[PMC] My post-meeting points, since it went too long anyway

[WayneByNumbers]

Like many attendees, I had a few questions to bring up in the staff meeting that couldn't be squeezed in, so I thought, what the heck, we have a forum, why not use that?  (WARNING: Wall of Text)

 

I'm posting here in Private Mod Chat (the acronym is now PMC, was that on purpose?) because most of my questions have to do with moderation or technical issues.  A few of you may find these familiar, as some of them have grown out of in-game discussion.  Also, most of them have to do with C, since that's where I spend the most time.

 

1.  Alternate accounts.  Evading a ban via using alt accounts is considered a serious offense, earning a perma-ban on the alt and a ban extension on the primary account.  Flouting one's consequences with one's own alts is bad enough, but one thing that really bothers me is when griefers/trolls use auto-alting clients linked to lists of hacked accounts to jump back on immediately and repeatedly.  Not only is this annoying and disruptive, it is nothing less than identity theft, which is not just an in-game nuisance, it's truly illegal.  I've been throwing out the idea, and those who've heard me seemed to have agreed, that moderators should have access to /alt or some other form of alt detection; as it stands, only those with admin-level permissions are equipped to deal with such offenders, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they're more common than we might think.

 

2.  Banned blocks on C.  The question was recently tossed around in /mb as to why fire was banned, and I couldn't for the life of me come up with an ironclad reason.  The server is very well-equipped to prevent fire from spreading, and even in such rare occasions as plugin update delays (such as the TNT debacle this rev for the 1.5 update), the 1.5 update introduced the /gamerule command, which makes several functions previously left to plugins vanilla, and could at least be a supplementary safeguard when the plugins aren't up to speed.  Most other banned blocks are rather obvious cases, with severe grief/lag potential, but fire seems to have lost its sting.  It does generate sound and particles, but not enough, I would think, to lag either the server or most players; consider the abundance of fire in the Nether for comparison.

 

3.  Rei's Minimap player radar on C.  This has already been enabled on P, and I can't think of any reason not to do so on C as well, which needs as much social encouragement as it can get.  I've already talked to Dumbo52 and Barlimore about this, 2 of the 3 C admins, and I doubt cyotie911 would have anything against it either.  It could even make tailing suspicious players easier.

 

4.  Furnace placement alert on WorldGuard.  Whenever a furnace or burning furnace is placed on C, we get a WG warning, as I'm sure many of you have had the misfortune to experience.  It's true that furnace spam was quite popular for a while (thanks, Avo ), but I've seen hardly any of it in something like a year.  It's been suggested before, but I think the time is ripe for that alert to be retired, or perhaps even updated.  Skull spam is certainly big right now, maybe replace furnace alerts with skulls?

 

5.  /tp requests.  I've noticed a trend in chat where players, especially newer players, become frustrated with the teleport system when they send a /tp request to someone in Ask mode, but that person does not see the request message, and it has to be sent again.  Being a code noob, I've got no idea what's behind that, but it seems to happen frequently enough to warrant attention.

 

6.  Block 124, lit redstone lamp, is still placeable on C, though it seemed people agreed that it would be best if it wasn't (I brought it up as a side note in this discussion about sand and gravel).  Hardly a major issue, just wanted to make sure it wasn't forgotten.  Note: since it can be acquired by Silk Touch in survival, it should remain placeable on S and P.

 

Thoughts on any of these?

[Guest Former Staff]

Thank you for raising these points Wayne, I'll answer all of them but you may find that other people can provide more detailed answers for some of your questions.

 

1.  Alternate accounts.  Evading a ban via using alt accounts is considered a serious offense, earning a perma-ban on the alt and a ban extension on the primary account.  Flouting one's consequences with one's own alts is bad enough, but one thing that really bothers me is when griefers/trolls use auto-alting clients linked to lists of hacked accounts to jump back on immediately and repeatedly.  Not only is this annoying and disruptive, it is nothing less than identity theft, which is not just an in-game nuisance, it's truly illegal.  I've been throwing out the idea, and those who've heard me seemed to have agreed, that moderators should have access to /alt or some other form of alt detection; as it stands, only those with admin-level permissions are equipped to deal with such offenders, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they're more common than we might think.

 

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, it would help to keep a track of people on alternative accounts easier. Upon the other hand I'm concerned that having such a large group of people with access to the alt command it could open up to abuse where people are looking into their friend's alts and such. People can be punished for doing so, but the knowledge of the alt cannot be undone.

 

2.  Banned blocks on C.  The question was recently tossed around in /mb as to why fire was banned, and I couldn't for the life of me come up with an ironclad reason.  The server is very well-equipped to prevent fire from spreading, and even in such rare occasions as plugin update delays (such as the TNT debacle this rev for the 1.5 update), the 1.5 update introduced the /gamerule command, which makes several functions previously left to plugins vanilla, and could at least be a supplementary safeguard when the plugins aren't up to speed.  Most other banned blocks are rather obvious cases, with severe grief/lag potential, but fire seems to have lost its sting.  It does generate sound and particles, but not enough, I would think, to lag either the server or most players; consider the abundance of fire in the Nether for comparison.

 

This suggestion sits uncomfortably with me as I can only imagine builds completely covered in fire and in large enough quantities in such a condensed area can cause a bit of lag. I can see fire becoming the new 'spam' block.

 

3.  Rei's Minimap player radar on C.  This has already been enabled on P, and I can't think of any reason not to do so on C as well, which needs as much social encouragement as it can get.  I've already talked to Dumbo52 and Barlimore about this, 2 of the 3 C admins, and I doubt cyotie911 would have anything against it either.  It could even make tailing suspicious players easier.

 

As we discussed, I'm happy with this suggestion. I recall that all creative admins are happy with this, unless I imagined conversations with Cyotie and Dumbo. ^^ We'll need a Tech Admin to "flip the switch" for this.

 

4.  Furnace placement alert on WorldGuard.  Whenever a furnace or burning furnace is placed on C, we get a WG warning, as I'm sure many of you have had the misfortune to experience.  It's true that furnace spam was quite popular for a while (thanks, Avo ), but I've seen hardly any of it in something like a year.  It's been suggested before, but I think the time is ripe for that alert to be retired, or perhaps even updated.  Skull spam is certainly big right now, maybe replace furnace alerts with skulls?

 

I feel that it is relevant to post a link to the relevant github issues both here and here. I'm all for removing this world guard warning on both /i 61 & 62. We can use logblock commands to trace furnace edits and avoid this unpleasant message appearing for us when the majority of the time they are legitimate placements.

 

5.  /tp requests.  I've noticed a trend in chat where players, especially newer players, become frustrated with the teleport system when they send a /tp request to someone in Ask mode, but that person does not see the request message, and it has to be sent again.  Being a code noob, I've got no idea what's behind that, but it seems to happen frequently enough to warrant attention.

 

I presume this lies entirely with communication. People need to ask before sending a teleport request so that their request is noticed. I know that when someone requests to teleport to me by asking first, I start typing up /tpallow and looking for their request.

 

6.  Block 124, lit redstone lamp, is still placeable on C, though it seemed people agreed that it would be best if it wasn't (I brought it up as a side note in this discussion about sand and gravel).  Hardly a major issue, just wanted to make sure it wasn't forgotten.  Note: since it can be acquired by Silk Touch in survival, it should remain placeable on S and P.

 

We can use /removenear redstone_lamp_off to remove these blocks however I am concerned that these blocks are not recorded in logblock. If griefers were aware of this we could have the map quickly fill up with these blocks and with no way to easily fix this. Sorry that this was not banned sooner, I'll look into it with our Tech Admins.

 

Edit: Block 124 is now banned and cannot be placed by players.

[MasterCommaThe]

I agree with all of Wayne's requests.

 

Since Barlimore was unsure on points 1 and 2, I'd like to throw in my two cents:

 

1. The issue with abusing the .alt command for personal use different than any other mod power since, as you pointed out, the "damage" cannot be undone if it were abused. So your issue is that the loss potential is more severe than normal mod responsibility. I counter that as an IRC only command this command is much more easily police-able as running it shows the command to the entire staff on IRC. Perhaps this could be tempered by scripting a moderator-alt (.malt haha) command that does not work on any staff.

 

2. I recognize that fire could cause lag in large amounts, much like torch spammed areas do. I think I've recommended having WorldGuard report fire placement if it is unbanned. Spam with fire is otherwise no different than spam with any other object, and its popularity only makes it a honeypot for catching griefers with WG reporting the placement. This can only be a good thing IMO.

[Guest Former Staff]

I counter that as an IRC only command this command is much more easily police-able as running it shows the command to the entire staff on IRC. Perhaps this could be tempered by scripting a moderator-alt (.malt haha) command that does not work on any staff.

 

Regarding this, when you have run an alt check from the staff IRC channel, it opens up a new channel to show you the results. You can continue to search alts within this channel, out of the view of staff. (I imagine it is logged still)

 

I think the privacy for anyone's alt account, should this wish it to remain secret should be kept this way, not just for staff alts. I'm sorry that wasn't clear on this prior. I'm going to quote from the rules regarding alt accounts just to be clear that I'm not trying to debate something that is already within the rule list.

 

We are not in the business of protecting players' alt accounts - but if a player has made it clear that they don't want their alt accounts publicized, then you need to respect that. Taunting players with the names of their alt accounts, particularly if those players have made it clear that they are uncomfortable with this, will be treated as harassment.

 

 

Spam with fire is otherwise no different than spam with any other object, and its popularity only makes it a honeypot for catching griefers with WG reporting the placement.

 

This would be an interesting use. I'd be interested to see further feedback on this.

[MasterCommaThe]

I just saw a fire spammer, through warnings. Such an easy catch.

 

Are we going to wait a little while before removing fire from the banned items at spawn?

[buzzinbee]

I like the idea of having fire unbanned on creative. Thinking about the alts check i'm also quite split there have been many occasions where i've needed to find the alts of a certain player and had to get into irc to find an admin to check which takes a long time when drama is getting brought about in chat. Yet I still think it does open a lot of potential for abuse, maybe if we monitor it and come down really hard on this sort of abuse? 

[schererererer]

I say we can always try implementing fire with wg alerts for a over certain number of them placed. We can always roll it back if it doesn't pan out. The biggest concern with them is clientside lag from all the particles and animated flames. The most pressing problem would then be for a griefer to spam fire while no staff are online to witness wg alerts.

Concerning alts check, I'm now opposed to allowing mods to use it. We already have stringent oversight and relatively severe penalties for other forms of mod abuse, yet people still do it. Combine this with leaks of modchat/mod irc channel to non-mods and you have a recipe for various people having de facto access to alts check.

[totemo]

Just a little caveat about .alts: it's not 100% reliable.  For my name, it turns up totemo and literally 10 other names that I have no connection with, who probably use my ISP.

[WayneByNumbers]

Well, it seems things are narrowing quickly, by far the most controversial idea I've brought up is the alt stuff, which frankly comes as no surprise to me.  I don't play with any alts, so I can't really judge how traumatic or not it can be to have one's alt names revealed; I assume that's widely variable person-to-person.

 

While I certainly understand, and pretty much agree with, the concerns that have been raised about uncertainty and the potential for abuse, I'm still of the opinion that auto-alting is something that we should perhaps be addressing more than we currently are.  LadyCailin's new command, /mbg, is definitely a help in this regard (making it easier to grab admins from other servers), but since the admin team is smaller and busier in general than the mods, there are still limitations on how effectively ban evaders can be dealt with.

 

If giving mods /alt permission is too risky (as it well may be), does anybody have any ideas to throw out there what we could do to better equip the staff in general to deal with this problem?  For instance, should mods simply request admin involvement more often?

[Tharine]

Honestly, feel free to bug us to do an alts check via IRC. It's one command and takes at most maybe 5 seconds of our time. For me personally, if i'm in-game or in Mumble, i'm also in IRC and you're welcome to poke me for an alts check whenever.

[MasterCommaThe]

I've only recently started IRC'ing, so about a month ago I would have asked if it was acceptable to make a modreq for an alt check and elevate it? This may still be relevant to other mods, so I ask it anyway.

[Guest Former Staff]

I've only recently started IRC'ing, so about a month ago I would have asked if it was acceptable to make a modreq for an alt check and elevate it? This may still be relevant to other mods, so I ask it anyway.

 

If you can't reach an admin on IRC regarding this, while on creative, feel free to modreq and elevate.

[MasterCommaThe]

Cool.