Nothing

[Durf]

Whether or not the authentication system is 'superior' is another debate entirely.
Also, I like how you couldn't answer some of my questions. Completely avoided some.

But in response to your first paragraph, how does such a database or another system, of sorts, change anything? A server owner can do whatever they want.
And I have successfully stopped troublemakers from my "Admin Playground" server. (the only server of mine that gets trouble makers). With a 100% success rate. I can show you how it works if you would like to see.

As I mentioned, the entire range of IPs of a user is given to anyone who requests it from the ISP. Meaning that if you had your range banned, your neighbors wouldn't be affected, only you and any IP you could ever be given by your ISP.
In the case of a proxy service or other range (belonging to a hotel as you suggested) it is the server owner's choice whether or not to ban that range. If the range gets banned it probably serves more good than bad to have it banned. (i.e. trolls use that range often to cause trouble) Most servers owners would do that to keep a server civil.

I wouldn't offer any of my servers for tournaments anyway, none are hosted by me and they are specifically servers that do not already exist. They wouldn't be any good anyway.

Lol saying that it "seems" like I'm a fatalist, then apologizing because I see the world that way is still an assumption. You could have saved yourself if you had said something like, 'sorry if you see the world that way'....
But that's neither here nor there. It's not about how I see the world (but to satisfy your curiosity, I'm quite the opposite of a fatalist) but rather about what I said earlier. "A server owner can do whatever they want. "
And as history shows, "tools" such as this are, in a sense, inevitable since server owners do what they want and since this "tool" idea is a possible thing to do. It is more or less bound to happen and it doesn't need your permission to occur.

The reason why I suggest paranoia, is because the methods these "tools" use are already proven to be safe and effective. Which leaves either a concern for privacy (which is unfounded and based on ignorance) or a concern that you are no longer able to troll without consequences. I cannot think of another reason why you wouldn't want such a "tool" to exist as it has no negative effects to a normal/good tronner. I had given you the benefit of the doubt that you are not a troll, which left me with the first option.


I make so much trouble lol
If I was such a trouble maker, why would I support this? Don't you think I would play under alias, instead of always using "Durf"?
I know why you call me a trouble maker and it is of no concern to me; you are entitled to think what you want.
IMO I think there is a significant number of tronners who would disagree with that assessment.
But it wouldn't concern me even if I was a trouble maker I know that doesn't do any good towards my credibility but frankly it's not about that to me.
I'm just trying to make you realize how pointless it is to complain about something that is already occurring on other servers; just because Light tried to offer it to people who don't have it but could use it (for good as he tried to imply/enforce) doesn't change the existence or use of such "tools".

I guess you can say I am fatalist in the sense that there is nothing you or your opinions could do to have any effect in regards to all the concerns you had about a 'tool' such as described.
Frankly you should still be concerned about all the servers that do it but don't tell you.
So complaining to Light is pointless, he can do what he wants.

[Light]

We already have a system in place to deal with troublemakers. It's called authentication. It was created by the community, for the community, to address problems in the community. It is completely open and documented and no one needs special permission to use it. Users can know if a server has authentication enabled. They have the choice to play in those servers or not. How exactly is keeping a secret database that only a few can access valuable when this superior system is already in place? Since when has banning a serious troublemaker's IP ever stopped that person from causing trouble? No, seriously, when did this person learn their lesson and reform or go away?

You keep bringing up how it would be private, but you won't answer the question asked twice to you now. And since when has auths ever helped in getting rid of someone when they can simply create a new one any time they want. It's a bit more trouble for them to keep finding new proxies. On the other hand, you can use their auth to ban all of their IP's with a tool like this. That would be quite a bit more effective. Using them together.

I used to travel for work all the time. I've been caught up in range bans on a few occasions. Do you know how bloody annoying it is when you are stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere and you just want to play in your favorite server but can't because some admin decided to employ a useless IP ban? I've seen players miss tournaments because the server owner had a range ban in place and couldn't get the IP lifted in time. But hey, if this is how you want to go about doing stuff, fine, but please just don't offer any of your servers for tournaments originating on this forum.

I never said anything about banning IP ranges. Just because he brought it up doesn't mean that's what's being done. I know the problems in range bans, and I would not start with that at all.

It is completely open and documented and no one needs special permission to use it. Users can know if a server has authentication enabled. They have the choice to play in those servers or not.

Since I've already said multiple times it won't be done, you're fighting over an idea. So, bringing up something like this about something that isn't happening now is pretty irrelevant.

// Edit - When he says IP range, I believe he's talking about your IP history, and not the actual range. He says your neighbors won't be affected, so I think it's a bit of not completely understanding the words.

[Light]

Though, Durf brings up a good point. There are tons of other servers that do it. hmmmm let me think of a few. Sine's servers do this as well. It's logging our names and IP's, and it's searchable only to him. He is hosting Ladle servers as well, getting more logs from there. You're doing exactly what you were yelling at me for. In fact, you even have a web page to help you use it quickly.

You say you shouldn't take him seriously about trolling issues because he's a troublemaker. Should we not take you seriously about user lookups since you too are in possession of one secret database of users?

[epsy]

Sine's servers do this as well. It's logging our names and IP's, and it's searchable only to him.

Again, there's the difference, which I can't seem to get across to you. So, for the third time: Going on sinewav's servers lets sinewav see your IP and if he wishes, catalog the actions you did while using it. If you go on any (clearly branded) #armagetron.pickup server, I and the other admins there can see what you're doing from which IP. In the scheme you were presenting, you made it unclear going on (a)which servers let (b)who see that information, and you are still insisting to keep this secret.

[Light]

Again, there's the difference, which I can't seem to get across to you. So, for the third time: Going on sinewav's servers lets sinewav see your IP and if he wishes, catalog the actions you did while using it. If you go on any (clearly branded) #armagetron.pickup server, I and the other admins there can see what you're doing from which IP. In the scheme you were presenting, you made it unclear going on (a)which servers let (b)who see that information, and you are still insisting to keep this secret.

A) Not worth noting because it's only going to cause people trouble when this isn't actually being done.

B) You would have been able to know who. I don't see a problem with that.

C) Didn't really mark it .. but C. I'm only keeping the first secret because of people flipping out. If people didn't get so upset about it, then it wouldn't be worth keeping a secret. And B isn't a secret, but the list hasn't started to begin. You could have seen by the replies in the thread who was getting access.

If you could explain, because I really can't think of a reason. Why would it actually matter which servers' logs were going into this particular one? Every single server is logging the information. I don't see how it makes much of a difference to know which ones are going into this one, when everyone has the ability to do it. Also, I'm not the only person people have shared logs with to make a bigger database. The only thing I did was, unlike the rest of the people that do it, attempt to help others with it and let people know rather than just keeping it a secret and only allowing myself to benefit from it. You guys have only seemed to make being more open about it a bad thing.

[sinewav]

You guys have only seemed to make being more open about it a bad thing.

But you are not being more open about it, you are just being open about its existence. If you really have a good tool that the community can benefit from, give it to the community, fully. This way it can be revised and perfected. The Armagetron community values transparency. Secret this and secret that have no place here. This is the heart of what I've been trying to say which you, and especially the dense one Durf, can't seem to understand. It's not that these tools exist, it is how they are implemented. A database behind closed doors that only a few can use is only helpful to a small group. This is partially why Armagetron's resource repository is fractured. There was one person maintaining it who was slow to address problems so everyone just created their own.

If you really want to be helpful, put more thought into how this database can be accessed by everyone and how to resolve disputes and mistakes. Figure out how to include transparency and oversight. As Durf said, you are free to do what you like. What he didn't say is that there are better ways to do things than others.

[Light]

But you are not being more open about it, you are just being open about its existence. If you really have a good tool that the community can benefit from, give it to the community, fully. This way it can be revised and perfected. The Armagetron community values transparency. Secret this and secret that have no place here. This is the heart of what I've been trying to say which you, and especially the dense one Durf, can't seem to understand. It's not that these tools exist, it is how they are implemented. A database behind closed doors that only a few can use is only helpful to a small group. This is partially why Armagetron's resource repository is fractured. There was one person maintaining it who was slow to address problems so everyone just created their own.

If you really want to be helpful, put more thought into how this database can be accessed by everyone and how to resolve disputes and mistakes. Figure out how to include transparency and oversight. As Durf said, you are free to do what you like. What he didn't say is that there are better ways to do things than others.

I want to thank you for explaining more and attacking less now. It makes it much easier to talk to you.

There's a problem with some things being open source. This is one of them. An ability to modify the database would be a problem, but even worse, it's just its own table in an existing database. From there you could pull user hashes and whatnot for logins, which I couldn't give access to. Although, I could move that over to it's own database and provide its own user, that seems like a big mistake to me to allow people to modify the logs.

The next problem is that the interface for it is not its own thing, but built into my site. It's also not very pretty because it was thrown together and updated parts at a time to keep it going with how it was currently working. That would just need rewritten completely if I were going to show it to someone. lol Also, for it to be of any use, you would have to have the login details for my database, which for the reasons above can't be done at the moment.

Now, there is something else I could do. If people were going to help donate logs to it and whatnot, I could provide an export of the table that people could use and modify as they wish. I'm not sure how great of an idea that is though for the following reason ...

When you say to be open and more public, it sounds like you want it completely public. If I do that, it's going to work against the point of its existence. Trolls could go and (D)DoS attack with your IP and lag you or possibly even cause a disconnection from the server. We can all think of someone who would do this off the top of our heads.

So, I'm not sure completely open is the right choice. I thought maybe only being accessible by a few trusted members of the community would be better. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see making it completely public going over well either. Maybe we could come up with some kind of compromise?

Also, if this were to go more public, I would need to grab permission from a few people. What logs were provided to me were specifically for private use, and not supposed to be given out. I wouldn't throw it into public if they didn't want it to because their donations was a huge part to creating the database.

Oh, and if you're wondering. The database is inaccessible, but it's not deleted as there was a lot of time put into that. I've disabled the page to use it, at least for the time being I guess. I wasn't planning to start it back up, but if there can be some kind of agreement made, maybe it would be worth it. Just wanted to clarify so you didn't think I was lying in previous posts, but I rarely delete work that I've done. Especially when they've taken so long to put together.

So, any ideas on where to go from here?

[sinewav]

So, I'm not sure completely open is the right choice. I thought maybe only being accessible by a few trusted members of the community would be better. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see making it completely public going over well either. Maybe we could come up with some kind of compromise?

Right, this is exactly why ideas like this need to be flushed out in public, since it is essentially for the public. You have to define the parameters of the tool, what is your user base, and what are their needs. And since this is a tool to restrict players from the game (bans are srs biz), you need to solid system to ensure legitimate players don't get caught up in it's web.

Since I personally don't see this tool as terribly useful against the worst perpetrators I don't have much to contribute. Some concerns are: All bans are not equal. Some people deserve stronger bans and others get unfairly baned by badmins. How to determine what is appropriate? Would there be ban-lists to subscribe to? Would they expire periodically? Would they be categorized by security level (example, IPs of players who use modified clients to cause extreme trouble versus some guy who happened to be annoying on the day an admin was in a bad mood)? It would really suck is someone got banned accidentally or unfairly then found himself unable to play in a large swath of servers because of a shared system.

And as I mentioned before, I've been caught in range bans and I've seen this sort of thing get out of hand. If you want the tool to be useful and popular you need to have mechanisms in place to stop overzealous banning. Bans happen when tempers flare and different people have different tempers (as you can see, my temper is short, but in the six years I've been playing I've handed out less than a dozen bans, all of them short).

[Light]

This isn't anything to do with shared bans, unless that was an idea being proposed. All it does is links usernames to IP's. So, any ban made would only be on the server in which the admin banned them. This doesn't give you anything to include into your servers or anything of the sort. It's just to kind of double check who people are before actions are taken.

Besides just banning people, I've used it to make sure people who are they say they are before they get extra permissions or recovered accounts. Of course, that wouldn't be a usual use for most people, it was what I used it for most. There have been times that I've checked on someone who was making trouble, and depending on if they were a usual annoyance or just someone joking around one time, they would get different treatment. Especially if they turned out to be someone you already wanted banned.

Also, I will agree, there are very few times that you need to ban someone for a long time. Usually I ban for 5 or 15 minutes, and sometimes 30 or 60 but that's a bit more rare. When it comes to things like when Swag was messing up tournament servers, I simply threw in an 8675309 ban. My ban lists get deleted anyways periodically, so it's not really to keep them out forever, but just for the remainder of the tournament.

If you were talking about shared ban lists this whole time though, then I can really understand where some of our disagreements and problems were coming from. If that were the case, I would definitely need to have it more public. I don't really see something like that being a whole lot of use though.

My reasons for being against it are pretty basic. I wouldn't want to avoid giving people second chances. So, if it were a list of permanent bans, then I would just be against it. Now, there may be people that at times do need a permanent ban, but that would have to be pretty extremely rare, and I can't think of anyone here, including Swag, that I would ban permanently. Sorry to beat up on Swag, just an easy reference.

Also, we would need it to be put into a script. Since servers would just cache the list, we would need a way for it to periodically update. So, every server we were to use this on would need to be scripted. No, that's not a problem for me since every server I have is set up for scripts, but not everyone is or knows how. I don't know if that's really a reason to stay away from the idea, but it's something that would stand in the way.

If we were to go in the route of a script though, I would think that using a database and web interface would be a cleaner route. You could modify in real time, not have to worry about mistakes in cached files, and it should be faster if the list were to grow to any sort of large list.

I think this is going a little off topic now though. If we were getting into something like that, we would need a way to come up with who should be trusted to host it, and those who should be trusted to have access to it. That would be a lot more of a community thing than I was proposing. What I was trying to offer up is a simple way to help verify who users are for various reasons. It's not nearly 100% accurate, but using your own judgement makes most people easy enough to figure out.

While writing this though, there would be a way to help filter out the bad ones. You could very simply add a column to show whether or not the alias is verified as that person. I guess verifying IP's could be done too, but that would be a bit more of a pain with most people using dynamic IP's. You would just give priority to the verified ones, but still show the rest as there's no way we would verify and filter out all of the good/bad ones. There's just too many, and the list grows way too fast if I were to keep up with it.

At this point, we could split off of the first point of the thread and maybe split off into developing a new idea for the community, or possibly undo a lot of this conversation and get into what the first idea was. Writing scripts to be used for what I've replied about here would be very easy, and could be open source. Yes, there would be a database user if we went with the second idea I wrote about, but we could just give them permission to read what was there so not every single person would have the ability to modify the database. We could have a second user set up to modify, add, and remove users and IP's from the list. It would be a bit of work to come up with something that would work as we want, but I've seen this idea popping up multiple times in the past, so maybe it wouldn't be a terrible idea to come up with something that works? Or, at least the beginning of what something could be.

Open to ideas and suggestions on where we are to go with this conversation.

[pdbq]

Light, you're such a badmin. Why you always gotta be stirring up trouble?

[Light]

Light, you're such a badmin. Why you always gotta be stirring up trouble?

lol <3