Globally silence users

What do you want to see in Armagetron soon? Any new feature ideas? Let's ponder these ground breaking ideas...
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ROCK
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Globally silence users

Post by ROCK »

I have trouble kicking people off my server, I’m just not that mean, most of the time their only offence is using questionable language. So it would be nice if admins could have a silence user option to silence the user globally on command for some ammount of time, as a sort of minor penance.
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Z-Man
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Post by Z-Man »

IMHO, a warning message, followed by a kick or ban if the player does not stop it, is already a good way to deal with offensive language. But then again, I'm not a server administrator or even a frequent player.
What do the others think? Should this be a feature?
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Lucifer
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Post by Lucifer »

Yes, it should be a feature. :)

Bad players come in several versions:

1. Players that abuse the server (I ip ban them, and there aren't any around that I'm aware of right now)

2. PLayers that abuse other players (they get kicked a lot, but should just be silenced)

3. Players that just drive around without fighting, do a lot of camping, etc. (they usually are allowed to get away with it)

4. Players that are just plain annoying (get into a lot of stupid arguments and nobody ever silences them, they get kicked from time to time, they usually show poor sportsmanship)

I'd like to be able to silence a user for #2 and #4, and I'd also like a vote silence to be setup similar to a vote kick.

I'd also like (after we have authentication) to be able to permanently silence a user and to silence them for awhile but have it persist between logins.

Basically, discipline right now is an all or nothing thing. I'm all for dumping it on the players in a democratic fashion, but right now it's "You act right or get kicked", and players can abuse the system by just coming back. We need more recourse, things like "A vote kick will ban a player for 10 minutes", so when you get vote kicked you can't just come right back and harass the players some more. Vote silence would help if someone's being particularly abusive and the players want to silence him globally to protect newcomers. Then when people do come and they're told someone is silenced they can decide to unsilence that person for themself.

I'd also like to see votes persisted and analyzed in a slashdot-mod-like system, so the more a player gets vote-kicked, the easier it is to vote-kick him in the future. I don't want to see the reciprocal of that, though, where the less a player is vote-kicked the harder it is to vote-kick him.
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Post by ishAdmin »

I think each armagetron installation could self generate a kind of machine id based on harddrive serial numbers and such. (or just use the IP). So you could do these things. Sorry if I'm poking my nose into something I know nothing about. I haven't been paying attention to development stuff for quite a while.
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Post by Lucifer »

ishAdmin wrote:I think each armagetron installation could self generate a kind of machine id based on harddrive serial numbers and such. (or just use the IP). So you could do these things. Sorry if I'm poking my nose into something I know nothing about. I haven't been paying attention to development stuff for quite a while.
Only problem with that, ish, is that a player should reasonably be able to play his account from any machine with different installations of the game. I wouldn't object to a scheme that allowed authentication this way unless it were the only scheme we had, i.e. I still want it to work fairly promiscuously. :)
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Post by ROCK »

well, if we made people register their user names, and somehow kept track of what user name is associated whith which, thier wouldn't be a problem. sorry, I know its the same old tune. :lol:
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microbus
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Post by microbus »

I have a custom-made firewall ban... when I ban a bad user
they don't even see my game server in the master list :D
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microbus
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Post by microbus »

but a silence would be a good thing.. as long as it's possible to keep
them silenced even if they leave and come back...
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ROCK
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Post by ROCK »

well, three people want it, is that enough? :lol: :oops: :?:
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Z-Man
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Post by Z-Man »

I guess so. I'll add it to the database, but can't promise it will be in the next version.
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Self_Destructo
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Post by Self_Destructo »

I'll be a fourth. :wink:
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Phytotron
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Post by Phytotron »

Lucifer wrote:3. Players that just drive around without fighting, do a lot of camping, etc. (they usually are allowed to get away with it)
This probably isn't the topic in which to go off on this tangent, but.... Is it really abuse or kick/ban-worthy if someone comes into a server just to drive around and have fun, and not battle? A person may just want to try new and/or different things, or maze, or roulette, or just generally fool around with their cycle and not be concerned with battling or getting points. (I'm not referring to those who just speed around and run away, or who camp to get the zone.)

I'm "guilty" of all of the above, and I don't think it's a bad thing, necessarily. Most servers only give you points when you core dump someone else, so if one isn't actively battling, it's not likely that they'll get many points anyway (though they may make it more interesting for others, which some may consider a plus).

And in the few servers that do award extra points for surviving a match and/or hitting the winzone (e.g. MBC), well, one, it's the server's own fault for encouraging survival and camping with a scoring system like that...but I myself, if I'm not battling, will deliberately kill myself if and when I'm one of the two remaining players. I think that's just good sportsmanship.

*******

As for having global silencing or banning, my chief concern with that is it could lead to abuse by server admins and remote admins, especially with respect to elitism, favoritism and cliquishness. When it comes to legitimate abuse -- trash talking, excessive obscenity, harrassment, Lucifer's 1, 2 and 4, etc. -- that's fine. As is Lucifer's suggestion in his final paragraph. But there could be, and have been, instances where an individual who is "in" with an admin, or even just the majority of players in a server, can thoroughly misbehave and remain in the game, while someone committing a lesser offense will be kicked.

Just some considerations to think on. :)
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Post by Lucifer »

Oscilloscope wrote:
Lucifer wrote:3. Players that just drive around without fighting, do a lot of camping, etc. (they usually are allowed to get away with it)
This probably isn't the topic in which to go off on this tangent, but.... Is it really abuse or kick/ban-worthy if someone comes into a server just to drive around and have fun, and not battle? A person may just want to try new and/or different things, or maze, or roulette, or just generally fool around with their cycle and not be concerned with battling or getting points. (I'm not referring to those who just speed around and run away, or who camp to get the zone.)
Yeah, I do stuff like that too. :) I would consider it "not very sporting" if there is only one enemy left and the guy keeps doing it. If he needs an emptier grid to do what he's doing, he should set one up. :)

The rule of thumb, near as I can tell, by which you identify camping is this: If players are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the round to end because one of the guys left won't engage the other, then it's camping.

So, applying that rule, then. :) If you want to just wonder around, then when there's only two people left you should either engage the other guy (preferred) or suicide (gets the job done). When the next round starts, pick it back up again.

There seems to be a special case considered when all someone does is 180 on the wall or hug the wall watching people throw themselves at the wall trying to get him. I understand the frustration, and I think there's a point where 180s become excessive, but I think that it is better to just not worry about it. I recall when War Monkey was in a wall-hugging phase that I could kill him by lapping with him. :) He was happy with that because he wanted to do laps, and I was happy with it because I got my point. So sometimes its better to go ahead and play the other guy's game, eh?

When you get right down to it, in any disagreement on how the game should be played, there's two sides. Each side wants the other to play his game. I think a lot of these disagreements could be cleared up if both sides went ahead and tried the other guy's game. Other than that, if people are sitting on the sidelines because you want to screw around, you should stop screwing around so they can play.
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Post by Lucifer »

Oscilloscope wrote: As for having global silencing or banning, my chief concern with that is it could lead to abuse by server admins and remote admins, especially with respect to elitism, favoritism and cliquishness. When it comes to legitimate abuse -- trash talking, excessive obscenity, harrassment, Lucifer's 1, 2 and 4, etc. -- that's fine. As is Lucifer's suggestion in his final paragraph. But there could be, and have been, instances where an individual who is "in" with an admin, or even just the majority of players in a server, can thoroughly misbehave and remain in the game, while someone committing a lesser offense will be kicked.

Just some considerations to think on. :)
:) I've actually noticed breakfast in hell picking up players that feel they were mistreated by admins on other servers. It's interesting.

Anyway, I try to not only be even-handed, but generally let the players decide. Something I've started doing recently on Swampland in 2.7.1, though, is if someone starts up a vote kick for no apparent reason, I vote against it and then start up a retaliatory one. If the reason isn't apparent, it seems like it's usually a personal grudge (although I was playing earlier and this happened and it looked like the guy was just pissed at a player that kept winning and had a 5 point lead over the closest player--a natural frustration, but not one that a vote kick can reasonably solve). There are players who are exceptions to this approach, though, some that I'll kick on sight (not many). There was a player, I forget who, who would just abuse me whenever I was there until I kicked him. After awhile he stopped and just started being cool.

Anyway, in any given group of people, little cliques will develop. That's ultimately how nations are formed. :) My general preference is that if you don't like where you're at, go somewhere else. That's not a rule of life, but it is a good rule for the grid. Ultimately, server settings are of secondary importance. Of primary importance is the group that plays the servers--they're the ones who will ultimately determine if you like playing that server or not.
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