Yes, thank you! Actually, the only flame was from a guy that accused me
of being a "smart ass" for making that suggestion. I wasn't trying to
be one, although I have sent facetious notes to this list in the past
(not _trying_ to be malicious...just silly) and I want to respect
everyone's time and intelligence etc. so sorry to offend.
It just seems as if a distinction could be beneficial. I wasn't trying
to stifle anyone's desire to find answers to their dilemma (whether its
a webmaster who's site has been bombarded by requests from user agents
not playing by the rules or developers sincerely trying to make useful
software) or just to rant and rave about agents.
I do believe that the solution to most problems can be found in
communications -- no macho posturings, no finger-pointing, no blaming --
and that if people always played by the rules (or standards) and never
tried anything new or unprecedented that the Net would get boring pretty
quick. Of course, standardization is a practical antidote to cacophony
and chaos... so it's a fine line we must all traverse daily.
Again, agents should not be tested on the public Networks, and should
not be tested on a machine without contacting it's administrators.
Thanks for your attention...
> I apologize for
> the posting. I saw others do similarly and I guess I wanted to see
> two things occur:
>
> 1. Try to identify the offender
> 2. Impress upon robot writers that they should really be
> considerate of others
>
> I've seen the flame-fest about antisocial webmasters and actually
> had a good laugh about it. Until that is I found my site to be the
> happy testing ground for some robot writers. I wouldn't mind too
> much except they pull all the controls out during testing and tend
> to have a large number of simultaneous connections during the
> busiest time of day for my web site. This could easily be construed
> as denial of service....
>
> I'd love to have a robot-gripes email list or at least some
> tracking forum where people can go to determine who these offenders
> are and have an email address where one can query as to their
> activities. Accountability is all I ask for....
>
> -betsy
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Betsy Dunphy | Connections: A Southern Golf
> Aesir Computing, Inc. | & Vacation Guide
> email: bld@aesir.com | http://www.aesir.com/
-- Rob Turk <mailto:rturk@austin.ibm.com> Always Un-Officially Speaking Web Work <http://toolbox.austin.ibm.com/~rturk> http://www.megalith.com What is a magician but a practising theorist? -- Obi-Wan Kenobi