RepBot/SavedGames

[inim]

OK, before we lose ourselves in another side-debate. Would it be possible to get a straight answer to original question, which was "can we make savedgames a supported interface to fibs data not available elsewhere but frequently requested by users of clients". Thx.

See:
http://www.fibsboard.com/javafibs/repbotsavedgames-t1819.0.html;msg14001#msg14001

If the answer is "yes" in any form, we should continue and engineer some syntax. My suggestion is to create

1) An XML Schema which provides information about
- UTC time of instance creation
- UTC time of the next update of the instance
- Map<Player, List<Player>> in some XML serialization syntax.
2) Instances
of beforementioned Schema which are updated by a cron job running on fibs com and provided under a fixed URL.

I will happily provide the Schema in a machine readable form, and Perl code to produce instances. Next step would be to optimize to satisfy the constraints discussed above, such as bandwidth usage, displaying instances in human readable form, improving reliability, access control, update schedule etc. pp.

Please note that "yes, but it may go away anytime" isn't an satisfactory answer. I understand that due to problems in operations the service may be interrupted for some days, that's only normal. But what is needed to make it worth coding against such an API is a commitement to support it to the same degree fibs.com's other services are supported.

[Patti]

As I said earlier, I can't guarantee that the savedgames information will continue to be there in the future.  It was a quick hack that I pulled together in about 20 minutes one evening  just to see how well it would work, and it was never intended to be an official FIBS resource.  I don't monitor the process that generates it, and while it's been quite stable thus far I probably wouldn't notice for a while if it went south.

The more I see decisions being made based on misunderstanding of the information, the less likely I am to want to continue providing it.  Just today, I had the joy of witnessing something like this:

(someone) shouts:  Don't play so-and-so, he's a dropper.
(someone else) shouts: He is?
(someone) shouts: Yeah, he has 20 saved games.  He's a dropper.

I was curious, so I went off and reviewed the guy's saved games.  In the vast majority of them he was either significantly in the lead, or the game was about even... far from a classic dropper pattern.

Beyond that, I'm coming to understand that the numbers are a less accurate predictor than I hoped they'd be.  A couple of weeks ago I investigated someone in the dropper's hall of shame, only to find out that most of his matches were actually finished.  He'd played quite a few matches in the hours before the list was calculated, and that was enough to push him into the top 30 list.

In short, I'm not too enthusiastic about providing an improved interface to data that have proven to be unreliable, that are often misinterpreted, and that might cause unintended harm to innocent people.

(Oh, and if I *was* going to provide an official API, it wouldn't be XML.  Morse code would be more likely than XML, or maybe Swahili and BCD... I despise XML.  But that's another topic altogether.)

[spielberg]

This is off topic but a point of information to clarify Patti's last statement:

I'm far less discreet than her Pattiness and have realised for some time that the "Hall of Shame" contains at least one non dropper; in this case the fibster Patti is referring to is rif_raf who's not only a nice guy but also plays bg as (IMO) it should be played with plenty of side chat. Backgammon is a social game, if I wanted silence I'd play chess. Be warned tho' rif's game is better than his rating --- he's learning quite quickly.


Steve

[Patti]

Actually, spielberg, it wasn't rif_raf, but someone else.  Their appearance on the hall of shame page was a temporary aberration-- they were only there for one day.  I'd hate for people to shun someone just for something like that.