The History Of irc.clockbot.net
In August of 2002 PrincessLeia2 joined the channel #deep13. Soon after joining, one of the ops there, Jouva, decided to start running in IRC Server, irc.deep13.org. He linked it up with irc.mystic-net.org, owned by another op in #deep13, shade. shade's server was already linked with irc.foozone.net. This became the new home of #deep13 and #BotTestLab.Time had irc.clockbot.net up and running on a cobalt for nearly a year. It had never had a real "population" except for when the irc.scifi.com server went down, and #13thHour members went there to chat. The irc.scifi.com server had become progressively worse over the years. It often went down, had no services, the IRCops were unable to handle the small server so there were often users causing trouble. Since earlier 2002 we had #13thHour moderated (+m), and had R2D2 (PrincessLeia2's IRC bot) give voice to members. It was sometimes a faulty system, but we were reluctant to leave at first because old members might come back and not know where we had gone.
Knowing that irc.clockbot.net was on a reliable server, PrincessLeia2 suggested to Time, shade and Jouva the possibility of linking this up as well. In September the servers were linked and on September 27th, 2002 #13thHour moved to irc.clockbot.net.
The new collective of servers now included:
irc.clockbot.net
---- Administrator/IRCop - Time
irc.deep13.org
---- Administrator IRCop - Jouva
------- Local IRCop - RobertoKay
------- Local IRCop - Sentroid91 (owner of #deep13 the channel)
irc.foozone.net
---- Administrator/IRCop - foo
irc.mystic-net.org
---- Administrator/IRCp - shade
The server now had 3 channels with 8+ users, #13thHour, #BotTestLab, and #Deep13, as well as several smaller channels owned by these users. The server consistantly had about 50 users. Unfortunately the services were running off of a laptop on a DSL connection which often went down. We strugged for a number of months to replace them, but they ran on windows and everyone would need to reregister their channels and nicknames if we decided to use unix services instead. It was a rocky start, and we had netsplits often as mystic-net was on a less-reliable connection.
In the winter of 2003 it was decided to have a domain name to pull together all the servers, in an effort to be "more professional" and allow all users to just connect to once name instead of having 4. PsiBlade.net was registered and soon anyone could connect by going to irc.psiblade.net.
Between the time of the creation of the server collective, and the birth of psiblade opers were added and removed, the server layout now looked like:
irc.clockbot.net
---- Administrator/IRCop - Time
---- Administrator/IRCop - PrincessLeia2
irc.deep13.org
---- Administrator/IRCop - Jouva
irc.foozone.net
---- Administrator/IRCop - foo
irc.mystic-net.org
---- Administrator/IRCop - shade
Soon after the creation of PsiBlade, foozone.net was forced to shut down because the owner was moving.
In the spring of 2003, shade suggested that we link up with an established IRC server. irc.xelium.net was run by the owner of the GamingForce.com forums. Xelium had over 200 users. It took some discussion because we realized we would be leaving behind the "family feel" that psiblade had to join up with a bigger, more established server. In the end we decided it would be good for our users to link up with the larger server.
shade decided to shut down irc.mystic-net.org when we joined up with the xelium server. With this xelium server we all named our servers to be a bit more "professional" than we had in the past. Now the network was made up of:
clockbot.xelium.net (irc.clockbot.net)
deep13.xelium.net (irc.deep13.org)
ion.xelium.net (formerly the primary server for xelium, now acting as the hub)
there was also services server a non-user server run by the owner of ion for the unix services.
People were able to connect to a random server by using irc.xelium.net
This services were stable, and the servers holding up with the load nicely, and the users were happy with the switch. The loss of the "family feel" of the server was outweighed by the excitement over having so many new people to interact with.
Then ion went down with a bad harddrive. It was down for over 2 weeks and deep13 and clockbot held up the whole load. Unfortunately, since this was also the box that the services were on, they were also down for this duration. It was a rough couple of weeks for the server and the IRCops, and it was then discovered that the harddrive was unrecoverable and once back up everyone would have to reregister. It wasn't a huge setback, and ion was soon up again, with the new name, ice.xelium.net.
Not long after ice was returned to the server rotation an IRCop on ice, fleSh, started up a server on a business DSL line, mainstreet.xelium.net.
Now the server had 4 stable servers. Sometimes ice lagged a bit, and deep13 has had a few problems, but on a whole the server stayed together. Channels joined the server, so at one time we had over 500 users, it was growing nicely.
In August of 2003 the server r2q5.xelium.net was added. This server, running off of parts from one of PrincessLeia2's old computers on a T3, was to replace clockbot.xelium.net. At the end of August, clockbot was decomissioned.
Channels grew and changed, the user number has bounced between 300-500 during the summer of 2003. The server was now made up of:
deep13.xelium.net
ice.xelium.net
mainstreet.xelium.net
r2q5.xelium.net (clockbot)
The only IRCops on the servers are owners and key administrators.
mainstreet.xelium.net
---- Administrator/IRCop - fleSh
deep13.xelium.net
---- Administrator/IRCop - Jouva
ice.xelium.net
---- Administrator/IRCop - Mercarios
r2q5.xelium.net
---- Administrator/IRCop - Time
---- Administrator/IRCop - PrincessLeia2
irc services
---- Administrator/IRCop - shade
In the fall of 2003 shade met Silo, who offered a couple servers for the network, efreet and undine. We had her servers in our rotation for a couple of months, she added some opers, but things didn't work out and her servers were unlinked in November, all of her opers were removed.
After the removal of her servers and all of her opers, we had a bit of a void as far as oper count went. It was decided that we could use some more opers, especially with the holidays coming and many of us being busy. We decided to readd Tech, a guy who had been an oper on one of Silo's servers, and we added Peacimowen, and old friend of Time's and PrincessLeia2's. The IRCops now are:
fLeSh - Owner and Administrator of mainstreet.xelium.net
Jouva - Owner and Administrator of deep13.xelium.net
Ketonom - Co-Administrator of mainstreet.xelium.net
madragoran Co-Administrator of r2q5.xelium.net
Mercarios - Owner and Administrator of fire.xelium.net (the original xelium server)
Peacimowen - Co-Administrator of r2q5.xelium.net
PrincessLeia2 - Co-Owner and Administrator of r2q5.xelium.net
shade - Services Administrator
Tech - Co-Administrator of deep13.xelium.net
Time - Owner and Administrator of r2q5.xelium.net
In June of 2004 irc.clockbot.net was shut down for good.