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I just noticed that Stack Exchange runs a school for smoke detectors. I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering why we have one. I'm asking here because it doesn't seem to be associated with a specific site.

https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/17251/smoke-detector-school

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  • 18
    Anyone can create a chat room, don't take chat room titles as anything reflecting Stack-Exchange-the-company.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 17:37

1 Answer 1

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That room isn't run by Stack Exchange (well, it sorta is as they host it, but you get what I mean :P). It's owned by The Charcoal Team who runs a bot, SmokeDetector, that aims to detect spam on the network and posts it in chat rooms. The "Smoke Detector School" room exists for testing and running Beta features.

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  • So that is who SmokeDetector is.
    – Anthony Pham
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 17:37
  • So the bot there doesn't respond to commands? :(
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 17:37
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    Can it actually detect smoke? I'm just joking. ;)
    – Anthony Pham
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 17:37
  • @ShadowWizard No, it doesn't.
    – ProgramFOX
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 17:38
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    @PythonMaster: the spam detector bot is called Smoke Detector. Coz. it raises an alarm if it smells something spammy.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 17:38
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    @Mart is right, when we'll have bot that can nuke spammers, it would be called Fire Extinguisher. ;)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 17:40
  • So I could create a chat room for those who didn't make chat rooms for themselves then.
    – Christopher King
    Commented Jun 25, 2015 at 2:16
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    Can I write a module for SmokeDetector that wires it to my house's fire alarm system? Please? I'm totally willing to do this.
    – user206222
    Commented Jun 25, 2015 at 5:57
  • @PyRulez Yes, you could -- but in most cases you don't need to, unless the people who need it don't have enough rep, or it's a room for a chatbot.
    – ProgramFOX
    Commented Jun 25, 2015 at 6:34
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    @Emrakul Be warned for continuous alerts! evil grin
    – ProgramFOX
    Commented Jun 25, 2015 at 6:56
  • @ProgramFOX It was a set theory joke. Look up set theory barber.
    – Christopher King
    Commented Aug 18, 2015 at 17:24
  • @PyRulez You mean this paradox? Interesting one!
    – ProgramFOX
    Commented Aug 18, 2015 at 17:30
  • The back end service publishes a websocket of events so it would not be super hard to route those to your home automation. The joke gets old pretty quickly, though; you'd get around 100 alerts per day at the current spam levels (much more when Ryan is trawling old posts and reporting any we missed).
    – tripleee
    Commented Aug 4, 2023 at 17:12

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