whereisbot is an IRC bot based on phenny. It sits in a channel and announces the geographic location of users or nicks based on IP-geolocation.

The underlying service uses the HostIP database and API.

whereisbot currently sits in the following channels: #swhack, #microformats, #gsmloc, #where2.0 on freenode, and #geo on irc.oftc.net

whereisbot provides the following functions:

.whereis [nick]

returns the location of the <nick>

cori[s]: .whereis ajturner
whereisbot: ajturner is in Northville, MI, US  [42.4365 x -83.4884]

.whereami

returns the location of the requestor

ajturner: .whereami
whereisbot: ajturner is in Northville, MI, US  [42.4365 x -83.4884]

.iamhere [location string]

force set your location. This is useful if your IRC client is on a server somewhere else in the world.

ajturner: .iamhere Northville, MI
whereisbot: now I know you're in NORTHVILLE, MI, US  [42.4365 x -83.4884]

.whereisspeak [on/off]

turns announcement of users joining channels ‘on’ or ‘off’. If [on/off] isn’t specified, then the current status of the announcement is returned.

ajturner: .whereisspeak
whereisbot: whereis new user announcement turned off
ajturner: .whereisspeak on
whereisbot: whereis new user announcement turned on
ajturner: .whereisspeak
whereisbot: whereis new user announcement turned on

Note, WhereIsBot prepends its messages with [off], this is used to prevent logging of the location information on IRC channels that have logs. This is for general peace of mind and archived privacy of IRC users.