Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmXinu
I prefer not to draw attention in case they try and block us.  |
If I recall correctly their guidelines didn't explicitly forbid the usage of such scripts... or well they could be interpreted in several ways. For example:
- C. You agree not to access User Submissions (defined below) or FanFiction.Net Content through any technology or means other than the Website itself.
- E. You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, "robots," "spiders," or "offline readers," that accesses the Website in a manner that sends more request messages to the FanFiction.Net servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser.
C: Lemon or the FanFictionDownLoader Calibre plugin in fact does access the content over the website (by sending a HTTP request, not for example somehow accessing the underlying databases) so in a loose sense they are also browsers and simply display content out of their "cache" which is saved locally and E: Calibre only uses one thread to retrieve content as far as I know -- thus it doesn't fall into the categorization "'robots', 'spiders', or 'offline readers',
that accesses the Website in a manner that sends more request messages to the FanFiction.Net servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser." I could potentially just open every single chapter within a short amount of time and read them by changing tabs.
Well I'm probably too naive judging this though, so not drawing attention is the best course of action I assume. I once sent them an e-mail regarding Lemon and explained to them that it wouldn't cause much more stress on their servers if the users didn't change the number of concurrent threads to something insane and that I would continue interpreting the terms in the way I just explained unless they told me to stop or further clarified their terms of service: they never answered -- so I don't really feel bad about it.
Also Jimm: I really like the current Count Pages plugin integration, but is it possible to call the plugin in such a way that it automatically applies the metadata without additionally having to confirm the dialogue that pops up?