globau
commented
10 years ago the :nickname convention isn't strictly an irc nick, so this won't always work. it would also result in different output for people who don't follow that convention, which i dislike.
if someone wants to be pinged by firebot they should add their email address to their irc client's watch list.
people often have a different irc name, and most bugzilla accounts have them in the form of :ircname, so using that in the irc communication (to create a ping, or to let others link the bug owner with someone in the channel) would probably be more useful than the email handle.