FIBS Board backgammon forum

A little used, even little understood, feature of RepBot is the friends request .. for RepBot, a "friend" is anybody for whom you have vouched   .. but note, a friends request is meaningless if you have vouched for no one, .. then RepBot assumes you have no "friends" .. the RepBot command takes the form:

tell RepBot friends player

The reply will be one of:

player has no complainers or vouchers (saved_game_info)
player complainers: [player_list] vouchers: [player_list] (saved_game_info)

however, remember the only players listed by a friends request are your RepBot "friends" who have complained about or vouched for the player in your request .. in effect the friends request is a form of implementing the old saying, "a friend of my friend is my friend, an enemy of my friend is my enemy" .. i've found it to be a very handy way of checking out a player i don't know .. even for some players i know, i know them a little better now

for example, assume you'd like to check out a player named stranger with 11 saved games and a reputation of about 25,000 RepBot reputation points .. maybe stranger has invited you to a game or is on the ready list and you're looking for a game .. for those of us who use RepBot to check out a potential partner, stranger's metrics, reputation and saved game count, are borderline .. the friends request gives us another tool for evaluating stranger

tell RepBot friends stranger

RepBot says:
stranger complainers: [] vouchers: [some_friend, another_friend*, yet_another_friend] (11 saved games)

first, the friends request feature reports on stranger's complainers .. remember, RepBot defines "friends" for this request only as someone for whom you have vouched .. so, the output above says none of your "friends" have complained about stranger .. note, stranger may have complaints, but none of your "friends" have complained

next, the friends request feature compares your "friends", again only players you have vouched for, to the list of players who have vouched for stranger .. if any of your "friends" vouched for stranger then they are included in the friends request player_list .. the * with another_friend indicates another_friend* and stranger have a saved game and another_friend is now on-line .. this even gives you a chance to support a friend in clearing up a saved game .. if the list is empty, it does not necessarily mean stranger stranger has no vouchers, but none of your friends have vouched

in a nut shell that's it .. try it a few times .. but remember, a friends request is useful only if you have used RepBot responsibly and legitimately to vouch for other players .. if you have no vouches, only a few, or really don't take vouches very seriously, the output from a friends request will be null, very limited, or not very meaningful

i have over 80 players for whom i've vouched .. some, from when i first started playing, i have forgotten about perhaps never played again, i've begun to remove now that i'm using the friends request .. others who i play often and would recommend to anyone as a good reliable fibster and backgammon opponent, i'm leaving on my vouch list .. more importantly, some for whom i've vouched, are persons whose opinions about other players i would value greatly when their name appears in a friends request on a player i don't know at all

thus, a friends request provides a whole new level of information available about other players .. it's not a metric, like RepBot's reputation point total or the number of saved games .. it is whatever you make it .. if you use your RepBot vouches with friends request functionality in mind, i think you'll be most satisfied with the results

I must confess I do not use much the vouch, but reading this makes me think about the correct use of this. Hope many Fibsters read about it and start taking advantage of this simple but menaingful feature of the Repbot.
   

huhu

as far a my little duck's brain understood that it sound pretty good to me     

i also found out that its been hiding in repbot for ages now but just haven't been seen/understood by me - now i know - thanks to sixty - and i find that very helpfull.

cause when checking the stats of a stranger i always look for friends/guys i know who complained/vouched for him, so this feature makes it more precise.   

cheerio and coolio
d_d

Another benefit of note:
-abuse of RepBot would be a non-issue, if "friends" was the more popular form of query.

You could not "10k" someone, or use your gbot army or army of multiple nicks (what evil jerk would do such a thing?) to gang-complain or gang-vouch someone, if "friends" completely replaced the "ask" query.

maria's "randomly vouch for a dropper just to prove RepBot is flawed" strategy (rather than discover and embrace the parts that do show promise as 60 has done), would have ZERO effect, unless you had her on your vouch list.

If you are of the opinion that RepBot still sucks even with friends, it is the ultimate opt-in strategy: you never use it, you never have any effect on anyone.

One downfall of "friends", is that it is pretty useless if not enough people use it and use it responsibly.

Another, IMO, is that it does not embrace the simplicity rule as currently implemented. I thought it should look and feel exactly like the ask command, just simply include only your friends opinions in the total amount. But a list is good too.

The best part is the emphasis on vouching rather than complaining.

If the clients could add automatic vouching... like when the match is over ask VOUCH FOR? Yes/No/Complain

I've been using delfibs which has a nice feature of ASKing repbot before Invite or Join (when invited) if it used friends command that could help too...

tom

Yes, tom/tam, that would be a nice client feature! 

I have added the "vouch" feature into my automated thinking.     Whenever I play anyone now, if I win,  and the player is pleasant, I automatically vouch for them.  It's especially nice for a newbie since they get a 10k plus to start off with.    

Since I predominantly use javafibs, I use a programmable button for this which makes it very easy to do.     The button is programmed like so: "tell RepBot vouch %Player" so that all I have to do is click on the player in the players list, then click the button which I have designated with a "V".

socksey



Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift.  That's why it's call "The Present". - unknown