Terrible idea. I told you this before, I'll tell you this now.
This should be handled on a per server basis. Servers without a strong, consistent admin presence will slowly die, servers with a structured authority will prevent hackers and trolls and continue to grow. No need for anything else.
Personally, I think we should be as specific as possible with the ban tag as possible rather than just sticking with only a few general reasons. For example, rather than 'hacking' it should be something like 'speed hacking' or 'aimbot' or 'wall hack', etc.
I like the idea of being more descriptive but what about ye old "multi hack"?
Saying aimbot, wallhack, speedhack etc is a little outdated and a lot of hacks offer a range of different options to the end user.
Another line it appears is being crossed is the line that you aren't just banlisting hackers/cheaters, but "Trolls". You should be cautious that everyone's definition of 'troll' varies, and often two people having a legitimate conflict label one another as trolls. Adding 'trolling' to the 'ban list' is an incredibly poor idea, as it is opening a massive pandora's box of grey areas.
It's one thing to try to draft a board of qualified people to determine cheaters/hackers, it's a whole different thing to draft a board of people reviewing people's personalities and casual communicative exchanges over the internet, possibly resulting in one or both parties being forever barred from playing on any number of servers.
If the perception of "trolling" is to be in the 'list of offenses', I think this project has effectively put itself into a place no right-minded admin would ever go, and neutered its own potential before being out of the gate.
Cheating is definitely on the rise, I met a player yesterday who moved very ineptly, but was hitting everything very fast. I have seen actual comp players both on record and ingame, and you know them immediately by the way they move - they are constantly evading, like flies in the air, and you recognize their superior positioning in anticipation of encounters.
The cheaters move like newbies, only they hit things fast and immediately an opportunity arises.
Be aware that they often take names of famous players to discourage being challenged.
Another line it appears is being crossed is the line that you aren't just banlisting hackers/cheaters, but "Trolls". You should be cautious that everyone's definition of 'troll' varies, and often two people having a legitimate conflict label one another as trolls. Adding 'trolling' to the 'ban list' is an incredibly poor idea, as it is opening a massive pandora's box of grey areas.
It's one thing to try to draft a board of qualified people to determine cheaters/hackers, it's a whole different thing to draft a board of people reviewing people's personalities and casual communicative exchanges over the internet, possibly resulting in one or both parties being forever barred from playing on any number of servers.
If the perception of "trolling" is to be in the 'list of offenses', I think this project has effectively put itself into a place no right-minded admin would ever go, and neutered its own potential before being out of the gate.
Respectfully Submitted,
Colt
Colt I agree for the most part with you. Common BS trolling is not what this list was designed for - at all. I am very hesitant and I think the other admins are to including "trolling". There are players, who's main goal has been to ruin as many games as possible and let's face fact, it's really not that hard to ruin a game if your hell bent on doing so.
Where I stand at the moment is focusing on cheating.
Hiding the "reason" in the submission from the people reviewing the video is an interesting idea.
I figured I just whip up a ns2bans server-plugin as an excuse to check out the mod loading in the new framework. It should be compatible with every mod out there. So here you go.
Edit: Removed to avoid confusion on the Workshop.
Now to get this working all you ( @ma$$a$$ter ) need to do is make a teeny-tiny API for it to send request to and it's good to go... probably. It has not been tested for more than a few minutes on a local server.
From http://ns2bans.com/api/bans/[ns2id], return a json string consisting of the ns2id (an integer) and whether it's banned or not (a bool).
So for example, a player with the ns2id 12345 joins. The server plugin sends a GET request to http://ns2bans.com/api/bans/12345 and the webserver checks the database and returns:
{
"id":12345,
"banned":false
}
...and that's all there is to it.
Edit: Oh, and btw, when I signed up you mailed me my password. Don't ever do that.
All this transparency and anonymity talk is silly. I am currently one of the admins. I have been involved in comp level FPS for close to 10 years so I do feel that I can spot blatant hacking.
My own thoughts on the subject:
I personally will never vote to get someone banned unless it is blatant hacking. Like Colt, I am against the whole 'trolls being banned' idea. Local server admins can take care of that. As for the number of admins required to ban, maybe 5 might be a better number.
Until a better anti-cheat client is released for NS2, I feel that this is a great way to help keep our community servers a bit cleaner.
Another line it appears is being crossed is the line that you aren't just banlisting hackers/cheaters, but "Trolls". You should be cautious that everyone's definition of 'troll' varies, and often two people having a legitimate conflict label one another as trolls. Adding 'trolling' to the 'ban list' is an incredibly poor idea, as it is opening a massive pandora's box of grey areas.
It's one thing to try to draft a board of qualified people to determine cheaters/hackers, it's a whole different thing to draft a board of people reviewing people's personalities and casual communicative exchanges over the internet, possibly resulting in one or both parties being forever barred from playing on any number of servers.
If the perception of "trolling" is to be in the 'list of offenses', I think this project has effectively put itself into a place no right-minded admin would ever go, and neutered its own potential before being out of the gate.
Respectfully Submitted,
Colt
That's why I support very detailed descriptions/tags of the offenses for each ban. You could then let each server operator select with ban tags they want to include in their server list (e.g. some will only care about bans tagged with cheating or hacking, while others might want to include trolling, racism, etc).
However, as first measure to build community confidence in the system, I think only clear cases of hacking and/or cheating should be banned. Maybe we can include a warned/watched tag for anyone whose been tagged with something that isn't considered a bannable offense?
I figured I just whip up a ns2bans server-plugin as an excuse to check out the mod loading in the new framework. It should be compatible with every mod out there. So here you go.
Now to get this working all you ( @ma$$a$$ter ) need to do is make a teeny-tiny API for it to send request to and it's good to go... probably. It has not been tested for more than a few minutes on a local server.
From http://ns2bans.com/api/bans/[ns2id], return a json string consisting of the ns2id (an integer) and whether it's banned or not (a bool).
So for example, a player with the ns2id 12345 joins. The server plugin sends a GET request to http://ns2bans.com/api/bans/12345 and the webserver checks the database and returns:
{
"id":12345,
"banned":false
}
...and that's all there is to it.
Edit: Oh, and btw, when I signed up you mailed me my password. Don't ever do that.
I HUGELY appreciate that effort and the trouble you went to on the coding, but we just released our official subscription tool
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
Can the subscription tool take your registered account on the website into - er, account?
This way, you could have a check box system of which bans you wish to add, instead of every single one approved (which you might disagree with) ?
On the datebase passwords are SALT protected, I can't see some one going out of their way to attempt to snoop out outgoing e-mail from the mass load of e-mail coming out of the server farm to locate one simple password a user used to register on a site of this nature, but that's just me.
The Avatars are JPG and GIF restricted - should have noted that in the entry, updated now to include that note - thanks for the feed back
In time I may do the steam API , at the moment it's just me and one other guy doing the back end PHP - so please be patient with us.
For videos, even the free version of fraps will do the trick, remember to launch that prior to playing and just slap your record key when something is going down.
as far as user accounts to view the list, right now I want to keep things locked down a bit, once things are better coded and looking better, I will open things up a bit.
Appealing is a rather moot point, as it already took a video of you doing what ever it was you where doing, and it took X amount of people to agree with the video. What evidence could you possibly submit to counter this? The only way to limit the damage of "skill bans" is to have in place admins that are knowledgeable - and that's all I will say about the admins we have recruited.
That isnt enough, if you are doing something as serious as this, do it properly, or we will be in a mess.
Can the subscription tool take your registered account on the website into - er, account?
This way, you could have a check box system of which bans you wish to add, instead of every single one approved (which you might disagree with) ?
Not implemented yet on the server side, but each ban is going to be flagged as a category, once this is complete the server operators can use the lua code to accept the categories they feel they want to use.
Can the subscription tool take your registered account on the website into - er, account?
This way, you could have a check box system of which bans you wish to add, instead of every single one approved (which you might disagree with) ?
Not implemented yet on the server side, but each ban is going to be flagged as a category, once this is complete the server operators can use the lua code to accept the categories they feel they want to use.
I feel like this won't be good enough tho :-/
I personally know as a server admin that i don't agree with everyone else's call and would like to review the videos and make my own decisions.
Its nice to have a trusted group vote on said videos.. But having a public list where you decide for yourself who to ban is priceless in my mind.
For instance, what happens if a false positive slips through the voting? Appealing seems rather difficult currently.
If a server admin disagreed with one vote, he would have to unsubscribe from the entire mod, right?
yeah, at the current there is a subscription method using the mod, you subscribe to the list and generally have them applied to your server by category, or you can pick and choose from the list yourself. It's longer, but definitely gives you more control and the ability to review the videos yourself. I really recommend starting off picking through the list yourself, and if you end up agreeing with the list, subscribing to the mod.
How about those of us that happen to snap screenshots of, say, easy to notice map exploits? And what if they don't want to be bothered to sign up for and remember other websites in their aged years, but still want to report trolls they might happen to encounter in the wild? I imagine if a picture or two were to be posted, the information would eventually get edited by mods, and if it became a tiresome task, this thread could see an untimely end as a result of the actions of a few good deeds. I would think the potential do-gooder would instead simply saved this proof of undeniable evidence to an easy to find haven of other pictures he had acquired during his time of playing online video games.
I have stayed rather silent on this for a while, and while I havent read every post, I did read some parts about the possibility to ban "trolls".
Now I already view the idea of ns2bans with extreme prejudice and caution as such "global" ban system are extremely powerful in the hands of the individuals who control it. While I like the initative behind this as we all know the current issues with a certain group of hackers with too many accounts on their hands. The issue is the probability of false positives, however small the chance, however good people that will review said evidence to make determinations may seem to be, there is always a chance of indivduals being wrongfully accused.
And my main concern, the mention of the possible banning of "trolls". Since "trolling" is an entirely subjective matter (while we can all agree trolls typically try ruin a play experiance for people) the threshold of what individuals wil determine as troll vary from person to person and is high subjective. Thus this site, if fully realized and becomes fully operational should only remain and forever remain a place to eliminate hackers and solely that.
No global ban system based off subjective matter should ever be implimented. No matter how good the intention is it's too far readily abused by those who may wish to abuse it as well as given each set of servers always presents it's own set of rules generally known as "Code of Conduct." and do not always apply evenly across each server that may utilize such a proposed system. Generally the only universally agreed upon rule on any game server across the world is the aforementioned rules on hacking which is why I'm sure this idea was originally proposed.
So while again with extreme caution a more "global" ban system may be a benifical way to deal with hackers. The idea the inclusion of "trolls" should never be on the table for this.
Site should in include bans for:
Wallhacking
Speedhacking
Aimbotting
Site should never include bans for (given the subjectiveness):
Since when did 'trolling' become griefing? Someone trolling me is probably saying or doing stupid shit intentionally to annoy me, someone griefing is getting into the CC/hive when the normal comm gets out to do something and spending all the tres on bullshit and leaving the server/hangs around for the aftermath, the two aren't even remotely comparable and the term griefing has been around a lot longer than 'trolling' has, see http://www.myg0t.com/ .
Trolling has become a word for "doing things I don't like or are not correct to do" that doesn't really belong in a ban list.
Were I still running a server I would want this set with bannable hacking list as well as a second list for all the more minor actions that are much more subjective so I could ignore it ot I could set kicks with a parameter that means the kick will just kick, ban. temp ban etc depending on how I have tagged the ID on a scale system or something. I can certainly understand somebody doing trollish things once every 40 or 50 hours but being a fun and good team mate the rest of the time. A guy could be on the troll list for drunken mic spam and recycling the ip a couple of months ago but as long as he doesn't act up and get kicked on mine, then he's good to go.
while I agree that trolling is a grey area, determination wise, I must say that the system would be entirely voluntary in respect to the server operators. and it is entirely their prerogative as to what they wish to enforce. I will not say that this is bad or misguided, I simply warn caution about clearly delineating the kinds of behavior singled out.
I think this list will have it's hands full with just the inclusion of "hacks" - it's intended purpose was to simply have a place to display , review and collectively remove said players.
Having said that, the Mod created for us was designed with expandability in mind, allowing us to further define the list. I.E- allowing us to separate "hacks" (all inclusive), and "trolls" - allowing server admins the option to ignore either one by simply altering one line of LUA code.
even allowing filtering by cheat - wall / aim / other and allow the server admins to limit whats applied that way.
Does that mean we are going to filter this way? I don't know.
I agree that trolls and trolling is very subjective. How ever I do see video of a certain player who spoofs a well known players name, spending all the team res on med packs, recycling the base and laughing his way out of the server. Would I like to protect servers from these kinds of players? Hell yes.. Is it doable without dipping into the "questionable ban" line? I am not sure... I lean to the side of probably not and continue to push the project with the mindset of it being used for cheat detection.
I agree as good of intention I have with this list, I REALLY REALLY want to ensure that it is run with the best of intentions in mind from the admins - and encourage that if in any doubt, they can always reject the submitted video.
I would rather see it hard to get something approved by the admins , because this means, to me at least, they are really being picky and watching the videos carefully. This isn't a knock at any of the players submitting videos, it simply means that particular video did not contain what the admins where looking for to get it approved. no one should feel bad that something wasn't approved for the list.
Comments
This should be handled on a per server basis. Servers without a strong, consistent admin presence will slowly die, servers with a structured authority will prevent hackers and trolls and continue to grow. No need for anything else.
Saying aimbot, wallhack, speedhack etc is a little outdated and a lot of hacks offer a range of different options to the end user.
Another line it appears is being crossed is the line that you aren't just banlisting hackers/cheaters, but "Trolls". You should be cautious that everyone's definition of 'troll' varies, and often two people having a legitimate conflict label one another as trolls. Adding 'trolling' to the 'ban list' is an incredibly poor idea, as it is opening a massive pandora's box of grey areas.
It's one thing to try to draft a board of qualified people to determine cheaters/hackers, it's a whole different thing to draft a board of people reviewing people's personalities and casual communicative exchanges over the internet, possibly resulting in one or both parties being forever barred from playing on any number of servers.
If the perception of "trolling" is to be in the 'list of offenses', I think this project has effectively put itself into a place no right-minded admin would ever go, and neutered its own potential before being out of the gate.
Respectfully Submitted,
Colt
0:0:5842734
There is a youtube video up of that guy '0:0:5842734' using aimbot/wallhack already.
The cheaters move like newbies, only they hit things fast and immediately an opportunity arises.
Be aware that they often take names of famous players to discourage being challenged.
Colt I agree for the most part with you. Common BS trolling is not what this list was designed for - at all. I am very hesitant and I think the other admins are to including "trolling". There are players, who's main goal has been to ruin as many games as possible and let's face fact, it's really not that hard to ruin a game if your hell bent on doing so.
Where I stand at the moment is focusing on cheating.
Hiding the "reason" in the submission from the people reviewing the video is an interesting idea.
Edit: Removed to avoid confusion on the Workshop.
Now to get this working all you ( @ma$$a$$ter ) need to do is make a teeny-tiny API for it to send request to and it's good to go... probably. It has not been tested for more than a few minutes on a local server.
From http://ns2bans.com/api/bans/[ns2id], return a json string consisting of the ns2id (an integer) and whether it's banned or not (a bool).
So for example, a player with the ns2id 12345 joins. The server plugin sends a GET request to http://ns2bans.com/api/bans/12345 and the webserver checks the database and returns:
...and that's all there is to it.
Edit: Oh, and btw, when I signed up you mailed me my password. Don't ever do that.
My own thoughts on the subject:
I personally will never vote to get someone banned unless it is blatant hacking. Like Colt, I am against the whole 'trolls being banned' idea. Local server admins can take care of that. As for the number of admins required to ban, maybe 5 might be a better number.
Until a better anti-cheat client is released for NS2, I feel that this is a great way to help keep our community servers a bit cleaner.
-Josh
However, as first measure to build community confidence in the system, I think only clear cases of hacking and/or cheating should be banned. Maybe we can include a warned/watched tag for anyone whose been tagged with something that isn't considered a bannable offense?
I HUGELY appreciate that effort and the trouble you went to on the coding, but we just released our official subscription tool
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=139558874
This is server side and clients do NOT need to download.
This way, you could have a check box system of which bans you wish to add, instead of every single one approved (which you might disagree with) ?
That isnt enough, if you are doing something as serious as this, do it properly, or we will be in a mess.
P.S.
Are you sure SHA-1+salt is enough for passwords? (it isnt)
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002379.html
Did you just email me back my own password?!
http://plaintextoffenders.com/
good read shonan, thanks
Not implemented yet on the server side, but each ban is going to be flagged as a category, once this is complete the server operators can use the lua code to accept the categories they feel they want to use.
I personally know as a server admin that i don't agree with everyone else's call and would like to review the videos and make my own decisions.
Its nice to have a trusted group vote on said videos.. But having a public list where you decide for yourself who to ban is priceless in my mind.
For instance, what happens if a false positive slips through the voting? Appealing seems rather difficult currently.
If a server admin disagreed with one vote, he would have to unsubscribe from the entire mod, right?
pffffffffffft.
lol - i didn't snub ya turts - It was already in the works to disable it
yeah, at the moment there is no way to appeal - but hey - It's just me and one other guy doing the coding!
tl;dr http://steamcommunity.com/id/Roland_tHTG/screenshots/
Now I already view the idea of ns2bans with extreme prejudice and caution as such "global" ban system are extremely powerful in the hands of the individuals who control it. While I like the initative behind this as we all know the current issues with a certain group of hackers with too many accounts on their hands. The issue is the probability of false positives, however small the chance, however good people that will review said evidence to make determinations may seem to be, there is always a chance of indivduals being wrongfully accused.
And my main concern, the mention of the possible banning of "trolls". Since "trolling" is an entirely subjective matter (while we can all agree trolls typically try ruin a play experiance for people) the threshold of what individuals wil determine as troll vary from person to person and is high subjective. Thus this site, if fully realized and becomes fully operational should only remain and forever remain a place to eliminate hackers and solely that.
No global ban system based off subjective matter should ever be implimented. No matter how good the intention is it's too far readily abused by those who may wish to abuse it as well as given each set of servers always presents it's own set of rules generally known as "Code of Conduct." and do not always apply evenly across each server that may utilize such a proposed system. Generally the only universally agreed upon rule on any game server across the world is the aforementioned rules on hacking which is why I'm sure this idea was originally proposed.
So while again with extreme caution a more "global" ban system may be a benifical way to deal with hackers. The idea the inclusion of "trolls" should never be on the table for this.
Site should in include bans for:
Wallhacking
Speedhacking
Aimbotting
Site should never include bans for (given the subjectiveness):
"Trolling"
"Exploits"
"Behavior"
Trolling has become a word for "doing things I don't like or are not correct to do" that doesn't really belong in a ban list.
Having said that, the Mod created for us was designed with expandability in mind, allowing us to further define the list. I.E- allowing us to separate "hacks" (all inclusive), and "trolls" - allowing server admins the option to ignore either one by simply altering one line of LUA code.
even allowing filtering by cheat - wall / aim / other and allow the server admins to limit whats applied that way.
Does that mean we are going to filter this way? I don't know.
I agree that trolls and trolling is very subjective. How ever I do see video of a certain player who spoofs a well known players name, spending all the team res on med packs, recycling the base and laughing his way out of the server. Would I like to protect servers from these kinds of players? Hell yes.. Is it doable without dipping into the "questionable ban" line? I am not sure... I lean to the side of probably not and continue to push the project with the mindset of it being used for cheat detection.
I agree as good of intention I have with this list, I REALLY REALLY want to ensure that it is run with the best of intentions in mind from the admins - and encourage that if in any doubt, they can always reject the submitted video.
I would rather see it hard to get something approved by the admins , because this means, to me at least, they are really being picky and watching the videos carefully. This isn't a knock at any of the players submitting videos, it simply means that particular video did not contain what the admins where looking for to get it approved. no one should feel bad that something wasn't approved for the list.