Forum Suggestion

[RedHeadStepChild]

The forums have a "members" hyperlink, found in the upper right hand corner of the screen, that has previously disabled due to " This page has been disabled due to performance.", I really do not think this is the actual reason why it was Disabled, But that is irrelevant, for this is what I suggest and the Reasoning behind it.

https://imgur.com/8TJtscP This is what I am speaking of

Suggestion: Reactive the Members Hyperlink to find Inappropriate usernames, Multi-account Usernames, Bot Usernames and the like.

Why? There was recently a report made for botting that was handled. I think there were 6 or 7 accounts in total that were banned, referenced here viewtopic.php?f=28&t=102276 However I know that there are several other accounts like the previous mentioned ones, that still exist. And the only way to find them currently is by randomly catching them in game, or seeing them logged into the forum and screenshotting it. Why not make it so much easier and reactivate the members section that way the list can be scanned for these names and then report them accordingly?
I know that really isnt on the top of the list of priorities right now, But It is a start. And all it takes it just a simple click from a forum moderator.

So Forum Moderators this request is for you, Help Us, the player population continue their "Juror" duties and reactivate that link please so the names can be scanned. There are already 9 pages of IU Account name reports from this year alone, if you allow the list to be scanned and the accounts found and reported It'll help you and everyone else out. I promise you!

Thank you for reading this
V/R
Red

[RedHeadStepChild]

Names Like this is why I am making this suggestion! Pay attention to #3.


https://imgur.com/W77DSAu

[SillyPantsJackson]

I do not really think this is an issue at all. Why does it matter what some guy's username is? It has essentially zero impact on the game itself. Those are the issues that should be focused on; gamethrowers mostly.

[ElderSivart]

I'm pretty sure the page actually was disabled for performance reasons. That, or it had something to do with profile links using usernames instead of userIDs like they used to.

Nonetheless, when it did exist, sending a query to it to lookup users was super slow and it was almost never worth using.

[RedHeadStepChild]

I do not really think this is an issue at all. Why does it matter what some guy's username is? It has essentially zero impact on the game itself. Those are the issues that should be focused on; gamethrowers mostly.

I am going to refer you to the beginning of this post....

The forums have a "members" hyperlink, found in the upper right hand corner of the screen, that has previously disabled due to " This page has been disabled due to performance.", I really do not think this is the actual reason why it was Disabled, But that is irrelevant, for this is what I suggest and the Reasoning behind it.

https://imgur.com/8TJtscP This is what I am speaking of

Suggestion: Reactive the Members Hyperlink to find Inappropriate usernames, Multi-account Usernames, Bot Usernames and the like.

Why? There was recently a report made for botting that was handled. I think there were 6 or 7 accounts in total that were banned, referenced here viewtopic.php?f=28&t=102276 However I know that there are several other accounts like the previous mentioned ones, that still exist. And the only way to find them currently is by randomly catching them in game, or seeing them logged into the forum and screenshotting it. Why not make it so much easier and reactivate the members section that way the list can be scanned for these names and then report them accordingly?
I know that really isnt on the top of the list of priorities right now, But It is a start. And all it takes it just a simple click from a forum moderator.

So Forum Moderators this request is for you, Help Us, the player population continue their "Juror" duties and reactivate that link please so the names can be scanned. There are already 9 pages of IU Account name reports from this year alone, if you allow the list to be scanned and the accounts found and reported It'll help you and everyone else out. I promise you!

Thank you for reading this
V/R
Red

and I am going to refer you to this nice bit of information. viewtopic.php?f=26&t=96104

Oh yeah and also this bit of information.
Multi Accounting (aka multi)

Using multiple accounts in one game. These accounts are usually very similar usernames like: “accountname1” and “accountname2”. People have to admit to using multiple accounts to be punished. Players that cheat using multiple accounts should be filed under this section, not Cheating.

*ADMISSION=GUILT: Admission to multi-accounting, regardless of factuality, is guilty for the admitter only.

*Ban-evasion is no longer in punished, please see NOTES for details.


Inappropriate Username (aka IU)

- Inappropriate account names should be reported to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=96104
- IU is for inappropriate names on their own, if there is chat context required to make a username inappropriate, it should be filed under Hate speech/Harassment instead.

See Offensive Language
Names that target a specific user in an extremely negative manner.
Names with words that are hard-filtered are a permanent ban.


Now since I am sure you can read and understand English, SillyPantsJackson, Does this answer your inquiry as to why would it matter what someone's username is?

[LevinSnakesRise]

The page was disabled because we have 5,756,483 users registered and using that link pulls that same amount of usernames in an inquiry everytime you pulled up the page. It was disabled because it wouldn't load at all, and if you did get it to load, it'd take 10 minutes (not even joking). It's also the same reason several other things were disabled as well, for performance reasons. phpBB is literal crap, and the developers have let it slide for years.

This shouldn't be an issue when we migrate to Vanilla next year (apparently).

[RedHeadStepChild]

Why not do the migration now since we moved to unity?


not to mention this guy alone "ethendyjadaxxx" ( keep in mind the 'xxx' is a random 3 digit number after their name ) has over 30 names listed. so its either a bot, or a mulitaccount. So if you were able to go thru the names list and delete these names and the ones you know are banned that 5.7 mil will dwindle very quickly!

[Flavorable]

Why not do the migration now since we moved to unity?


not to mention this guy alone "ethendyjadaxxx" ( keep in mind the 'xxx' is a random 3 digit number after their name ) has over 30 names listed. so its either a bot, or a mulitaccount. So if you were able to go thru the names list and delete these names and the ones you know are banned that 5.7 mil will dwindle very quickly!

We haven't moved to Unity yet. It's still in the beta fase and there's still work to be done on it. Not to mention a forum migration isn't something that happens within a day.

Also, keep in mind that forum accounts aren't necessarily ingame accounts. And there are no rules against having alternate/multiple accounts, especially on the forums, unless those alts get abused. And even so, take this example: Someone made 30 forum accounts, but only bought the game 5 times, they multi-account with those 5 game accounts, those accounts get banned. That still doesn't make those other 25 accounts guilty of anything.

[RedHeadStepChild]

I get what you're saying Flavorable, but if that person you mentioned still has active accounts after getting some of their accounts banned, would it not be logical to surmise that they are going to keep doing stuff to get banned?

I mean by your example, which there is proof that others have made multiple account's for that reason, they're considered a toxic player that only has to pay $$$ to keep playing doing crap to make other people's games terrible?, why are people like that allowed to keep coming back and doing the same shit over and over again?

It doesn't matter if they have 1 account or 100 accounts, its the same person on those accounts, doing the same things over and over to get themselves banned, and its allowed to keep happening. Do you see where I am going with this?

[MysticMismagius]

But you can’t punish people for offenses that are “going” to happen (unless a person specifically threatens to do it), because then you get into Orwellian thought crime. You can only punish an account for actually committing an offense.

[Brilliand]

But you can’t punish people for offenses that are “going” to happen (unless a person specifically threatens to do it), because then you get into Orwellian thought crime. You can only punish an account for actually committing an offense.

Would be awesome if we could somehow arrange for this strategy to make sense ingame.

[RedHeadStepChild]

But you can’t punish people for offenses that are “going” to happen (unless a person specifically threatens to do it), because then you get into Orwellian thought crime. You can only punish an account for actually committing an offense.

Mystic I do agree, however, there is something called establishing a pattern of behavior. While the accounts may be different, it is "the same person" running the account, allowing them to go onto a different account to keep bringing toxic behavior into the game.

For instance;
Account Name: PvtJoeSnuffy
IGN: KilltheJews
Gets reported and banned for prejudicial username.

So he makes another account;
Account Name: SGTJoeSnuffy
IGN: William Phips
Continuously spams racial and other slurs and comments, gets reported and banned again.

Then he makes another account;
Account Name: SSGJoeSnuffy
IGN: LillyLickinloliLigma
Continuously makes sexually explicit comments and references to pedophilia, gets reported and banned again

Now he makes a 4th Account;
Account Name: SFCJoeSnuffy
IGN: Deodat Lawson
Somehow manages to get Vig during a Coven VIP game, and then calls out that hes on VIP n1 claiming hes a TP of some sort then uses that to Shoot the VIP on n2, purposely gamethrowing.

And it continues over and over with a new name each time.
It is the same jackass thats making these accounts, or has already made these accounts and somehow grandfathered in when it was F2P.


Now after the 2nd or 3rd time people recognize the names and realize its the same person over and over again and then they start getting pissed and angry at why BMG/ToS Admin allows this person to keep coming back over and over to bring this kind of crap into the game? So of course they complain about it, criticize the Admin/Mods/Judges/Devs on why they allow the same person to keep coming back over and over again! They see the same people coming back over and over and they say well if BMG keeps allowing this crap to happen, Im not going to sit here and play in this toxic environment, so they stop playing the game all together, and take their friends with them.

Shall I bring up the whole "pewdiepie" fiasco? I mean hell thats all over youtube! I do not know how many account names i see spam constantly, "subscribe to pewdiepie".

You see what I am saying? its not the account that matters, it is the person controlling it. And by getting rid of the Ban Evasion and multiaccount rules, BMG/ToS Admin has shot themselves in the foot repeatedly, and when people complain and criticize them, they wonder why? then try to cover it up by saying, " There is nothing wrong with how the rules are written". Oh you can sit here and say oh you're just being too strict, as I am quite sure most of the admin that dislikes me posting about anything, is saying reading this.

Let me put this another way. take a mass shooting for example.
A person gets a hold of a gun and goes out and kills several people. Then another one happens in a different part of the world, then another and another. Now everyone's crying for NEED BETTER GUN CONTROL! was it the gun's fault? NO! it was the dumbasses using it!

News Flash, Guns are tools. Mindless machines that are completely harmless when left alone. Just like different accounts! But when they are put into the hands of someone who uses them for nefarious purposes, people want to blame the gun. instead of holding the person using the damn thing accountable.

All you are doing is when you ban one account instead of the person, you are doing nothing but giving that person a different weapon to use.

I am not going to apologize if common sense and logic evade your minds. Blame that on yourselves.

[MysticMismagius]

You're going all over the place.

As cynical as it sounds, eventually these people are going to run out of the financial resources to keep making new accounts to ruin games with. This is how the botting problem stopped when the game switched to P2P. If trolls want to keep wasting their money doing pointless garbage like that, all BMG has to do is sit back, relax, and let them bankrupt themselves. It's a self-solving problem. Honest players get a good game at a fair price while trolls spend hundreds if not thousands if they want to sustain themselves.

The problem is that, because of the data breach, there are many compromised accounts that trolls like Mannequin can use for free, sidestepping the financial impossibility of trolling for a significant length of time. That is what needs to be fixed, not the rules regarding ban evasion.

Additionally, you can't really stop ban evasion even if you tried to. It's not that difficult to make an account, and IP banning is a clusterfuck of massive proportions, so if someone who's banned wants to make a new account, there's not much you can do to stop them. BMG is only recognizing this fact, and giving freshly banned players a choice. Pay $5 for a fresh start; GTFO and don't come back; or try to keep trolling and bankrupt yourself. A fair choice for those who might learn from their mistakes.

[RedHeadStepChild]

There is A LOT of things BMG/ToS Admin need to fix. One thing they can do is STEP UP the security! are you going to sit here and tell me that they cannot afford it with all of the $$$ they've raked in from making the game P2P?

they can get an IP banning program from Pirates Bay, or some other site for free! Its not that hard.

$5 bucks it not a lot of money, you can get that VERY easily, people waste thousands on ciggs, drugs, pills, alcohol every year, you really think they care about paying $5 over and over? hell no they dont. And the admin don't care either, they love lining their pockets. So bankrupting one self is nearly impossible with just $5 over and over.

IP banning will help faster than anything else. and its not that much of a cluster fuck, you just need someone who knows what they're doing, which I think may be the problem here. But As I am suggesting, Start small... go through the registered accounts and ban/delete. If it takes 10 minutes to load, so what? Make use of what tools you have available to you now.

But here's the thing, if their security was already up, instead of being concerned with if they were being too strict or not, the databreach, and hacked accounts and that other crap, would not have happened to begin with. But Oh well lessons learned.

This goes out to you DEVS! If you want some good advice on how to do this kind of stuff, talk to the DEVs at Blizzard, PGI, Steam, Origin, Electronic Arts etc. They can help you set that stuff up!

[MysticMismagius]

There is A LOT of things BMG/ToS Admin need to fix. One thing they can do is STEP UP the security! are you going to sit here and tell me that they cannot afford it with all of the $$$ they've raked in from making the game P2P? What do you think they were doing with the Rackspace people after the breach?

they can get an IP banning program from Pirates Bay, or some other site for free! Its not that hard. I'm pretty sure BMG knows how to IP ban someone, since they've tried it before.

$5 bucks it not a lot of money, you can get that VERY easily, people waste thousands on ciggs, drugs, pills, alcohol every year, you really think they care about paying $5 over and over? hell no they dont. And the admin don't care either, they love lining their pockets. So bankrupting one self is nearly impossible with just $5 over and over. You underestimate the power of many small purchases over time. In the example you made, that's $20 on 4 accounts. Do that again and now it's $40. Then $60, then $80, then $100... the amount of money spent rises incredibly fast.

IP banning will help faster than anything else. and its not that much of a cluster fuck, you just need someone who knows what they're doing, which I think may be the problem here. But As I am suggesting, Start small... go through the registered accounts and ban/delete. If it takes 10 minutes to load, so what? Make use of what tools you have available to you now. As I mentioned earlier, they've tried that before. It really was a clusterfuck. The offending player played Town of Salem on his school campus, so when they IP banned him, they banned the IP for his school Wi-Fi. A swathe of innocent players were banned, while the person actually causing trouble simply played from his house or used a VPN. He was completely unaffected.
Or, how about a less extreme example: I have an older brother who I live with. He doesn't play Town of Salem, but let's assume he did. Let's assume that my brother was a toxic asshole on the internet, and he got himself IP banned. But uh-oh, he lives in the same house as me. I'd get banned too, for no fault of my own. That's not fair at all, is it?

But here's the thing, if their security was already up, instead of being concerned with if they were being too strict or not, the databreach, and hacked accounts and that other crap, would not have happened to begin with. But Oh well lessons learned. It's much too late for that. That bed was made and lied in, and the Devs have long since taken steps to prevent another one. All those free accounts are in the hands of trolls because the players who own them didn't play their part and change their passwords, so the leaked passwords from the breach still work. That's not the Devs' fault.

This goes out to you DEVS! If you want some good advice on how to do this kind of stuff, talk to the DEVs at Blizzard, PGI, Steam, Origin, Electronic Arts etc. They can help you set that stuff up!

[RedHeadStepChild]

There is A LOT of things BMG/ToS Admin need to fix. One thing they can do is STEP UP the security! are you going to sit here and tell me that they cannot afford it with all of the $$$ they've raked in from making the game P2P? What do you think they were doing with the Rackspace people after the breach?

This falls under the, " too little, too late" idea. It should have been implemented at the start, but it never was.

they can get an IP banning program from Pirates Bay, or some other site for free! Its not that hard. I'm pretty sure BMG knows how to IP ban someone, since they've tried it before.

Oh they have? If they did, they probably decided that if they started doing that, their player base wouldn't exist, well that's the fault of the dumbass who got banned for breaking the rules.

$5 bucks it not a lot of money, you can get that VERY easily, people waste thousands on ciggs, drugs, pills, alcohol every year, you really think they care about paying $5 over and over? hell no they dont. And the admin don't care either, they love lining their pockets. So bankrupting one self is nearly impossible with just $5 over and over. You underestimate the power of many small purchases over time. In the example you made, that's $20 on 4 accounts. Do that again and now it's $40. Then $60, then $80, then $100... the amount of money spent rises incredibly fast.

I get your logic, but now, only SERIOUS cases of hatespeech and other lobby issues are handled quickly where as other reports can take up to a month to be judged on. and after 30 days it gets closed without judgement. So spending that $5 bucks repeatedly doesn't happen that fast.

IP banning will help faster than anything else. and its not that much of a cluster fuck, you just need someone who knows what they're doing, which I think may be the problem here. But As I am suggesting, Start small... go through the registered accounts and ban/delete. If it takes 10 minutes to load, so what? Make use of what tools you have available to you now. As I mentioned earlier, they've tried that before. It really was a clusterfuck. The offending player played Town of Salem on his school campus, so when they IP banned him, they banned the IP for his school Wi-Fi. A swathe of innocent players were banned, while the person actually causing trouble simply played from his house or used a VPN. He was completely unaffected.

" sadly this is one of those cases where it only takes one bad apple to ruin the entire bushel. Hence the reason WHY we have rules in the first place. the only person to blame in any of those situations are the offending player themself. yes it sucks, for those not doing anything wrong, but at the same time, it prevented more people from doing that kind of stuff. "

Or, how about a less extreme example: I have an older brother who I live with. He doesn't play Town of Salem, but let's assume he did. Let's assume that my brother was a toxic asshole on the internet, and he got himself IP banned. But uh-oh, he lives in the same house as me. I'd get banned too, for no fault of my own. That's not fair at all, is it?

No I agree it's not fair, but as I previously stated, its only takes one to fuck it up for others. I can give you countless examples of this. A big one is whoever created the name " Nick Gers" as a way to evade the sensor?

But here's the thing, if their security was already up, instead of being concerned with if they were being too strict or not, the databreach, and hacked accounts and that other crap, would not have happened to begin with. But Oh well lessons learned. It's much too late for that. That bed was made and lied in, and the Devs have long since taken steps to prevent another one. All those free accounts are in the hands of trolls because the players who own them didn't play their part and change their passwords, so the leaked passwords from the breach still work. That's not the Devs' fault.

No you are right, that is partly the fault of the account holder themselves. But it is also the Dev's fault for not having the security they needed in the beginning.

This goes out to you DEVS! If you want some good advice on how to do this kind of stuff, talk to the DEVs at Blizzard, PGI, Steam, Origin, Electronic Arts etc. They can help you set that stuff up!

[MysticMismagius]

My point is that the IP banning didn't even do anything to the offending player besides the minor inconvenience of switching locations and/or using VPNs. The only people who were actually hurt were the innocents who didn't know what was going on or why they couldn't play anymore. And that's what will happen if we re-implement IP banning. It will be a clusterfuck, and it won't even solve the problem it was originally trying to solve. Thus, you can't stop people from multi-accounting unless you IP banned every IP in the world (which you would eventually need to do, to catch up to people using VPNs), and then how are people supposed to play?

As far as the data breach stuff, the time to berate the devs for letting it happen has LONG passed. It's not useful to attack them for it, especially since they took steps to learn from their mistake.

[RedHeadStepChild]

My point is that the IP banning didn't even do anything to the offending player besides the minor inconvenience of switching locations and/or using VPNs. The only people who were actually hurt were the innocents who didn't know what was going on or why they couldn't play anymore. And that's what will happen if we re-implement IP banning. It will be a clusterfuck, and it won't even solve the problem it was originally trying to solve. Thus, you can't stop people from multi-accounting unless you IP banned every IP in the world (which you would eventually need to do, to catch up to people using VPNs), and then how are people supposed to play?

As far as the data breach stuff, the time to berate the devs for letting it happen has LONG passed. It's not useful to attack them for it, especially since they took steps to learn from their mistake.

I get what you are saying totally, but my point is, its the reason why we have rules to begin with, because some dumbass did something stupid, now measures were put into place to attempt to stop it from happening. I mean can you really trust that everyone will follow the rules? of course not. Thats why we are considered uncontrollable liabilities. People are going to break the rules, for reasons I have previously stated in other posts. No reason to bring it up again.

Truthfully, there may be no good solution to prevent multi-accounting, but there are times where you have to Choose the lesser of evils. Its a shit sammich, and you gotta take a bite. ...mmmm sammiches.... hungry.... food.... sorry got distracted"

But The main point of this particular suggestion about the forum, is to start clearing out the accounts that are obviously bots, inappropriate, or things of that nature. yes my idea seems very time consuming, and it may be the case, but think of it this way, we are in a big transition right now, think of it as a " Spring Clean UP" kinda idea? or better yet, rebuilding. Typically when you rebuild, you tear it down, clean everything out, get rid of garbage and put things back together.

[MysticMismagius]

But The main point of this particular suggestion about the forum, is to start clearing out the accounts that are obviously bots, inappropriate, or things of that nature.

I'm not too sure about this one. It sounds good on paper, but I worry we'll end up with another forum account massacre. The lesser of evils might be to wait until the forum migration, where the accounts will be handled automatically.

[RedHeadStepChild]

But The main point of this particular suggestion about the forum, is to start clearing out the accounts that are obviously bots, inappropriate, or things of that nature.

I'm not too sure about this one. It sounds good on paper, but I worry we'll end up with another forum account massacre. The lesser of evils might be to wait until the forum migration, where the accounts will be handled automatically.

You may be right on both accounts. That massacre was a complete fubar. Mistakes were made for a variety of reasons. And if I was posting back then as I am now, Yeah i would have been canned because someone's feelings got hurt.

I guess I just have a different way of looking at things I suppose. I do not expect people to be able to see things from my eyes right away, but when I try to explain things the way I see them I get shoved aside and it makes me wonder why we even have the "suggestion" forums.

[James2]

Why would a website targeted by botters and hackers not want to have a publicly searchable database of accounts? Tis one of the great mysteries of life.

As for the rest of the OP, I would recommend taking up a job or a hobby or some other useful activity to occupy your time. It's simply not healthy to spend all your time obsessing about the possibility that someone somewhere might have said a bad word or something.