Logs!

[Rance]

Hi, everyone!

It is for the sake of everyone that I'm making this announcement. We'd like to encourage *everyone* to keep logging their conversations on mIRC -- and if you've never done so before, it is for the benefit of us all that you do so! Namely, it is easiest for operators to develop a solution to a disagreement or problem based on seeing logs if the need should ever occur!

Don't know how to log? That's okay! I *STILL* don't know. Well. Not really -- but I can act like I don't. Here's what you do on mIRC:

1) Go to FILE
2) Go to OPTIONS
3) Click on the + tab that says IRC on the white menu
4) Click on LOGGING
5) Select the drop-down menu labelled AUTOMATICALLY LOG: and select "BOTH" (this will log both PMs and channel info)

Be sure you choose which directory you want it all in! If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask the ops. Thanks again!

[Elfling]

Might I also suggest that, if yer one of those types like I am, that sits in BD almost all the time, whether I'm there or not, that you log by date/week/month/year. If you don't, the logfiles get enormous (they get enormous anyway) and you can end up not being able to load channel log, or being forced to sit there for five, ten, thirty minutes while it loads up the log.

It ends up being rather convienient for private chats, too, since you can sort a general 'time frame' a conversation happened in, rather than searching through hours of conversation with your friends.

[Pipkin]

Don't logs take up a lot of space on your HD if you collect them for every time you come into the channel?

[Rance]

Well, mine only take up 28.5 megabytes, now, and that's from a total of 515 files -- several channels, and all the others being just PM conversations, and that's all from since I started here two years back!

I do need to clean some of them out.

--Rance

[Tyralor]

There are some reasons to log. Some reasons not to.

Reasons to Log:

If a disagreement arises, there's a copy of what was said and by who.
They help you maintain storylines without contradicting yourself.
Reviewing or using it as a basis for a post on the boards can be helpful.
Seventeen years from now, you can look back and find out exactly how awful you were on prodigy using the nick tythalius, thanks to people like rance.

Reasons not to bother:

There is also the "save - Buffer" function which allows you to save anything said over the past while in either private chats, or channels. (Assuming you didn't close the window out of spite before saving, or were booted by an op from a channel)
Logs can be tampered with. It is only a text file really, and can certainly be altered to hold one viewpoint over another, at which point new mud slinging can take effect.
They can remind you of how awful you use to be, and be the cause of much embarassment seventeen years from now.
They take up harddrive space and need to be organize on a regular basis.

Overall, I don't bother logging. If something happens I want a record of, either cause someone's doing something and I have to keep a record of it for ops to see, or cause it's absolutely vital I have something to snicker over in years to come. In the channels themselves, you're pretty much covered by this delightful chap called Pritchard.

[Carnath-Emory]

Alternatively, if you don't want to log perpetually (personally, I don't, on account of being Too Darn Lazy to sort through the huge things should I need something), you might just want to save the buffer if something comes up that you wished you'd logged -- or simply need a log for. That function usually covers a fair duration of chat, and the file can be named whatever you'd like it to be, making sorting convenient.

[Dhugal]

As an OP in another channel,I've gotten into the
habit of logging everythingrp and /msg alike. Every once and awhile, I go through the
logfile and delete what I know was incidental /msg, and save the rp logs to a floppy if I
decide there was something in there I want to
save.

I have two hds on my comp and I never have more
than 3MB of logs total on them.

A bit of work yep, but it's helped solve some
disputes and saved me some good rp memories.

[Seranos]

I have logs....most of them anyways...from the last...two years, I believe.....somewhere....in a big mess.

[Kobra]

I have logs of sex.

[Madel_H]

oh, that's where all my logs went.