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shipitfish) wrote2006-11-08 08:48 pm
How, Exactly, Do I Put Two and Two Together to Get Four?
I am going to deviate from my promised posts about my week in Dallas poker to bring up another issue. For years, I have ignored something I shouldn't have: the Poker Fora on 2+2 Publishing Website.
For many years, I lurked on RGP (rec.gambling.poker). And, in a way that's part of the problem. Usenet died. I mean, it's still there, but it's effectively dead. SPAM problems made it nearly unbearable in the 1990s, and then people who were serious just gave up on it. I spent years on Usenet, and being used to complicated and sophisticated tools to follow the discussions.
I grew up on an Internet that predated web fora, browser interfaces, and the like. I used strn and other tools to read news, and had controllable threading, scored threads, whitelist, blacklists, kill files, and all these things that we in the Free Software world invented over a course of two decades to handle large volume discussions.
Those tools still exist, but the data is locked up in an annoying web form. It feels like being told you have to read a book while someone shakes it in front of you. You have no control of the medium and ability to use the tools at your disposal to filter it.
It's an interesting net.accident that web fora took the place of Usenet. In a way, it got out the rabble, because it became so difficult to participate, you had to really care enough to bother. But, it's tough from my point of view to use knives and bearskins to get a job done.
I think ultimately I'm going to have to write a screen scraper to grok the threads into a mail reader, write some scripts that will auto-post back using WWW::Mechanize in Perl when I “answer” a message, and hope they never change the interface and break my stuff. I've googled around for UBB.Threads hacks, and come up empty.
But, before I dive, I suppose I should ask, particularly of the geek/poker crossover people who read my journal: how the hell do you put up with 2+2's crappy software?
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perldoc WWW::Mechanizeno subject
I read Iggy (http://guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com) and a bunch of poker blogs that focus on strategy.
I don't have the time nor the inclination to try to find the diamonds in the rough at 2+2 while other people post links to interesting discussions and such.
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(Anonymous) 2006-11-09 03:42 am (UTC)(link)My 2+2 use runs hot and cold. When I think of a question regarding a game I'm reading about, I'll try to find a relevant 2+2 thread. Invariably I'll stumble across an unrelated but interesting thread, then another, and so on. After an hour of reading passes I'll become very annoyed with the software and will resolve to write a screen scraper. But the longer I read the more frustrated I get for having to sort through the > 75% of crappy threads to find decent ones. This saps any initiative I had to write a screen scraper. Quite a vicious cycle.
Chris
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trying to keep up with all of the interesting stuff on every sub-forum seems like insanity.
Don't use threaded view
(Anonymous) 2006-11-09 08:29 am (UTC)(link)Re: Don't use threaded view
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Sure are. I agree that it's a "hit or miss" sort of deal. It depends on what he wants to post and such, but they're there.
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Same way I put up with their ugly-ass books* — sift through and glean the wisdom despite the format.
*Bias disclosure: I am a graphic designer. Your tolerance may vary.
Re: Don't use threaded view
(Anonymous) 2006-11-12 03:18 am (UTC)(link)