A funny story about Tater

[Uncle Jesse]

Some of you oldest of old timers may remember when HD had a chat room built into the site. It ran on a standard IRC type client and did not get too much use.

At some point my friend made a "bot" out of the Mark V. Shaney software. I am sure none of you will know what that is, so here is a bit of background. Back in the early internet days many folks used mail lists called the "usenet". They had usenet groups for almost any interest. Some guys named Mark Ellis and Rob Pike wrote this software which would "read" the net.singles and some culinary group and would actually "learn" from the conversations, then would post messages on its own. Shaney was notorious for being cryptic, yet somehow wise, and even got some marriage proposals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney

Ok so fast forward to my friend making this bot. I put the bot into the chat channel where it would "learn" what people said and then spew out its own thoughts periodically. Hardly anyone ever went into the chat room, except one day Tater wandered in there and without knowing what was up, started having conversations with the Shaney bot. Later I got some very angry and upset messages from Tater complaining about this rude person in the chat room. I guess it had gotten to the point where Tater had really been pissed off at this smartass Shaney who didn't make much sense but seemed overly rude.

Ah, Tater, still apologize for that, but you gotta admit that in hindsight it's funny. When was that? Early 2000's?