shipitfish | 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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

by tweaking some settings and basically just getting used to it :)

Ok, I get it: perldoc WWW::Mechanize

I don't.

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.

Are their diamonds in the rough on Iggy's journal? Every time I click through, which I've done a few times in the past few months, it seems like more of a personal journal than a poker one. I'm all for using a community to filter a web forum for me, I do that in other areas of my life, but I get the impression I'm missing useful by not picking a forum to follow regularly on 2+2.

Are their diamonds in the rough on Iggy's journal?

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.

how the hell do you put up with 2+2's crappy software?

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

a serious answer...most people end up getting a "home" forum. mine is the Mid-stakes NL board. that's pretty much the only one I read. if i have specific questions that belong somewhere else or i'm bored, i might look around some of the other forums, but generally i go straight to MSNL to post hands or see if there's anything interesting.

trying to keep up with all of the interesting stuff on every sub-forum seems like insanity.

Their software sucks. I survive by reading in flat mode with a large post-per-page setting.

This is what I do as well, but I find that I just rarely want to go back and check it each day. I can stand web stuff when it is RSS'ed to me and I can grok it in any number of ways, but the idea of having to visit a site regularly and dig through its content seems like dealing with an FTP server in the 1980s.

I hear you and can't fault you. Basically their software sucks and there's nothing anybody could say to defend it.

how the hell do you put up with 2+2's crappy software?

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.

How, Exactly, Do I Put Two and Two Together to Get Four?

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