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1998 - Our origins lie on ChatNet, where Xone had earlier founded ChatNet's BService, an organisation whose purpose was to provide eggdrop bots for channels on ChatNet. This was the first time anybody had done something like this in a structured way, and was proving very popular with users. BService's home channel was #BotHouse, named in likeness of #DogHouse, the home channel of ChatNet's K9 channel services bot. Xone had also written a script for his bots -- StormBot. The commands of StormBot were similar to those of K9, but the bots themselves were not designed as a replacement for channel services, rather to work alongside it and provide a reliable control measure when K9 was down.

Some time after BService's creation, one of Xone's staff, Nicki Rayburn, suggested expanding the organisation to include OtherNet, a network where she was admin. She hosted the bots for OtherNet herself, using one of OtherNet's web servers.

During one of BService's staff meetings, a fight broke out amongst the staff, which resulted in Nicki and several others leaving the organisation. Since she already had her bots on OtherNet, she decided that she would continue to support the channels they were in. She had enjoyed working for BService, and still had ideas of how such an organisation should be run, so she formed her own; Nicki's BotService. Terri, another OtherNet admin and BService member, as well as a close friend of Nicki, joined BotService as a co-owner.

Nicki was quick to continue the practise of providing bots on more than one network and soon had bots set up on DALnet, SorceryNet, IRC-Chat, PhishyNet and ChatNet, using #BotHouse on each net, with the exception of ChatNet. Nicki believed StormBot to have backdoors, and so she and Terri set about to learn TCL. Nicki began re-writing the script initially, but the duty soon fell on Terri, who had more time for such a project. She became BotService's TCL co-ordinator, making significant changes to StormBot, to make it compatible with the other networks, and to add new features that users were requesting. So much of the script was changed, that little of the original remained, and the new script became known as Rainbot.

Thanks to the improvements Terri had made to the script, Nicki's bots were becoming significantly more popular on ChatNet than Xone's. He wasn't happy with this new development and insisted Nicki stop using his script, but by then little of StormBot remained in the script. Nicki's BotService took its place as IRC's #1 BotService.
 

1999 - BotService expanded onto more networks over the next few months, while Terri continued to work on Rainbot, making improvements and adding new features. One of these changes was to remove all plain text from the script, and have the bots read it in from text files which were stored on the shell. Doing this saved a significant amount memory and improved the bots' performance considerably.

Some time earlier, Nicki had been diagnosed as having a brain tumor. It was a terminal condition, and she knew that she wouldn't have much time left. She put her remaining time into BotService, so that she could be remembered for having done something noteworthy to help people. By Spring 1999, however, she couldn't deny the fact that she was no longer well enough to continue running BotService, and accepted that somebody would have to replace her. She turned the organisation over to Terri, who already had all the experience neccessary for the job. Nicki continued to assist as much as possible, but was happy enough with the state of development to let Terri make the important decisions.

More nets were being supported every week, and BotService was soon providing bots on over 30 irc nets. Many of these were just starting out, and having BotService helped them to maintain a stable userbase. It was a time of prospects and possibilities on IRC.

On December 15, 1999, Nicki finally lost her battle with the tumor, and passed away peacefully, leaving a gap which would never be filled. For some of the staff, there was no longer any reason to stay with BotService, and they left to persue other things. Some, however, continued to work on the service, Nicki's dream.
 

2000 - It took time for people to move on with their lives, and BotService suffered following Nicki's death. Although Terri had all the knowledge neccessary to run BotService, she later admitted that she lacked the assertion neccessary to properly hold things together. She introduced Jenny to help her cope with the demands of the organisation. From the staff's perspective, Jenny appeared from nowhere. She had total access within the organisation, and was now owner of BotService. That, coupled with Jenny's overall attitude, was too much for many of the staff. They viewed her as prepensive, and unsuitable to be involved with Nicki's organisation.

This conflict of opinions eventually resulted in a large proportion of the staff leaving, adding to the existing problems. For a while it was unclear whether BotService would have a future. As this turbulant time continued, BotService was asked to leave DALnet, its largest network. The bots had been requested to have unique usernames, something which was never possible at the time, due to DALnet's poorly configured IRCd.

Jenny finally did manage to find some order, however, and soon had BotService providing bots on more nets, reaching 37 concurrent nets in spring. Despite the relative success, the problems of the past never disappeared. Staff become competitive, and people were never as happy as they had been before.

Terri assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that it was no longer worthwhile keeping the organisation. BotService was closed, and the staff dispersed. Terri and Jenny turned the staff network into a private chat network, and offered bots on their network only.

A few months later, Jenny was removed from the network, and Terri continued alone.
 

2001 - At the beginning of the year, Terri was introduced to ClubCX by a mutual friend, Kalishma. At the time, she and ClubCX were providing bots for channel on DALnet. Kalishma saw the potential to bring BService back, and convinced ClubCX to take on the challenge.

Because of the time that had passed, Rainbot was not fully compatible with the current versions of Eggdrop. Rather than undertake an extensive editing project, ClubCX decided to begin from scratch on a new script, initially modelling it after Rainbot, but securing and adding additional features along the way. Because ClubCX was new to TCL, Terri helped with many scripting issues during the initial stages. When the first version was finished, the script was named Siliconbot, and began with version number 2.0.

Over the next few months, Terri explained BotService's way of doing things, and continued to help with TCL problems. Very quickly, the bots were becoming as popular as they had been before, and ClubCX was soon providing bots on a dozen networks, with #BotHouse linked between them. Kalishma's time was taken up with real life matters, and when her visa expired in May she returned to India, where she no longer had internet access. Before leaving, she passed the organisation on to ClubCX, for him to shape as he liked.

In July, several staff members attempted to carry out a mutiny, due to lack of proper training and understanding. Although the attempt failed, it highlighted several issues that needed to be resolved. The staff were dismissed, and Terri was asked to step in as training co-ordinator.

Towards the end of 2001, BotService began to expand again. Siliconbot was updated frequently, and bots were being placed on more nets. Staff were still causing problems, and training issues were still being resolved, and this resulted in the year ending with only a handful of individuals involved with the organisation.
 

2002 - Training classes began again, using the original guidelines written by Nicki and the original staff. The classes were only held seldomly, due to time commitments needed for other tasks.

On March 5th, 2002, we lost Terri to a blood clot. She was the second owner to have been taken from us, and the only other person who had been with BotService from the very beginning. Terri is still dearly missed, but thanks to everything she taught us in the year she was with us, we're managing to hold things together in her absence.

Present Day - Since our beginnings on OtherNet, we have mended relations with ChatNet's BService, and now share knowledge and ideas with each other. Despite all the ability we have now, things will never be the same without Nicki and Terri. Other capable people who might have helped us have since left IRC, as the protocol declines into antiquation. The one thing we are certain of, however, is that for as long as IRC exists, so will we. This is Nicki's dream, and she will continue to guide us until the end.