Currently the number of saved games is inflated by a fibs server hickup. This affects all consumers or (http://www.fibs.com/savedgames/) data, including but not limited to RepBot. Other examples include CocoaFibs, ParlorBot, TourneyBot, 3DFibs etc., and applications reading and displaying RepBot data such as JavaFibs or DelFibs. Whether your account is inflated or not is random, probably has to to with being logged in while the hickup happened.

Patti is aware of the problem. There is nothing a maintainer of a consuming application (such as RepBot) can do about it. A group of techies lead by Patti is working on the problem and will, if feasible, create a fix or workaround. The worst case outcome is that the saved games service will be discontinued. The second worst case outcome is that the figure will remain inflated for about two month.

Until then, I don't want to discuss this problem each time I log into fibs with the next user who thinks he can report news to me, contribute to a solution, blame or praise me, or tell me how easy a fix should be. I did this for the last 10 days and my nerves are wrecked already. If you are not Patti or provide me a fix in source code form, I don't want to talk about the issue with you. Please don't bother Patti or anybody else either.

What you can and please should do is to educate other users that this is a well understood problem and it already is worked on, maybe by pointing them to this posting and the disclaimer (http://www.fibs.com/savedgames/). This will take at least some of the chatter overload from those who work on a technical solution. Please react to shouts mentioning saved games data with pointing the shouters to this posting.

If you are a tourney director, you should not limit access to tourneys by saved games constraints. Figures inflated by a factor of 5 are "normal" currently, so 20 or 30 saved games reported is nothing to worry about. The best thing is to completely leave out any requirement on saveds as long as the figures are broken.

Thank you.

For the record, TourneyBot does not make any judgments based upon savedgames, it can be configured to look at reputation, which has nothing to do with the number of saved games, but the actions of other players.

I didnt name you diane, you did that yourself. However I did put up the signpost to tease you. Sorry about that, really.

I took the savedgames pages down around 6 p.m. PST today.  I do not know if I'll ever bring them back or not.

I've bumped RepBot to 2.0.4 to incorporate this change. It will no longer poll the saved games data from the web, and report "no saved games" for anybody anytime. This means there will be no messages as well if you have alert on.

I won't change the output syntax of the "ask" command, because this runs the risk of breaking client code.

This is subject to future revision, i.e. the saved games part of the "ask" reply may be incompatibly changed in a future version. But why risk breaking clients before we know what the final outcome of this thing is.

as part of this debate i thought i would paste an exchange i have had with burper wherin he suggests an excellent way forward

burper's message thread re repbot & savedgames lis
« Sent to: inim on: Today at 07:26:46 PM »
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to burper ( via messages)

Quote from: stog on November 28, 2008, 12:57:59 AM
hi there

how did you find the new server - is it fast enough i wonder?
i think this location is very good - it will be hard to match it..

reply

Works well, thanks for picking up hosting duties.

Do you have the capability to run scripts on the server? E.g. could you run a script that does a grab and store of fibs.com/savedgames each day?

Re: (No subject)
« Sent to: burper on: November 29, 2008, 06:52:47 PM »
   
yeah..possibly - do you mean a cgi perl script?
as u know hosting companies get nervous about scripts

but we could always  have a go -- so long as it didn't interfere with the cgi's i have running at the moment (they're a pig to sort out! and i'm a scrapyard challenge cutn paste merchant rather than a fluid coder:)


let me know what you want to try and if i have the time ill give it a go

its perl 5.2 on a linux server

Re: (No subject)
« Sent to: stog on: December 05, 2008, 12:42:15 AM »
«
I was thinking of a cron job, i.e. not triggered via web access like cgi, that would grab a copy of http://fibs.com/savedgames/list.html each "day" and store it.
I believe there is valuable data to be mined from it, but the mining is where the complication comes in. The first step is having the data.

E.g. I can picture a different sort of "repbot" that only keeps positive information. Everyone starts at 0. If a stog/burper match shows up on the savedgames list one day, but is gone the next, then we can be *almost* sure that stog and burper played a match and finished. If we count 10 of these rising/falling patterns, then we can *almost* be sure they approve of each other as opponents, and might even recommend each other to others.

All sorts of other things can be interpreted from the data, but that is the simplest and most direct thing I can think of.

Re: (No subject)
« Sent to: burper on: Today (15/12/08) at 07:07:07 PM »
   
hi there

we are still on eric's dutch server, but if we switch i shall be putting the board on its own host so we will be able to try stuff, if and when, Patti reinstates the savedgames list.

she might if we have a constructive/useful way of dealing with the info.. and i like your idea - it would give people a guide ...

speak to you later -- will post this on moderator's page for eric to see

regards stog

stog, I have no intention of putting the savedgames page back.  Plus, not all recently-completed games would ever show up on it... only some.  I think it's those completed in the last 12 hours, but I'm not sure.

Well how much would it cost to fix? There must be 100 fibsters who could stump up some dosh for this eminently valuable feature. Patti, message me with your e-address and I'll set the ball rolling. Come on guys and gals, how much is fibs worth to you?

Honestly, I'd rather spend my time making this information less necessary, which is what I've been doing.  I have something up my sleeve... trust me.

MOTD: The savedgames data is gone, probably for good.

I am rebuilding the villains list, which will contain by MY  OWN default, the mobile users from Odesys and especially the new and bigmouthed iPhone users.  I have deleted my old list when inim took over RepBot.  Big mistake! My new list of villains will be a fair replacement for the gone forever saved games page. Anyone willing to exchange and share his own list, is welcome to contact me. As far as I recall, I was dropped by a 3dfibs, macfibs, javafibs, Cocoafibs, Delfibs, fibsw, BBGT, kbackgammon or a plain telnet user, AGES ago. For me, as my fibs experience showed, the mobile users are the 99% of the droppers. I will simply put every new one I spot on my list and .. oh well, life goes on, with or without the savedgames page.

And yea, for the record, I dropped manxcat once.  , ParlorBot twice and Bonehead three times.

Of course it is available to all my fibs friends and buddies. I am expecting their villain list in return.