From kenta@MIT.EDU Tue Sep 21 23:06:59 2004
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 18:22:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ken T Takusagawa <kenta@MIT.EDU>
To: sipb-office@MIT.EDU
Subject: Zephyr-to-AIM Gateway

A few months ago in an office conversation, dbj, mhpower,
and others brought up the intriguing idea of increasing
SIPB's visibily on AOL Instant Messenger.  The general idea
is something like zephyr class help, but via AIM chat rooms.

I have thought over it some and have come up with one
specification of how it might work.  However, I would like
to hand the idea over to someone else with more time and
interest. (Hey you, prospective over there!)

It essentially is a zephyr-to-AIM gateway.  We create an AIM
account, which for lack of a better name, I will refer to as
"Gateway".  We'll call the user "User" and we'll use
masculine pronouns.

"User" puts "Gateway" in his Buddy List.  "Gateway" is
always online. "User" invites "Gateway" to chat.  "Gateway"
accepts, and once the new empty chat room is opened, it
spews something like "MIT SIPB blah Zephyr blah please ask a
question."  "User" types in a question.  The question (and
future things typed by "User") gets echoed to some zephyr
instance, perhaps class -c help -i aim_User, maybe with some
designation in the zsig saying it's coming over AIM.  The
sender of the zephyr is probably something like
rcmd.Gateway.

Suppose user kenta responds on zephyr to the question on -c
help -i aim_User.  This response gets echoed back into the
chat room as

Gateway: (kenta says) blah blah

And so the conversation continues... Finally when the "User"
leaves the chat room, then "User has left the chat" gets
sent to -c help -i aim_User.

That's it.

There are a large number of bells and whistles that could be
added. Here's one:

If Athena user kenta wants to participate in the
conversation with his AIM screen name (ktakusa3) instead
through the gateway, somehow he needs to get himself invited
to the chat room.  So ktakusa3 instant messages "Gateway"
with a specially coded command, say "Hey Gateway, invite me
to the conversation on -c help -i User!", which "Gateway"
responds with an invitation.  Incidentally, this
bell-and-whistle is the only reason we're using chat rooms
in the first place, since only chat rooms allow for more
than two screen names in a conversation.

A quick google search reveals plenty of AIM bots and
development tools, and around MIT there's scattered bits of
knowledge of implementing a zephyr bot.  The trick is simply
to put the two together.

My spec, is of course, just a suggestion, there are lots of
other ways to get this to work, and I will freely admit that
I'm not so clear about the behavior and details of chat
rooms in AIM.

--ken