BnetDocs improvements

[iago]

From www.urbandictionary.com:
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wiki
"wih - kee" Click once to rate this definition:  

Wiki refers to what I have just done in this sentence, which is to add a definition of the word wiki.

Hey! Let's add a definition of the word "wiki"!!
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Note that urbandictionary.com lets anybody post definitions

[Camel]

It sucks, I know. I seem to be having bad luck recently. Every time I've gotten things stable something else has broken. I've now started over, things are installed, everything seems good. The site should be ok now. It might go down breifly when I have to restart the server or whatnot, but other than that, it should be fine.

If you need a mirror just ask; my server is plenty stable.

[c0ol]

<begin rant>
how about you make it so that you dont have to be in a selected social group to get all the information? im afraid the all too common trend of making things /private/ just because you can has gone too far.  Some things, although i dont agree with their privateness, can justify it in atleast a small way (BNLS falls under this category).  But bnet docs is a collection of otherwise scattered information that is for the most part publicly available, but the site doesnt reflect this.  It doesnt disclose the original source, and IMO worst of all it categorizes information by whom Arta thinks deserves to see it.  I personally do not support this sillyness, and i encourage many of you to do the same.
<end rant>

[Arta]

1. It DOES disclose the source. Check the Credits page.

2. You do not have to be in a 'selected social group' to access the information. Anyone is free to register an account and read.

3. Some - in fact, a lot - of the information is not displayed publicly because that was the wish of the original source.

4. You base your rant on the assumption that I created the site in order to promote the free sharing of information. I did not. Not entirely, anyway. I value the process of self-discovery, of analysis and understanding, and true understanding comes from getting your hands dirty, not from having all the information supplied to you on a silver platter - *especially* if you're a beginner. My purpose in creating the site was to provide enough information for people to get started, to get a basic understanding of BNCS and related protocols. From that stage, people are better equipped to find more information themselves. I got sick of people saying, to complete newbies, 'reverse engineer it and/or use a packetlogger'. I guarantee that most of the time the only words in that sentence a complete newbie would understand are 'it', 'and', 'or', 'use', and 'a'. What use is that? I wanted to give people a helping hand. It's of no help to anyone to give a beginner a packet format and a leaked packetbuffer class and say, 'go make a bot'. They might very well succeed, but they'll probably have very little understanding of the processes they're using.

The rest of the information that may or may not be on the site is there purely for my convinience, and is shared at my discretion. You should consider the two to be completely unrelated. They may as well be separate websites.

Edit: This reminded me to update the credits page to include contributions of content from Spht & Kane. Sorry for my forgetfulness

[TeamProx]

Why not post who contributed what, on the document that they contributed on, instead of just the credits page? it would be nice to know who to ask for help with certain packets!

Also, why hide the WarCraft 3 login packets, when they're plainly visible on the BNLS specification?

[tA-Kane]

Why not post who contributed what, on the document that they contributed on, instead of just the credits page? it would be nice to know who to ask for help with certain packets!

I'd say for reasons exactly like that? I wouldn't want to be bothered by someone asking for help, when everything you need to know is right there in the document.

Also, why hide the WarCraft 3 login packets, when they're plainly visible on the BNLS specification?

Perhaps because the variables in those packets are unknown, except by a select few who'd rather not give away the meanings of?


BnetDocs is a great thing, but it doesn't need to be all decked out with useless information. Being straight and to the point is one of the nicer things of BnetDocs. Sure, it could use some improvements... sure, it could have some better wordings, but if you don't like it, there's a link on virtually every page, just for you to contribute what you think, and Arta is doing just fine of running it all by himself (at least seemingly, if it's untrue)... though it would've been nice to have a backup SQL server running when he went away for that while...

[TeamProx]

I'd say for reasons exactly like that? I wouldn't want to be bothered by someone asking for help, when everything you need to know is right there in the document.

n00b. Just because you know how to use the information given to you, doesn't mean that others do.

Perhaps because the variables in those packets are unknown, except by a select few who'd rather not give away the meanings of?

So? Just because they're unknown, doesn't mean others wouldn't like to contribute...

BnetDocs is a great thing, but ...

My point exactly.

[Kp]

I'd say for reasons exactly like that? I wouldn't want to be bothered by someone asking for help, when everything you need to know is right there in the document.

n00b. Just because you know how to use the information given to you, doesn't mean that others do.

I have contributed some material to BnetDocs in the past (don't remember if Arta made it public, but it's in there); however, I have absolutely no desire to interactively provide support on any of the things I put in.  I put it in there so people could look it up without asking me!  That's what Kane is getting at, I think.

Perhaps because the variables in those packets are unknown, except by a select few who'd rather not give away the meanings of?

So? Just because they're unknown, doesn't mean others wouldn't like to contribute...

Your remark here seems to make no sense.  Those who know aren't telling, so who's going to contribute the right answer...?

[iago]

BNetDocs is very useful.  It's great for giving me a rough outline of what to expect rather than to have to figure everything out myself.  It saves me all kinds of time by giving me a quick reference to look up, and I think that everybody should appreciate that.

Go Arta!

[TeamProx]

I don't dispute that, iago... but it's hard to have a complete reference to go by if the reference isn't,... well, complete, at least, not for all people.

I have contributed some material to BnetDocs in the past (don't remember if Arta made it public, but it's in there); however, I have absolutely no desire to interactively provide support on any of the things I put in.  I put it in there so people could look it up without asking me!  That's what Kane is getting at, I think.

Oh... but if anyone has troubles with what you posted, who would they ask for help?

So? Just because they're unknown, doesn't mean others wouldn't like to contribute...

Your remark here seems to make no sense.  Those who know aren't telling, so who's going to contribute the right answer...?

Can't people post what they think about a packet and figure out the packet on their own? Perhaps if they see that there's a packet which isn't totally understood, they will want to try to find out what it's used for and contribute their results?

[DarkMinion]

c0ol, you got reamed on this one  

[Arta]

So nice when other people do the arguing for you!  

[Adron]

Oh... but if anyone has troubles with what you posted, who would they ask for help?

They would ask someone else. By posting what info he did post, he has done you a great service. If this will cause you to expect additional services from him that will greatly inconvenience him, then I say they have done the right thing. They are trying their best to stop you from pestering/harrassing him with questions.

Note to Arta: Ensure that TeamProx never gets access to information submitted by members who don't want to spend their lives as TeamProx's free tech support.

[Arta]

Noted.

However: TeamProx registered at BnetDocs 2 hours before his first post. He stared at the homepage for 3.4 minutes before looking at PACKET_BOTNETVERSION for an indeterminate length of time and then leaving. He hasn't been back. Thus, I conclude that TeamProx won't be a problem. It's nice to know that he gained such an in-depth opinion in the 5-ish minutes he spent on the site.

[Adron]

how about you make it so that you dont have to be in a selected social group to get all the information?

Gogo get a Hauppauge PVR-350 and help me write better drivers for it! All my current sources for that are freely available at the vl.com CVS!