To join the channel, connect to irc.perl.org, and /join #london.pm
A bot is a program that responds to events on IRC (like people speaking) with useful information.
There's an informal convention on #london.pm that bots receive voice (+v) but not ops (+o), so you can tell them from people who will either be opped or unopped, but rarely have voice.
dipsy is an infobot that acts as a kind of community memory. For example, you can say to dipsy dipsy, next meeting? and it will tell you when the meeting is.
In addition, dipsy measures 'karma', which can be given or removed by saying the name of something followed by ++ or --. You can also give a reason for this after a comment tag (#) which will be stored. For example,
dipsy++ # knows things (my computer)-- # a bit rubbish really
You can find out the karma of an item by asking dipsy, karma dipsy and you can find out why something has the karma it has by asking dipsy, explain karma netscape.
People on #london.pm usually have ops. slavorg is a bot to keep it that way, by opping people whom it trusts. It also gives voice to bots it believes.