IRC Bots

A Guide to the IRC Bots of #lojban (also #ckule and ##jboselbau)

You might think all ~120 logged on users of #lojban are watching you and/or participating in the conversation. Well, no, we all live in different timezones and at any given moment of time most of them are inactive. But also, there are a bunch of robots! Some of them are even helpful. Read on for more.

Lojban assistance

valsi

This is a bidirectional Lojban-English dictionary. It works from a dump of Jbovlaste, so it may not be completely up to date.

Run by la donri (source).

You can invoke valsi in the channel by prefixing a message with "valsi ", or send a private message to the bot (with no prefix).

The content of the message is just a word. If it's a Lojban word, you'll get its definition. If it's an English word, you'll get a list of suggested translations.

Accepted options for Lojban word lookup: (you can give up to one option, in parentheses, e.g. "valsi lercu'aca'a (components)")

• affix

Get the affix (rafsi) form of the word.

• class

Get the selma'o (grammatical category) of the word.

• type

Get the type (cmavo/gismu/lujvo/etc) of the word.

• notes

Return the notes field of the definition (without this option it isn't shown).

• cll

Get the link to the section of the CLL that discusses the word (not always accurate).

• url

Get the link to Vlasisku's page for the word.

• components

Break a lujvo into its component gismu (works on nonce lujvo). Beware: lujvo with missing hyphens are still parsed, so you can't rely on this to check your construction.

• rafsi

Treat the word as a rafsi for the purposes of the search (many cmavo are also rafsi of other words).

• I don't see this option in the source, so maybe what's running is a slightly different version? Durka42 (talk)

• You can also send queries in vlasisku's internal query language, like "valsi class:BAI" or "valsi affix:ka'i".

vlaste

Another instance of valsi, run by la durka, which contains an updated jbovlaste database, bug fixes and new features.

It supports the following additional commands, which valsi does not:

• lujvo

Combine a tanru into a lujvo, using jvocu'adju. If the canonical form is defined, the definition is shown.

Relatedly, if you ask vlaste for a lujvo not in canonical form, and no definition is found, it will try to help you by silently correcting it to canonical form.

• finti

Show the jbovlaste user who created the word.

gerna

This is a grammar checker based on jbofi'e.

Run by la donri (source, same as valsi).

You can invoke gerna in the channel by prefix a message with "gerna ", or send a private message to the bot (with no prefix).

The message is just a Lojban sentence. If it parses, you'll get the structure. If it doesn't parse or jbofi'e crashes, it will say "not grammatical" and try to show you which word broke the parse.

There are no options.

tcepru

This is another instance of gerna, but instead of jbofi'e it runs the (very old) official LLG parser, based on the YACC grammar.

Run by la durka. You can download the parser source.

mensi, livla

These bots are parts of ilmentufa project and start talking when the channel ##jboselbau is dead for 15 minutes, so that there are no long stretches of time without Lojban being transmitted over the Internet.

Run by la gleki (source).

livla repeats sentences from Tatoeba, while mensi has a list of canned replies.

If you catch any mistakes, you should probably tell someone, since it means a Lojban entry on Tatoeba is wrong.

Command line flags used by mensi:

• "off:", "exp:"

These are parser options based on camxes. off parses regular Lojban while exp has (most of?) the ELG implemented.

You send this bot a sentence by prefixing it with the bot's name and a colon (the colon is mandatory, unlike other bots), e.g. "off: coi". You can also private-message it with no prefix.

Accepted options (put them before the sentence, like "off:+s coi"):

• • +s

Show the selma'o of each word.

• • -f

Don't show terminators.

• • -f+s (not +s-f)

Both of the above.

• Searching jbovlaste with mensi:

Entering "en:coi" into the chat will output the definition of for English.

Other languages are supported: "jbo: ", "ja: " (Japanese), "ru: " (Russian), "fr: " (French), "de: " (German), "es: " (Spanish). The databases are autoupdated once every 12 hours.

"/full " flag performs a search for a given sequence in definitions and notes. E.g. "en:/full greets".

• "Tatoeba:" outputs an arbitrary Lojban sentence from Tatoeba with a substring given
• Alternative orthography with mensi:

"rot13:" prefix performs ROT13 encoding on a given string

"mensi: j " performs jbopomofo encoding on a given string

"mensi: r " performs Cyrillic encoding on a given string

• Messaging

"mensi: doi <nick> <message>"

Delayed messaging service. Next time <nick> says something in the channel, mensi will relay the message. You can use regular expressions in the nick.

• Loglan to Lojban conversion

"loi:" converts Lojban text to Loglan (not perfect!). Failed words are marked with "*".

"coi:" converts Loglan text to Lojban (not perfect!). Failed words are marked with "*".

• Glossing

"gloss:" converts Lojban text to glossed English words.

Other

sidju

This is an instance of the Phenny IRC bot.

Run by Tene (source).

Common commands (see the source for full documentation):

• "sidju: tell <nick> <message>"

Delayed messaging service. Next time <nick> says something in the channel, sidju will relay the message. You can use * in the nick as a wildcard.

• Google/Wikipedia search: ".g <query>" or ".wik <query>"

Searches and returns a link to the first result.

• Link title lookup: ".title"

Opens the most recent link pasted in the channel, and retrieves its title.

xatra

Another instance of Phenny, sometimes run by la gleki.

xorban

Xorban is a parser bot for another logical language (you guessed it, called Xorban). It's actually the same bot as camxes and cipra but with a different grammar.

Run by la selpa'i.

vreji

Logs Lojban utterances in the channel at http://www.lojban.org/irclogs/.

Run by a pile of Perl scripts.

Does not respond to any commands, as far as I know.