Ethics of datamining on stars?

[stigmata]

This post is in response to certain members of the 2+2 community who are openly datamining PokerStars, despite this being in flagrant breach of their T&C's.

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No it isn't, and to do so is against our terms of service. Datamining of
observed hands is strictly prohibited. Of course, you are permitted to
record hands in which you have actually played.

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I agree with most other people that this rule is slightly pointless, hard to enforce, and they should be concentrating on more important matters.

However, All that we have that seperates us from the scum like RayBornet is the T&C's. If we condone breaking one Term, then it becomes a moral free-for-all.

All I am suggesting is that, as a community, we cannot openly condone breaking any T&C's, and should all make an effort to "toe-the-line" and stick to the T&C's. If we think the rule is wrong, then we should take that matter up with PokerStars rather than breaking it.

[michaelantoi]

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However, All that we have that seperates us from the scum like RayBornet is the T&C's. If we condone breaking one Term, then it becomes a moral free-for-all.

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You're saying someone who is caught speeding is in the same catgory as a murderer?

[punter11235]

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All I am suggesting is that, as a community, we cannot openly condone breaking any T&C's, and should all make an effort to "toe-the-line" and stick to the T&C's. If we think the rule is wrong, then we should take that matter up with PokerStars rather than breaking it.




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I think its not good solution.
There will always be people who will take advantage of it.
Its not that breaking one term is moral free for all.
Breaking some terms is worse than breaking others.
Breaking pointless term in defence of one's chances for fair play is not comparable to breaking terms which allows to gain huge advantage nobody else is getting.

I think we should do whatever we can to stop this situation and try to convince Stars to change their policy on it.
One thing they need to understand is that its impossible to do both :
a)allow to observe hands
b)eliminate datamining

You can make datamining hard but you will never eliminate it if you make it possible to observe hands.

If they wont change their policy my opinion is that we should all datamine because situation where everybody is breaking this particular point of T&C is better than situation where say 10% is breaking it and other 90% not in attempt to stay honest especially when the rule is really pointless (obviously I am not happy with any of them I just think first is better).

[stigmata]

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However, All that we have that seperates us from the scum like RayBornet is the T&C's. If we condone breaking one Term, then it becomes a moral free-for-all.

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You're saying someone who is caught speeding is in the same catgory as a murderer?

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that's not a terribly helpful comment. It's meaningless to translate dataminer=speeder, botter=murderer.

I agree that botting does much more harm than datamining. However, this doesn't refute the point I am making, and does not make breaking T&C's OK.

[stigmata]

The problem here is that these argumants are almost identical to RayBornet's: The T&C's are hard to enforce, everyone else is breaking them, thus you should do it yourself.

[stigmata]

Just like to add that I'm undecided on the issue and put this out their because people need to think about it, and I would like other opinions. I have datamined a little on stars, so I am guilty as the next man and don't profess any moral high-ground here.

[punter11235]

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The problem here is that these argumants are almost identical to RayBornet's: The T&C's are hard to enforce, everyone else is breaking them, thus you should do it yourself.


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Its not the same. It cant be put in general.
Breaking any T&C point is obviously bad but here situation arising from not breaking it is even worse which is not the case with botting or double accounting or stuff like that.

[stigmata]

I'm actually not terribly convinced that datamining has a very big affect on winrate. If you play 50k hands a month you have a very good coverage anyhow. The extra mined hands probably have an an increasingly thin affect on winrate. Especially at higher stakes where issues such as metagame, history and table dynamics are key.

[edit: this could also be used as an argumant that datamining is a non-issue]

[punter11235]

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I'm actually not terribly convinced that datamining has a very big affect on winrate. If you play 50k hands a month you have a very good coverage anyhow. The extra mined hands probably have an an increasingly thin affect on winrate. Especially at higher stakes where issues such as metagame, history and table dynamics are key.

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The thing which convinced me to write to Stars about a month ago about it was that I wanted to save some hands of the best 5kNL players to analyze them.
I was quite upset when they told me its not allowed on their site while I know datamining ALL high stakes games are going and many ppl have access to those hands (which was teh same at Party... but there at least you could datamine yourself).

[magus]

What does stars do if they catch you datamining? (i.e. datamining from the same IP that you play on, not necessarily the same account)