ablender
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Post by ablender on Jan 6, 2016 9:29:01 GMT
This is probably going to depend on the browser you use, and the hardware you are running it on. The (script on the) page is =requesting= a refresh every 4 seconds, but that'll only happen if the window in question gets a chance of some CPU time .. not an issue on a quad-core PC (for most browsers) but likely to take forever on some phone or tablets or whatever. With firefox you can turn 'web developer' on and watch the action (or lack thereof) .. on a PC at least. I'm using a desktop PC with an Intel i7 processor, so CPU power/access shouldn't be an issue. But something odd may be going on. My original Firefox window on the Available Loans page still is displaying the £30 PBL006 part. Meanwhile, my newer window pointing to that same page showed the 'All loans are fully funded' message for a while. Then a part of PBL004 -- can't remember whether A or B -- appeared, and then it disappeared on its own and the page went back to displaying the 'All loans are fully funded' message. That might have been triggered by Reload Every, which I turned off in the original window because it would have disturbed my experiment/test, but it did happen quite quickly. Reload Every - can you define please?
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Jan 6, 2016 9:49:47 GMT
I'm using a desktop PC with an Intel i7 processor, so CPU power/access shouldn't be an issue. But something odd may be going on. My original Firefox window on the Available Loans page still is displaying the £30 PBL006 part. Meanwhile, my newer window pointing to that same page showed the 'All loans are fully funded' message for a while. Then a part of PBL004 -- can't remember whether A or B -- appeared, and then it disappeared on its own and the page went back to displaying the 'All loans are fully funded' message. That might have been triggered by Reload Every, which I turned off in the original window because it would have disturbed my experiment/test, but it did happen quite quickly. Reload Every - can you define please? Firefox extension that autorefreshes pages see here
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will
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Post by will on Jan 6, 2016 10:08:07 GMT
Ooooh! Many thanks for that, ilmoro  Something new/else to play with. Any nice bot thingies around, that I can download? Strictly for research purposes ( Looks like that's about my only hope of getting owt on here ) |
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ablender
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Post by ablender on Jan 6, 2016 11:07:15 GMT
Ooooh! Many thanks for that, ilmoro Something new/else to play with. Any nice bot thingies around, that I can download? Strictly for research purposes ( Looks like that's about my only hope of getting owt on here ) I do not think that such extensions can be considered bots. Yes they will refresh the page for you but they will not move to the particular loan page on their own and they will not place a bid for you.
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Jan 6, 2016 11:12:04 GMT
Ooooh! Many thanks for that, ilmoro Something new/else to play with. Any nice bot thingies around, that I can download? Strictly for research purposes ( Looks like that's about my only hope of getting owt on here ) I do not think that such extensions can be considered bots. Yes they will refresh the page for you but they will not move to the particular loan page on their own and they will not place a bid for you. Well, its an automated version of my finger, so depends on how you define 'bots'. That said you are quite correct in that it doesnt bid for me or make sure that Im actually bidding on the right loan on FS rather than the renewal Im already in. Doh! New robotic brain please 
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ablender
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Post by ablender on Jan 6, 2016 11:15:25 GMT
I do not think that such extensions can be considered bots. Yes they will refresh the page for you but they will not move to the particular loan page on their own and they will not place a bid for you. Well, its an automated version of my finger, so depends on how you define 'bots'. That said you are quite correct in that it doesnt bid for me or make sure that Im actually bidding on the right loan on FS rather than the renewal Im already in. Doh! New robotic brain please I was thinking I am on the way of becoming a bot myself. I already have some metal - a few filled teeth although I have to go to the dentist as they are causing me a headache.
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Jan 6, 2016 11:18:04 GMT
You might play with iMacros addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/imacros-for-firefox/As stated this isn't really a bot, but it may be the lowest hanging fruit if you don't need anything too fancy. I have used it in the past for fairly trivial tasks, but it's only really useful as a quick bodge for something you can't be bothered to code properly*. You can probably get it to auto-bid on available loan parts quite easily if you don't care what loan parts you get. *As coders may know, this translates into `will only end up doing half what you really want and will take double the time it would take to code yourself in the end'... |
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benno
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Post by benno on Jan 6, 2016 11:23:27 GMT
There are definitely bots on the SM, I don't think there's much disagreement there. They can't be banned, though. You can quite easily write an automation routine which cannot easily be delineated from a human. Yes... and no. A bot is just "doing what a human does, but faster" - and that, in itself, is a giveaway. Any bot worth running will be easily identifiable from server logs - because it will be refreshing the available loans page constantly and rapidly, in a way no human can sustain. If you really wanted further proof, then you could look for patterns in what that bot was doing when parts came up. That isn't easy though. You need to first study the structure of the different bots you are up against, and construct some sort of classification algorithm which filters real users from (sometimes quite sophisticated) bots. You would need to have an essentially zero false positive rate, as you can't go around banning genuine users for accidentally operating in a way in which your algorithm determines is 'bot like'. Just one false positive ban would probably do more damage to the platform's future than all bots have done cumulatively. On top of this, you would need to maintain and adapt the algorithm over time as the landscape of the bots changes - all whilst maintaining a zero false positive rate. This just isn't feasible, even if Saving Stream added a machine learning expert to their ranks.
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Post by ladywhitenap on Jan 6, 2016 11:37:46 GMT
Yes... and no. A bot is just "doing what a human does, but faster" - and that, in itself, is a giveaway. Any bot worth running will be easily identifiable from server logs - because it will be refreshing the available loans page constantly and rapidly, in a way no human can sustain. If you really wanted further proof, then you could look for patterns in what that bot was doing when parts came up. That isn't easy though. You need to first study the structure of the different bots you are up against, and construct some sort of classification algorithm which filters real users from (sometimes quite sophisticated) bots. You would need to have an essentially zero false positive rate, as you can't go around banning genuine users for accidentally operating in a way in which your algorithm determines is 'bot like'. Just one false positive ban would probably do more damage to the platform's future than all bots have done cumulatively. On top of this, you would need to maintain and adapt the algorithm over time as the landscape of the bots changes - all whilst maintaining a zero false positive rate. This just isn't feasible, even if Saving Stream added a machine learning expert to their ranks. And why should SS bother to detect bots. Provided they are securing enough funding for their loans. They need to ensure 1) that the hit rate is not bringing their servers down 2) the accounting system can cope with ever smaller schrapnell size 3) the cumulative affect of rounding in their calculations are not costing them money and that is about it. LW (who has not even the first idea of how to create a bot!)
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2016 15:25:04 GMT
D*******g and s********m seem to be bots that hoover up all the large sales.
You can't compete with these bots, can you buy a bot package anywhere ? - I think all serious players may need one soon.
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will
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Post by will on Jan 6, 2016 16:21:20 GMT
You missed out m*************3 as another certain "lucky" eversofastfinger, purchaser of £8100-worth
when the most everyone else got was £300.
I'm in the queue for a beat-all bot ....
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Investboy
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Post by Investboy on Jan 6, 2016 16:27:00 GMT
D*******g and s********m seem to be bots that hoover up all the large sales. You can't compete with these bots, can you buy a bot package anywhere ? - I think all serious players may need one soon. Why? Just pre-fund and forget and have some patience.
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ablender
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Post by ablender on Jan 6, 2016 18:14:32 GMT
I cannot understand why people complain about bots with respect to SS's SM. This is not the only place where availability is flying through the screens, sometimes at a speed that does not allow the video card to render it. I have just missed three loans on FS. On MT's SM, I heard many people saying that there are loans available for sale. I do not have experience of most of these (excluding large ones that lasted for a few days). So are all these platforms attracting bots as well? On SS I am fully funded. Not that it takes much for me to be fully funded, but I think that one can find enough on the SM to buy and diversify. Bots, if they are being used, will not really become a problem for a platform unless they threaten its stability and security, something that I am not seeing.
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Post by highlandtiger on Jan 7, 2016 9:30:56 GMT
And why should SS bother to detect bots. Provided they are securing enough funding for their loans. Have you never heard of the phrases, "customer service" or "customer satisfaction" ? The fact that on our poll alone, 86% of SS's customers want a bot free zone, should be something that SS should be listening to, don't you think? 
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littleoldlady
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Post by littleoldlady on Jan 7, 2016 9:38:38 GMT
I interpreted "banned" in the OP question to mean in the SS T&C. Physically stopping them is impossible according to people claiming more expertise than me . Nevertheless IMO they should be banned in the T&C, if for no other reason to stop the notion that SS actually encourage them.
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Something new/else to play with.
