Lobby server, IP bans, and general player management.

[==Troy==]

O really? do you seriously think people are banned per server on Q3 stuff? No. I will tell you how it works, most server admins (read: 99% ) are a member of some admin alliance, they have a ban list, and if there's proof that x cheats he gets ip banned. On all those servers.

And lol, admins ban if they want to ban, if banned people want to play they should start their own server...

not 99%, from the servers I know in Q3, and I was adminning a server myself, max about 20% are those, or 40% active ones, and even then players still have a choice.

[Pressure Line]

Problem is that what I heard was that mods/devs can ban people for griefing or misbehaviour on hosts, which I find partially wrong.

The only people who are on permenant server bans are people whose behavior disrupts the smooth operation of the Spring lobby server community on a recurring basis (spamming channels/pm, rascism etc etc) and only as a last recourse after warnings and short-term bans. I dont see why having a moderation team that is capable of banning people for violating the lobby server terms of use is 'wrong.'

Yes a moderator *could* go nuts and start permabanning people for no reason, but they would quickly have their powers removed and the bans lifted.

If I want a host with my rules, which can go against the rules of the mods.

If you want to host a game where ally d-gunning and combombing is the 'normal' behavior go right ahead, no-one is going to stop you. Such behavior would NOT be considered disruptive in that context. Same applies for 'build-time' (where you all agree to not attack for 15 [or whatever you choose] minutes)

You as the host have the power to kick players who don't follow any 'special' host rules, and thats cool too, no moderator is ever going to turn around and say "you can't do that"


To be completely and brutally honest: I do not see what exactly the problem you have with the current system is, if there is a problem with a specific member of the moderation team, report them and it will be dealt with.

Remember that the SY's OWN the server, anyone who runs a server without reserving the right and ability to restrict access to that server needs their head examining.

[Forboding Angel]

If spring went to a feeallegiance style system you can count me out, I'll host my own server for Evo in that event.

FA is people vs trolls taken to the most extreme level possible, and a great game is stifled because of it. No thanks.

[Teutooni]

What we need are "Peet sucks" and "unban me plzzz" subforums.

[Hoi]

Every account that uses the word "peet" or "unban" in it's first post should get automaticly ipbanned.

[BaNa]

What we need are "Peet sucks" and "unban me plzzz" subforums.

I was under the impression "Peet sucks" is one of the axioms we base our community upon. No need for a subforum, this morsel of truth is in the source code of the game we all play.

[lurker]

It uses a goto for peet's sake.

[SwiftSpear]

Speaking of steam, they do not ban for griefing or poor play, or not being able to understand the server's rules. The main bans are for proven cheating, which, in spring (although easy to do) at the moment is not a problem.

You don't hear a huge amount about it. But steam will ban for harassment, use of their services for any illegal activity, attempting to steal other people's accounts, and spreading inappropriate material over the steam friends pages.

It's not "just cheats"

"griefing" is a bit subjective. All CS servers will ban for intentional team killing of your allies, most of them have automated systems in place to deal with it actually. In Source Forts, we had that issue magnified greatly. Ripping down the fort your team had produced was extremely destructive to the gameplay, in some cases wasting blocks was a huge detriment, in a few instances it was possible to weld a block in place, or stand in such a way that teammates could not exit spawn. This was much less hardware traceable than friendly fire violations, and somewhat more subjective. Ultimately, we solved the problem to a large degree by having a huge number of servers ally and effectively share their ban list.

The point I'm getting at, is systems aren't arbitrarily "correct" or "best". It depends on the context. Spring administration will be the first to admit that our current system isn't exactly what we want, but neither is quake's system verbatim, nor steams system verbatim. We have a design in place for what we want, and we're moving towards that. The release of a stable uberserver client will be the first step, but there will be other steps in the future as well.

[REVENGE]

It uses a gota for peet's sake.

I'm a little confused as to exactly what the OP wants vs what the admins believe to be reasonable, but I will support the following:

1. Admins can ban players from chatting in channels or ban attackers from attempting to compromise the security of the server or any player. Otherwise, they should not take any action based on ingame activity.

2. Lobby clients and autohosts should have the ability to do account based bans of players (as opposed to username based banning). The host should have complete and un-moderated control of who can play in their game how.

Summary: admins and mods ONLY moderate the channel and server, hosts ONLY moderate their games and autohosts.

[==Troy==]

It uses a gota for peet's sake.

I'm a little confused as to exactly what the OP wants vs what the admins believe to be reasonable, but I will support the following:

1. Admins can ban players from chatting in channels or ban attackers from attempting to compromise the security of the server or any player. Otherwise, they should not take any action based on ingame activity.

2. Lobby clients and autohosts should have the ability to do account based bans of players (as opposed to username based banning). The host should have complete and un-moderated control of who can play in their game how.

Summary: admins and mods ONLY moderate the channel and server, hosts ONLY moderate their games and autohosts.

You got my point exactly right, thanks. And from the words of pressureline, I would say that its not a big problem anyway at the moment, all it needs is to allow hosts to see IP of the player.

[aegis]

no, because the lobby server can track bans...

[Jish]

I'm a little confused as to exactly what the OP wants vs what the admins believe to be reasonable, but I will support the following:

1. Admins can ban players from chatting in channels or ban attackers from attempting to compromise the security of the server or any player. Otherwise, they should not take any action based on ingame activity.

2. Lobby clients and autohosts should have the ability to do account based bans of players (as opposed to username based banning). The host should have complete and un-moderated control of who can play in their game how.

Summary: admins and mods ONLY moderate the channel and server, hosts ONLY moderate their games and autohosts.

You got my point exactly right, thanks. And from the words of pressureline, I would say that its not a big problem anyway at the moment, all it needs is to allow hosts to see IP of the player.

this is not true i've been banned for ingame stuff lots of times

[Neddie]

Primarily because you've compromised games hosted by others for numerous people. At a certain level, game issues become server issues, and we will take action if it seems necessary. Somebody who ruins games for many people regularly, on many hosts, particularly somebody who switches IP, is no longer a host issue.

[Beherith]

Primarily because you've compromised games hosted by others for numerous people. At a certain level, game issues become server issues, and we will take action if it seems necessary. Somebody who ruins games for many people regularly, on many hosts, particularly somebody who switches IP, is no longer a host issue.

+1 to my postcount

[==Troy==]

Primarily because you've compromised games hosted by others for numerous people. At a certain level, game issues become server issues, and we will take action if it seems necessary. Somebody who ruins games for many people regularly, on many hosts, particularly somebody who switches IP, is no longer a host issue.

Exactly for this case I would still like to see a global banlist, but do give a choice for the host to not use it. (default setting is to use it). REVENGE has compressed my post into 2 points, which I completely agree with, and want to propose.

This sort of post though shows that what pressureline said is not very true amongst the moderators, and it is what I was saying about the team members changing and changing their opinions on what is bannable offence and what is not.

[SwiftSpear]

It uses a gota for peet's sake.

I'm a little confused as to exactly what the OP wants vs what the admins believe to be reasonable, but I will support the following:

1. Admins can ban players from chatting in channels or ban attackers from attempting to compromise the security of the server or any player. Otherwise, they should not take any action based on ingame activity.

2. Lobby clients and autohosts should have the ability to do account based bans of players (as opposed to username based banning). The host should have complete and un-moderated control of who can play in their game how.

Summary: admins and mods ONLY moderate the channel and server, hosts ONLY moderate their games and autohosts.

That's effectively the current system, with the exception of harrassment and illegal activity. We've grown into punishing users for very specific ingame transgressions simply because host based banning is SOOO crappy in the current spring lobby systems, but I'd like to phase that out as much as possible.

In a few cases "x player waited until his allies had constructed a base and won thier first few battles to bomb his comm in their base and actively sabotage the game for his allies" we might view certain behaviors as symptomatic of general harassment of players. We'll continue to prevent access of players who clearly and abundantly indicate that they are little more than griefers, of similar vein to the myg0t movement for example. However, there's WAY too much grey area in the current system. "X player sees that the game is over because his ally is fudging around and his front is already breached, so rather than postpone the game for however long it takes to clean up his porced ally he ally bombs his allies base so the game can restart much sooner". Many game hosts would ban from that, but others would be completely sympathetic to it. Who's side should spring administration be on? "X clan is waiting for one more member to join, but the other team forcestarts without that member so the ingame members of X clan choose to ally bomb to force the game to exit so their buddy can join" Once again, most hosts would probably ban for that, but maby the host is a fan of X clan, should spring administration act against X because some of the players were pissed off, even though the game host was in agreement with their actions?

We want to work towards the state where we can leave the gray area entirely to game hosts. If I don't like playing with Sleksa because he commbombs alot, then fine, I can ban him from my server. Spring administration never has any good reason to have to hear anything about it. The fault of the current system is that right now the system does not protect game hosts, and so spring administration, to keep things running and pleasant, steps in and acts on their behalf. Simply put, the system needs to be improved to protect game hosts both to make our jobs easier, and to make the community a generally more tolerant and open place. It doesn't matter of X doesn't like you, you can still play with Y and you and X can stay away from eachother without really ever annoying anyone else in spring. It doesn't work like that right now, but it should.

[Neddie]

My post was merely representative of a more complex, nuanced view. It is not indicative of any inconsistency, nor any change among the moderation staff.

If hosts and players across many hosts identify a multi-host problem which is detrimental to the community, this problem threatens the server itself. It is not a form of code attack but rather a social attack, and we will deal with it when hosts prove unable to do so, as we have in the past. Hopefully the increased powers granted to hosts will make this sort of decision less common or possibly unnecessary as Swift hopes, though there are few enough actions taken of this sort already. No ban generated for such reasons has been pursued by a single moderator or administrator, and none have stood without the support of the general moderation team. Members may not argue individually for it, but they support it in action.

Allowing hosts to opt out of the global banlist defeats the purpose of a global banlist, and directly compromises the maintenance of the community and the protection of players. You are entitled to your option, but it does not take into account all available information.

[REVENGE]

What I'm trying to say is that if you strengthened the ban abilities of clients and autohosts, admins and mods won't need to concern themselves with ingame behavior at all.

[Neddie]

I understand that, and I agree.

[SwiftSpear]

What I'm trying to say is that if you strengthened the ban abilities of clients and autohosts, admins and mods won't need to concern themselves with ingame behavior at all.

We've been wanting to do that for a long time. Uberserver has the mechanics in place for it.