FWIW, there are a few zoia commands I've noticed that could come across 
as sexist (especially if you see Zoia as being a "female" bot).

I don't think they are used that frequently, but I have seen:

@poledance (have zoia display a poledancer)
@euph (have zoia respond in a euphemism)

This isn't meant to spoil any of the fun of having zoia around. For the 
most part, I don't take offense to zoia. But, I do find zoia annoying / 
noisy (which is why I'm rarely in code4lib IRC). Though there are some 
useful / helpful zoia commands in there.

I like Jon Gorman's suggestion of having a friendly, helpful bot and a 
wise-cracking one. That way, those of us annoyed by the ongoing 
wise-cracking can ignore it, while still having access to the helpful 
stuff. (And it may be easier to turn off the wise-cracking parts during 
the conference if desired.)

- Tim

On 1/18/2013 10:26 AM, Karen Coyle wrote:
> Actually, I find the "playing" with Zoia itself offensive. As per my
> response to my own message.
>
> It objectifies women. Treats them as play-things. Makes me very
> uncomfortable. If we want to have an information bot, perhaps like the
> one used by W3C which takes minutes for meetings (Zakim, I believe it
> is), that seems reasonable. But to have a "play-thing" that is gendered
> is a really, really bad idea. In fact, to have a "play-thing" of any
> kind on the channel might not be a good idea. I know that some folks
> find it fun, but it is akin to the locker-room shenanigans (at least as
> I experience it), and it's a HUGE in-joke that makes it obvious to
> anyone new that they aren't "in".
>
> kc