Bot and Private Messages

[arm4b]

This screenshot demonstrates what I mean. Such behavior is documented somewhere (don't remember exactly where), but I found it not so user-friendly.

I think that bot should react in PM for the same commands as user writes in channel AND optionally, if you think it makes good sense, for commands without alias (eg. !).

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Tiny things to provide more obvious and predictable communication interface, making sure user don't need to keep in mind special cases like that.

[emedvedev]

That's something that has been discussed before. I get this question every once in a while, so there's even a large blue note in the docs here: https://docs.stackstorm.com/chatops/chatops.html#bring-your-own-hubot

While I can agree it's not very user-friendly, it's default Hubot behavior and there's no easy way to override it since we don't fork and maintain our own Hubot branch. Hacking hubot-stackstorm won't help either, because there's still the help command, which is external, and probably other plugins a user might install.

The logic behind this is quite simple: in channels, you use aliases (@bot or !) to let the bot know you're talking to him. When you send a private message, your bot already knows it's for him, so there's no need for an alias. Same as for people: if I need to holler you in a channel, I'll go with @arma: hi!, but I'll just say hi! in PM, because a nickname mention would be redundant.

The main reason for not implementing this is still the Hubot code though, not that the logic/reasoning is correct.

[arm4b]

Hacking hubot-stackstorm won't help either

Thanks, that clarifies everything.

Should I close it or maybe you can set wontfix tag, to make it "Known" and avoid others opening duplicated Issue?

[emedvedev]

Yep, let's go with wontfix. Thanks!