the new layout and an easier interface to work with.

The old generated links still work, so you don't need to worry about that. No longer are the chat names put under the interface window, but now they're all placed in a nice little drop down. We're also currently looking into a way to create a "channel selector" box that shows up on the actual chat interface it self at the top, to allow you to pull down and select a new channel (and on clicking "join" it'll then push the command).

We're still testing on that one, but hopefully i'll have something this week ;)

~Francisco

Hurray new stats system!

I'm pleased to announce that we finally have a new stats system - hurray!

users are welcome to visit:

http://stats.dairc.net

A good example of how it all looks would be: #deltaanime
for the documents on howto use it.

For the lazy, here's howto enable it.

/msg botserv chanstats #mychannel on

The stats will take upwards of an hour to enable, but normally less. Statistics also update ever hour.

Users wishing to provide input on new parts we should add and things like that, by all means, let me know :)

Thanks,

~Francisco

New stats system

Hi,

As many people have seen, we do have stats.deltaanime.net which provides channel stats for those wanting it. The down side to this, though, is the current system was being maintained by an oper that's run off to frolic in the meadows of Ohio.

Right now we have the following:

http://stats.deltaanime.net/deltaanime.html

Which is pretty cool to say the least.

Right now i'm working to write a new addon to services to provide easy access to any users wanting to use it - the down side? We won't have nearly as many things listed there.

What would go away?

• Names attached to the last topic area
• some things from "big numbers"

That being said, that doesn't mean that they wouldn't return at a later time. We're currently looking at options to add this functionality into services our selves, but never much cared for patches and the likes.

When would the new system be in place?

Depending how quickly I can learn (proper) C, I could have it done by within the next weekend or so. If I'm able to ring up some people to help code, even quicker.

The new system isn't complex at all, but because I don't know C really, it's taking some extra time.

All comments would be great

Thank you!

~Francisco

Christmas upgrades - Part 1

With my new found two weeks of vacation time (kinda) from work, i've finally gotten around to upgrading daIRC. Many of the upgrades weren't really needed on a performance idea, but more to cut costs.

Money money money...money!

Like all things, daIRC requires quite a bit of cash to operate. You've noticed that on Friday (Dec 23rd) hinoto split the network in half. This move will drop our costs by about $40/mo, as well as double our servers performance.

For a full break down on cost cuts, see this table.

Server Name Old Cost New Cost
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hinoto $100/mo $60/mo
Chisa (DAT) $180/mo $0.00/mo (absorbed into the cost of the webserver)
Motoko $150/mo $40/mo (Moved UK -> Germany)
Web Chat $100/mo $70/mo (Same location as hinoto, but has 2GB RAM)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: $530/mo $170/mo DIFF -> $360/mo savings

As you can see, the upgrades were very much well worth it.

There are talks right now to move kasumi as it keeps proving to be a pest of a box. Granted, it's only *fully* died twice in the past year we've had her, it's been randomly throwing up users. The host uses people like Cogent & Telia, which are just crappy providers all around. We get a uptime SLA and all, and for the most part they meet it, but I've already done a little window shopping and found a company in the same area with way better bandwidth (all TIER 1 bandwidth - InterNAP) for $30/mo less - Anyone got experience with InterNAP?

On top of those savings, one of the side communities DA does billing for has cut their costs by nearly 50% due to a change of hosts (layeredtech is a buncha bastards I tell ya!)

zBot, etc

As many saw, zBot was out for much of today due to some issues we found in the code last night after a crash out. Me and W1N9Zr0 (be sure to thank him!) spent the better part of today debugging it and speeding it up. We've done some quick calculations that are showing zbot now being 10x faster. No more will you have to wait a second or so for zbot to kick back results or anything of the sort - all now instant

zBot changes
------------------------

- Flood protection
- cleaning up of all user messages
- massive speed increase

Granted, the list isn't huge, the changes that were done were fairly big to impliment


Webchat & daIRC website!...wait..we have a website?

I've finally gotten time to make the new daIRC website (late beta at this point), and have put together the new webchat we'll be launching soon.

Users wishing to see/comment on either of them can visit

new website - http://beta.deltaanime.net
new webchat - http://beta.deltaanime.net/chat/

Yes, i'm aware the chat doesn't got daIRC at this time, for teh time being we're just using the test server they provide with the new client.

Happy Holidays!

~Francisco

daIRC policy change

As many of you may have noticed, DeltaAnime has slowly been transitioning from a network
focused primarily on the anime and private server communities to one that supports a
broader spectrum of interests and content. With this has come a number of changes including
the adoption of the daIRC namesake and a revision of general administrative
practices and policies.

One policy that is up for review is the restrictions on file sharing. Under the current policy, users are limited to sharing content that is either unrestricted by North American copyright law or that which falls under the anime or Asian media categories. It has been noted that this policy is a little backwards in that licensed anime does in fact violate copyright laws in most cases even though it seems to be tolerated by those that distribute or produce it.

After some deliberation and taking into consideration the interest some users have expressed
regarding this topic, we're entertaining the idea of lifting the restrictions on content that may be distributed from one client to another. Such transfers do not involve the network in any way beyond the initial user to user communication and as a result the network would not store nor aid in the transfer of any material that may infringe on any nation's copyright laws.

The network's stance would be one that neither promotes nor condones the use of the network for such a purpose but would not punish those that chose to do so as long as the content distributed is not of a seriously objectionable nature. The user and the group they represent would be responsible for maintaining their integrity and respecting the restrictions of the law in their area.

Of course, all administration on the network will be unable to participate in any group, community or project in any context beyond a basic user while still maintaining their status on the network to prevent bias or abuse of daIRC resources. This policy is identical to current restrictions regarding participation in L2, RO and other private communities.

As with all large network changes, we wish to give the entire network community the opportunity to vote on the outcome of this proposal and voice any comments it may have. Comments have been adjusted to allow anonymous posting. When posting, please be sure to declare your vote (Yes/No/Don't care) in the first sentence, after that you may leave a detailed comment if you wish. Alternatively, one may attempt to contact a member of the administration to provide a more detailed response.

No matter the outcome of this vote, daIRC will still continue to strive to provide a stable, feature rich environment with a supportive administration where communities and projects may take root and flourish.

~Francisco & S|napse

Server changes

As many of you saw a few weeks ago, our europe side had been suffering some bad split issues.
Many fights with the host, and they finally state that we're behind in our bills. So, we look - sure enough, tehy claim as such. I check my paypal records, shows otherwise!

Said host continues to be an ass, and so since then (about 3 weeks ago) all europe servers have been connecting to the USA (and have been very stable doing so). Because the server is just temp, though, the network doesn't reconnect during any sort of split - hense what happened today. During a minor change, motoko ran away from the network, and due to their being no server connect notices, no one even noticed until freek pointed it out (an i then stabbed Mike todo it).

We've found a new host that we're looking at getting a hub with - they're pretty nice and cheap.
The current hub we had was costing 50 EUR/mo - costly over $75 CAD/mo after all taxes - yikes! For reference, our US hub, kamui, only costs $50 CAD/mo. Granted, it's "only" $25, but when there is $0/mo in donations coming in, $25 does make a difference :P The new hub is only 19 EUR/mo, which is quite a price drop.

We've also found a (possible) new shiyu in France as well. The current box is nice, stable network and all, but is costly at 49 EUR as well. The new host would be 19 EUR/mo, and would give us native ipv6 support, that many users (ok, fine, like 5 :-P) have asked for.

All hoping, we stand a chance of dropping our monthly costs by over $100/mo :-)

Currently waiting for Evan to get his ass back from work so we can go over the figures. If we decide to change out, it'll happen within the next couple days.

~Francisco