Nice one, RusselB. It works very well. I made a previous post attempting to use something else but to no avail, compared to yours.

However, the var can be omitted and gathered in the on text event as such:

Code:
on $*:TEXT:$(/^(hello|hey|hi|hello,|hey,|hi,)\s( $+ $me $+ )$/Si):#: {
  if ($regex($1-,$regml(2))) { if ($right($me,4) != -afk) { describe # Hello $nick $+ , hows it going ? :) }
    else { describe # Sorry $nick $+ , but I'm not able to have a conversation with you at this time :) }
  }
}


Comma match is added in case people use hi, <nickname> instead of hi <nickname>