[IRCServices] Linked Nicks - In General

[Andrew Church]

>I may be wrong, but maybe it's time to redefine linked nicks, their
>benefits, why they even exist and what their future is.
>
>I only use them so that all my memos arrive in the same memo store - this is
>the only thing I (personally) gain from them.
>
>Maybe the benefits of nick linking would be better implemented in separate
>and specific ways - such as memo forwarding, the ability to identify for
>multiple nicknames etc. What are people's thoughts on this?

     The reason I originally implemented linked nicks was for the benefit of
people who regularly use two or more nicks, for one reason or another (I was
given a number of examples at the time, though most of the people I know who
do this just do it for fun).  With linking you don't have to worry about
remembering to identify for your "primary" nick if you use a different one,
and you don't have to switch to a particular nick to read memos as you would
if you used forwarding.

     Incidentally, my conceptual basis for linked nicks was hard-linked
files on a Unix system:  Once you link the two filenames [nicks], they are
impossible to tell apart in terms of file contents [nick settings/memos],
and later unlinking one file [nick] from the other will make it a copy of
the original.  (I'd never thought of it before, but this could be used to
make copies of nicks as well--however memos aren't currently copied.)

     I guess what the question comes down to now is the old ease-of-use vs.
security problem.  As far as the immediate problem of people gaining ops
through linked nicks and causing problems, the easy response is that the
channel founder needs to choose better ops, but a WHY command seems to me
like the best solution--it essentially solves the security problem without
impacting functionality--and could be implemented with a minimum of effort.

  --Andrew Church
    achurch at dragonfire.net
    http://achurch.dragonfire.net/

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