Thanks for the suggestion. I'm looking at Net::IRC bots, but in my case I cannot afford to miss a single post, so I won't be able to say for sure until I test. Am also worried in general about security/administration of IRC and hardware resources needed.. so am looking for how others have done large scale systems (even slash or a normal bbs) not just IRC which has more features than I need or want.

Will check out perlbot and the other links below. --Matt