A couple RepBot feature suggestions

[_Z_]

First of all, thanks for making RepBot, makes Fibs more enjoyable for me.

I have a couple of minor suggestions that would be pretty easy to program, though it's possible the first one might cause issues with interfaces. Though that could be avoided by only doing the first suggestion if a player has opted in.

1. When asking RepBot for a reputation, I'd like it if RepBot would tell me whether the person has vouched for or complained about me. This will let me know whether I should ask them for a vouch after I lose a match. Also it might be useful for RepBot to tell me if I have vouched for or complained about them.

2. If I recently asked RepBot for a reputation for player XXXXX. And then I "tell RepBot list", RepBot should assume I mean "tell RepBot list XXXXX". This would be useful because 3dfibs automatically asks for the reputation after getting an invite, but sometimes I want the more detailed list information right after. So this saves me from having to type in the name, which is sometimes long and hard to type correctly.

[inim]

1. When asking RepBot for a reputation, I'd like it if RepBot would tell me whether the person has vouched for or complained about me. This will let me know whether I should ask them for a vouch after I lose a match. Also it might be useful for RepBot to tell me if I have vouched for or complained about them.

This is a good idea, albeit I am very conservative in changing the RepBot output Strings. A lot of unmaintained clients query RepBot, and a trivial change can crash them. I don't make this up, when I removed the saved games figure from the results, that has crashed the GammonBot* family ... There are many more places where I liked to change the output, or even better allow users to customize it. But that needs some work, which I currently can not do (time constraints).

=> Nice idea, I'll consider it but currently lack thee guts to make an incompatible change.

2. If I recently asked RepBot for a reputation for player XXXXX. And then I "tell RepBot list", RepBot should assume I mean "tell RepBot list XXXXX". This would be useful because 3dfibs automatically asks for the reputation after getting an invite, but sometimes I want the more detailed list information right after. So this saves me from having to type in the name, which is sometimes long and hard to type correctly.

That one is not realistically feasible, as it would require RepBot to be stateful (i.e. somehow connect two calls). However, RepBot by design is stateless. Changing this is almost a rewrite.

[dickbalaska]

A lot of unmaintained clients query RepBot, and a trivial change can crash them.

How about a new command then?  Like `tell repbot tell _Y_` instead of list or ask.
New clients wouldn't be affected (unless they are badly parsing the help).

dik

[inim]

How about a new command then?  Like `tell repbot tell _Y_` instead of list or ask.
New clients wouldn't be affected (unless they are badly parsing the help).

We'd run out of letters soon if any trivial syntax change took a new letter. My approach (time permitting) would be versioning, i.e. a command where you can (persistently) set a version level for the output. Default would be 2.0, the current syntax. Users can opt-in for higher levels by submitting someeething like "tell repbot set message version 3". New output versions can easily be announced by the existing "news" functionality, which allows RepBot to send messages to users exactly once.

[dropper]

My ideal would be that at the end of any repbot query there was the extra line:
[player] has vouched|complained about [you], [you] has vouched|complained for [player]

Over time it's easy to forget who you've vouched or complained about and the opinion we are most likely to trust is our own.