Barter banning Lestrade's from list syncing

[Lestrades.com] Nao 尚

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Barter banning Lestrade's from list syncing
« on May 19th, 2017, 12:07 AM »Last edited on May 20th, 2017, 10:51 AM
:edit: May 20
The Problem: The 'Import from Barter.vg' and 'Compare with Barter.vg' buttons are no longer working.

The Reason: This is due to Barter.vg's admin banning the Lestrades.com server from downloading any data.
Officially it's because LT has been 'abusing' its resources[1], but once again I'm not sure what to think, since he is no longer replying to my messages.

Possible Solutions:
- I can always replace the Barter scraper with a combination of SteamSpy & Steam scraper, *but* user list syncing is more problematic. As of now I can no longer import and compare lists from Barter.
- I could potentially write a user script (for Firefox and Chromium-based) to retrieve new Barter games and compare user lists. It would be *much* less user-friendly than the current solution, though, as it requires extra steps (as well as installing a new add-on).

Thoughts? I don't know if it's a coincidence that this comes just a few days after I finished the mass list edit feature and officially called the trading system 'on feature parity with Barter'. It was already a strange coincidence that the Barter admin came back to life the day after Lestrade's launched its trading system in the first place. The more coincidences happen, the less likely they were to be coincidences in the first place. Still, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt for now, but I needed to write this post to make it clear that I'm not responsible for the current ban, since I did everything that was asked of me.
 1. Even though it's been scraping BVG for nearly a year now, and I completely disabled the game updater on May 19, which was a step further from his request to reduce my hit rate.

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[Lestrades.com] Nao 尚

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Re: Barter banning Lestrade's from list syncing
« Reply #7, on May 19th, 2017, 06:23 PM »
same :/ for all of us
"Error 1006 Ray ID: 36186540c2286962 • 2017-05-19 16:22:31 UTC
Access denied
What happened?
The owner of this website (bartervg.com) has banned your IP address (62.210.211.224).

Cloudflare Ray ID: 36186540c2286962 • Your IP: 62.210.211.224 • Performance & security by..."
My real wishlist is on steam.
My wishlist here is for trading purposes.
I like to trade for games I do not own based on Want/Have Ratio, rather than other approaches.

[Lestrades.com] Nao 尚

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Re: Barter banning Lestrade's from list syncing
« Reply #8, on May 19th, 2017, 11:47 PM »
I've repeatedly asked for the ban to be lifted but he's not answering anymore.

I guess I'll have to write some stupid workaround to allow you guys to upload your Barter lists (!) so you can compare them...
Sucks eh?

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[Lestrades.com] Nao 尚

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Re: Barter banning Lestrade's from list syncing
« Reply #12, on May 20th, 2017, 04:49 PM »
The problem is that Barter is doing this to a competitor, so his user base will see this as an abuse of position and unfair action on Lestrade's.
And frankly, they would be right. There are no laws preventing him from banning LT's, but morally I don't see how he can justify it, given that Lestrade's was built as a replacement site for a site *he* abandoned, and as such it was only natural that it would scrape its database (and I'm not the only site that scraped it).

I haven't done *anything* against him, I've always respected him, I even shared information with him to help make Barter better. In return he's banning me and not giving LT a chance, even though I never did anything more than what Lestrade's been doing for months now -- which didn't seem to bother him until now.... Until, basically, I announced that Lestrade's was on feature parity with Barter and thus finally a viable alternative. Seriously, he has a knack for reminding me of his existence exactly when it suits him best. He's a person who shares nothing with no one, no one knows anything about him -- and yet he's asking everyone to trust him.

Trust him that he'll keep Barter alive, that he won't disappear for another year, that everything's going to be okay.
No, not everything's gonna be okay. I've seen it first-hand. We all have.

I asked him to unban LT, he said 'too many hits'. I said 'I stopped the scraper yesterday, unban me and you'll see it's fine now', and he replies 'wait until Monday and I'll see if I unban you'.

Wait until... Monday?
Why?

Something tells me he just enjoys that too much.

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[Lestrades.com] Nao 尚

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Re: Barter banning Lestrade's from list syncing
« Reply #14, on May 20th, 2017, 08:04 PM »
No one is 'banned' from Barter. Lestrades.com (the server) is banned from it.
Meaning that the server can't download any HTML files from Barter...
Meaning that it can't import user lists or new games.
Without new games I can't keep game IDs synced and thus in the end it screws up lists.
Without user lists, well... Obviously I can't offer 'Import from Barter' and 'Compare with Barter' buttons... -_-