FIBS Board backgammon forum

How does repbot know whether a user is a bot?

I recently found myself playing kleine_hexe, a bot not identified as such by repbot.

Do you keep track of them by hand or is do you read the something from FIBS itself?

The owner of the bot must register the playername as a bot [somewhere in preferences - you could set yourself to be a bot if you so desired! ;)].  They must also supply a valid email address so that people with problems with the bot can contact them directly, and not Patti ;).

Patti requires them to do that if it is a bot running solo like Montecarlo etc.  Repbot gets the information from that setting being properly applied.

Kleine_hexe is a person operating a bot - ie sat with it, and telling opponents that they are playing a bot. I am not sure if that qualifies as needing to be set as a bot, my guess would be that it does - so players know before they invite or accept.  But, it is less of a problem than say Montecarlo - because should it stall or whatever, there is a human there to help.

Quote from: ah_clem on December 17, 2009, 10:07:10 PM
How does repbot know whether a user is a bot?

A boolean field in the user DB.

Quote from: ah_clem on December 17, 2009, 10:07:10 PM
I recently found myself playing kleine_hexe, a bot not identified as such by repbot.

See diane's explaination, it's a "borderline" bot, nevertheless flagged it as a bot today. This has one consequence: bot vouchers/complaints are not counted for reputation calculation.

Quote from: ah_clem on December 17, 2009, 10:07:10 PM
Do you keep track of them by hand or is do you read the something from FIBS itself?

By hand. Patti must have a similar list for the bot-dropper punishment script, but that isn't shared.