Chatterbox Challenge Awards using Verbots

According to their website the Chatterbox Challenge is:

...is an annual contest for chatbots. It is unique in the fact that minimal restrictions are placed on the type of technology used in the creation of the bot. The competition will begin in early March and finishes shortly thereafter. Botmasters from across the globe submit their chatbots for evaluation and competition. Every entered chat bot is asked a series of questions and scored on its responses by a set of independent judges. The top eight bots move to a final round where an additional series of questions is posed to the finalists. The winner is selected by the judges as the chatbot who has scored the highest from among the finalists. A number of the chatbots who have entered the competition in the past have become the foundation for commercial technologies. 

 

(Challenge Medals)

Verbot Permanently Shutdown

Verbot is Lost Forever...

The group at Avaya that manages the former Conversive websites (Conversive.com, Verbots.com, Verbot Forums, etc.) accidently deleted the servers thinking they weren't used anymore. This was a mistake but a mistake that couldn't be undone. There were no backups that could be restored (something about once you delete the cloud image the backups disappear with them). Everything on those websites is gone forever.

Alas this is how Verbots.com ends. Hopefully someone will finally create a Community Run Forum - if there is anyone left in the community interested. 

Cleaning up the Forums

I'm not sure why the Verbots Forums have been under spamming attack lately, perhaps its the forum software we use or the popularity of the site but its become increasingly annoying to the regular users and myself. Then again, perhaps there aren't a lot of active forum users because only one person mentioned the problem. Regardless, I cleaned up the forums.

This isn't the first time I've bulk deleted users (and that seems to be the solution that I most prefer) who were spamming the forums so I disabled new user registration to cut down on the fake traffic. If you want an account please make a comment here (I'll delete the comment once your account is created) just so we can reduce the amount of potential spamming. Prior to disabling new user registration the site looked like it had some anti-bot protections but I guess it wasn't enough.

I hope this doesn't inconvenience too many people.

Also: the Verbots.com homepage download link has been updated so it doesn't refer to CNET. I think CNET broke or lost the latest Verbots5 software when they switched download methods. Let me know if something else on the site needs fixing. 

Time for Community Run Forums

Aaron raised a good idea the other day - maybe its time someone created a community run forum for Verbots - forums run by the community for the community. That way all the information is kept open and available to the public. The current forum is hosted on the same server Verbots is at which means whoever runs Verbots.com also runs the forums and owns the information stored there.

What do people think, is it time for a community run forum? Any volunteers?

On another note it might be a good idea to create a list of chatter bot websites, community forums, etc. K was thinking about creating a links page here for reference. Have any ideas? These could be replacements for Verbots Online, etc.?

If you've got link you'd like make a comment and provide a little detail on what the link is for and why someone might be interested in using it. If you just drop a link without an explanation it will be ignored. Hopefully we can create a community driven list that is comprehensive and not just a bunch of people touting their own sites - at least not without some value to the community.

Share your thoughts. 

Verbots Development

Someone on the Verbots forum asked who was in charge of Verbots.com these days and in the ensuing discussion (with Aaron and my internal to myself) I began to wonder what Verbots users think there is going on development-wise.

Take a look at the past:

If we look at Matt's brief post A little history: Chatterbots and Conversive we can see that, in terms of major developments, there haven't been any since 2006 when Verbots Online was introduced. The Verbots Desktop 5 I believe was a push to make Verbots Desktop compatible with a newer version of .NET and to get it working with Windows 7. If I had to guess Matt probably spent less than a months worth of work (part time) on it. No significant development in 6 years says something about the product.

Look at the present:

Have you ever noticed the Conversive.com site makes no reference to Verbots.com? I think Verbots was kept around as a kind of introductory service compared to the full enterprise approach Conversive took. In the end not many hobbyists run Fortune 500 companies or at least none ended up buying. The recent shuttering of Verbots Online shows the company didn't have time to focus on the hobbyist market anymore. (I hope the community is able to come up with a free / open-source version for those still using the service.)

I don't know what will come of the Verbots or the future of its development past this day. I'm not speaking for the company, rather sharing my own experience in dealing with the extension that is Verbots. If there is a strong enough community and if that community is helped out along the way I can see many parts of Verbots living on past any one organization, let's just hope that happens. How it survives is anyone's guess.

Verbots Online shut down

As of today Verbots Online is officially shut down. If you navigate to the old website it will refer you back to the Verbots.com homepage. Speaking of the home page it's been updated to reflect the discontinued service as well. Refunds have been processed.

Thanks to everyone who kept it going over the last 6 or so years.

There's been some chatter on the Forums about alternative services and if anything comes up maybe we'll post about it in the future.

Verbots Online Refunds

Over the past week and a half we've been processing refunds for those who paid for Verbots Online service for 2012. All of the refunds have been now been processed.

Here’s what we did:

If you were paying month by month we canceled your subscription payment in PayPal. If you didn't have a subscription hopefully you've seen the notices and will stop paying! We also canceled all the PayPal subscriptions for those who paid for a full year of service and refunded their money.

Our only option for processing the refunds is through PayPal using the email address you paid with. If you have access to the email account you used to pay for Verbots Online and still haven’t received a notice for a refund please contact Chris at: 

• verbotrefund at conversive dot com. 
• The subject line should say: "Verbots Online Refund"
• The body of the message should have: verbot account id, the email address your verbot account is under and if you have a different email address associated with PayPal that address as well.