XML data mining

We really don't want people crawling html content to farm data. Although the character and guild APIs aren't out yet, trying to farm data from World of Warcraft community site profile pages could result in your web server getting blacklisted.

Edited for brevity.

05/16/2011 11:15 AMPosted by Pendergrass

in my opinion

Neat.

I get confused, if we break the rule we get blacklisted, but the rules aren't very clear. All the guy is doing is asking for a definition of the rule... we all know there's other servers doing it (wowprogress, guildox, etc.) so it's not like Blizzard is trying to discourage this type of mining, as the "new" api isn't even out yet.

Trying to nail down a policy that we can communicate regarding how, when and from where data can be collected is a top priority of mine.

Take some comfort in knowing that regardless of who it is, people who farm data in a way that becomes noticeable get banned indiscriminately.

05/16/2011 02:51 PMPosted by Turtoth

Wait...then shouldn't GuildOx and Wow-heroes, and other such sites get banned from the armory? How is what they're doing right and some other person doing it wrong? Or am I misunderstanding what exactly is going on here?

This thread is starting to go off topic, so I'm going to lock it.

Not to deflect your question though: Yes, from time to time some of the larger fan sites have faulty code or do something that shows up on our radar and they get blacklisted. Since I didn't say it earlier, being blacklisted usually isn't permanent. For the most part is a way for us to help with damage control by showing you that something is wrong (wrong enough for us to notice) and to get you back on track.