IRC clients connected to the Twitch chat server at irc.chat.twitch.tv are not receiving WHISPER events as of 10 May 2016 18:15 UTC (lower bound on the outage start time). This means bots connecting via IRC are unable to receive whispers from other users. Since some bots, such as TPP for the TwitchPlaysPokemon channel, rely almost entirely on whispers, this essentially knocks out their function and can hinder moderation or the progess of TwitchPlays streams.
Is this a side effect of an unannounced change to the server configuration, or is this a random issue that needs to be addressed immediately? And is there a fallback option for receiving whispers?
As I type this message, I notice that there are several (old and dead) topics about whispers not receivable over IRC connections, indicating that the lost of WHISPER events over IRC is a recurring problem.