Identifying Major Issues

[Roz]

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

I asked my Millenial co-worker how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk and things and things and junk, to separate their important stuff from other stuff, and he said about one third.

We here are generally very technical people. I expected him to say, "why would anyone have only one email address", but he didn't. I'm not using this as proof that two thirds of "kids these days" are not technically savvy, but as evidence that "not that hard" is a matter of great perspective.

Having multiple email addresses doesn't have to equal technically savvy. I'd rate myself as very technically savvy, but I don't have a separate email for junk. Did your coworker really say that only one third of millennials would know how to make another email address, or probably have a secondary email address for junk? I do know plenty of non-tech savvy millennials, but I still think most of them would know how to sign up for an email address.

That said, I also freely use my personal email address for game signup things. I used it for Arx chargen, sure. I didn't think about not using it.

The bottom line is that @surreality is building a game with certain functions and a level of wiki integration that requires an email. That is the game she is building, so in this case, the structure of the game does need an email. If folks have strong objections to using an email, personal or burner, they can play other games and it's not a big deal. I honestly don't understand why this becomes such a huge issue whenever it comes up, like the very idea of a MU* asking for an email is so offensive to some people.

[Paris]

@Roz said in Identifying Major Issues:

The bottom line is that @surreality is building a game with certain functions and a level of wiki integration that requires an email. That is the game she is building, so in this case, the structure of the game does need an email. If folks have strong objections to using an email, personal or burner, they can play other games and it's not a big deal.

That's her right.

I honestly don't understand why this becomes such a huge issue whenever it comes up, like the very idea of a MU* asking for an email is so offensive to some people.

We've told you why: because staff and players use them to stalk players across MUs. It's not hard to understand.

[Auspice]

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

I asked my Millenial co-worker how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk and things and things and junk, to separate their important stuff from other stuff, and he said about one third.

We here are generally very technical people. I expected him to say, "why would anyone have only one email address", but he didn't. I'm not using this as proof that two thirds of "kids these days" are not technically savvy, but as evidence that "not that hard" is a matter of great perspective.

I'm sort of at the leading edge of the Millennial crowd. I don't have a secondary email for junk, but I think I take it a step further on the tech side. I use GMail's functionality wherein you have a plethora of 'email addresses' under your own (depending upon where you place a - or . within your email address) and have a specific structure I use within mine that dumps to a specific spam folder. That way I can control where things go and if I ever do have a need to locate or track something, I can do so.

'Oh, hey, I gave e.m-ail@gmail.com out to XSite and it ended up here, so they clearly sold it to...'

However, I had a class that went in depth on studying the whole 'Digital Immigrant' vs 'Digital Native' and there's a sort of 'Bridge' Generation between the two as well, which is where I think I fall. Most true Millennials just sort of accept a lot more (like spam mail) than the rest of us. And then you get the even younger kids (think the toddlers) who just expect every 'screen' to be a touch screen now. It's wild shit.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Auspice said in Identifying Major Issues:

However, I had a class that went in depth on studying the whole 'Digital Immigrant' vs 'Digital Native' and there's a sort of 'Bridge' Generation between the two as well, which is where I think I fall. Most true Millennials just sort of accept a lot more (like spam mail) than the rest of us. And then you get the even younger kids (think the toddlers) who just expect every 'screen' to be a touch screen now. It's wild shit.

I really enjoyed the first Serial podcast in large part because so much of that murder investigation hinged on 'Bridge' generation tech no one who didn't go to high school in a fairly narrow window in the 90s would have much if any acquaintance with. Cell phones so shitty you also had a pager! Pagers as a thing high school students had at all! Oh, those times.

[SparklesTheClown]

I've had a PC since I was thirteen (that's 2001), and immediately started making sure I obscured personal details about my identity online. By the time I was about 14 or 15 I started using secondary emails because I realized it was probably dangerous to use my main email on shady websites. Hell in the late 90s before I had a PC, damned near everything I watched on TV told me how I was gonna get snatched if I didn't take the internet very seriously. I think the generation under me is used to thinking of the internet as a very safe thing, while the generation before me isn't used to thinking of the internet as a thing you prep to be on.

Then again, my generation also invented telling naked women to put shoes on their head, and unintentionally created a political climate in which the Nazis could return, so what do I know.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Derp
Hate to break it to you but you don't have to give google a phone number to get an account. I have a gmail account and have never given them a phone number.

[Derp]

@ThatGuyThere said in Identifying Major Issues:

@Derp
Hate to break it to you but you don't have to give google a phone number to get an account. I have a gmail account and have never given them a phone number.

Hate to break it to you, but if you create a new account, you either have to give them a phone number or another e-mail for security purposes.

[SparklesTheClown]

@ThatGuyThere said in Identifying Major Issues:

@Derp
Hate to break it to you but you don't have to give google a phone number to get an account. I have a gmail account and have never given them a phone number.

Google accounts without a phone number are ridiculously easy to break into, just as a heads up.

[surreality]

@Paris Players should never be getting someone's email unless the email's owner does one of the following:

• directly gives it to them
• shares it publicly
• grants permission for staff to share it with another individual on a case by case (individual by individual) basis by the player's direct request.

That I'm pretty sure everyone making these arguments has sent in a wiki login request that can be seen by a huge group of staffers, vs. 2 with access to a game's email account, makes this all ring weird to me.

[ThatGuyThere]

@HelloProject said in Identifying Major Issues:

Google accounts without a phone number are ridiculously easy to break into, just as a heads up.

I would be highly amused to see the look on anyone face if they went through the effort to break into my gmail.
I don't do anything over the internet that is important, hell I don't even shop with anything but a prepaid card on the interwebs.

[Misadventure]

Needing emails? Then generate a burner email for the player and give them the password.

PrPs rewards? Make a budget based on time and intensity and who owns what access to what plotlines.

Player changes to the grid? Establish guidelines, and add code or the ability to drop an object as two suggestions went.

Have a long thread that dwells on somethings forever, and skips over interesting ideas? Make someone summerize, in list form.

[Derp]

@Misadventure said in Identifying Major Issues:

Needing emails? Then generate a burner email for the player and give them the password.

No.

I mean, you can, if you want, but this is just the epitome of lazy on the part of the player. I expect players to be able to handle certain things themselves, like what @surreality put above. There is a certain baseline below which I will not coddle people. If you cannot be bothered, neither can I.

[Misadventure]

Yeahp. Nothing like coding a one stop link or something to save many people repetitious effort, what is this, software?

The lack of coherent explanation, and the conflating of the terms need, want, and the idea of "I will require" are certainly a barrier.

I make up an email per character, and I find the attitude difficult. Just sharing.

[surreality]

@Misadventure Part of the issue is that most of them require your webmail to generate. Which is frankly no big deal in that you can just link that to the core game webmail addy, but it also means you as staff are now responsible for the RL maintenance of that webmail account in full. If they ever lose the password to that email/need to access it again, the resets/etc. are sent to the staff email, which potentially opens up full access to that account to staff -- which I'm reasonably sure people would enjoy considerably less.

[Paris]

@surreality pointing out one thing doesn't have anything to do with pointing out another thing (or not). I'm talking about this specific thing.

In the case of wiki logins, we do it by submitting a +job. I'd personally rather not deal with remembering or storing email. But if YOU want to do so, that's fine. That I have not argued with.

My personal experiences with being targeted outside of mushes as well as cross-mush mean that I personally, strongly recommend burner emails (generated by the player obvs). I also don't write about MUSHing anywhere except here, because people with grudges will google and follow you (as happened to folks I know) to other platforms. Many people will never have a bad experience, and that's great, but prevention imo is good.

Edit: Re: players getting emails: all it takes is one staffer to blab, and they have in the past. Considering I directly know victims of staffers blabbing pretty nasty accusations, personal stuff, and outright bullshit, in order to rile up folks against that person, I will continue to be cautious. Even if I like the staff, well, I liked those staffers, too.

[surreality]

@Paris Burner emails are definitely a good idea. Not a single person has suggested otherwise, or that some core or otherwise personally identifying email should ever be used.

I don't think staff should be the ones setting up someone's burner email for them (as was suggested elsewhere). That's more risky, is technically problematic, and is just going too far to coddle paranoia, IMHO, in ways that actually make it less secure rather than more.

What I'm saying is this: the way most MUXes are set up, that +job is visible to the entire staffcorps. Almost universally, those jobs go to a bucket every single member of staff can read.

This means that info is being made available to, typically, a lot more than two headstaffers only. I'm suggesting that people stop sending their email addresses over +jobs for precisely that reason.

Instead, email headstaff for a login. The email you choose to email from is the info that is used to set up the initial OOC player login on the MUX, (and the initial wiki login in one shot if they want); they get an email in return from staff with their @pcreate info, and one from the wiki (which will show up as being from the same headstaff account as the sender if things are configured to send that way, which is helpful).

There is no other way to get an initial login on the MUX with closed login screen create disabled: you have to contact someone to ask and they need a means of sending you your initial connection info and password. Any and all subsequent logins can be requested without ever having to disclose this information again in a +job from that initial login that goes directly to headstaff. The email address initially used can be re-used as needed by headstaff because it's stored on their initial OOC login on an attribute only visible from the God bit, #1, and not even to other wizards on the game. As in, unless you have access to #1, there is no way you can access this data to use it.

If you are trusting shifty people with access to the God bit on your MUX, you have much bigger problems than email privacy.

[Paris]

@surreality said in Identifying Major Issues:

@Paris Burner emails are definitely a good idea. Not a single person has suggested otherwise, or that some core or otherwise personally identifying email should ever be used.

I know, I'm adding my agreenent.

I don't think staff should be the ones setting up someone's burner email for them (as was suggested elsewhere). That's more risky, is technically problematic, and is just going too far to coddle paranoia, IMHO, in ways that actually make it less secure rather than more.

I agree.

This means that info is being made available to, typically, a lot more than two headstaffers only. I'm suggesting that people stop sending their email addresses over +jobs for precisely that reason.

We don't use emails to set up our wiki accounts (or anything else), so it's all good. I also agree that contacting an individual staffer is better.

If you are trusting shifty people with access to the God bit on your MUX, you have much bigger problems than email privacy.

Yep!

[Thenomain]

@Roz said in Identifying Major Issues:

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

I asked my Millenial co-worker how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk and things and things and junk, to separate their important stuff from other stuff, and he said about one third.

We here are generally very technical people. I expected him to say, "why would anyone have only one email address", but he didn't. I'm not using this as proof that two thirds of "kids these days" are not technically savvy, but as evidence that "not that hard" is a matter of great perspective.

Having multiple email addresses doesn't have to equal technically savvy.

This is why I don't like arguing with geeks. (Note: I am a total geek, and arguing with me is probably not fun either.)

The info I posted (quotes from me are being kept double-quoted to be visually distinct):

I asked my Millenial co-worker how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk and things and things and junk, to separate their important stuff from other stuff, and he said about one third.

You may disagree with my conclusion, but-- wait, I just saw this.

Did your coworker really say that only one third of millennials would know how to make another email address, or probably have a secondary email address for junk?

Let me say what happened in maybe a clearer way:

I asked him how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk, and he said about one third.

I know I'm being lightly sarcastic, here, but this is how The Telephone Game starts. I'm terrible at reading comprehension sometimes, myself. I recalled the entire conversation we had, if there's question that I was going into great detail with him. I did not.

I do know plenty of non-tech savvy millennials, but I still think most of them would know how to sign up for an email address.

But how many know that they know, how many would know how to set up and manage multiple accounts with their email client, or know how to find a better client that would do this? How many would give up before getting that far? We have been talking about the barrier of entry, and my repeated point is that "if you don't want to give out your email then just do this incredibly simple thing" is not logically consistent for how difficult people may find it to be, that it may be easy for us but not talking about it because we find it easy and therefore everyone else will find it easy is not good logic.

It's pretty crappy logic.

edit: Worse, it's absolutely horrible design, and can run very counter for recognizing issues.

The bottom line is that @surreality is building a game with certain functions and a level of wiki integration that requires an email.

The bottom line is that @surreality has said on more than one occasion that many functions she can see using are OPT IN, and I have no problem with this. It's not her specifically that I'm talking to (again The Telephone Game rears its ugly head). That said...

If folks have strong objections to using an email, personal or burner, they can play other games and it's not a big deal.

It's not, and I admit this openly and freely and repeatedly. I think it's a stupid thing to need as described almost every occasion in this thread, but that's not the same issue as I'm defending above.

[surreality]

@Thenomain Here's the thing, though: certain design decisions mean that providing an email is not opt-in. Namely, it's needed for the wiki and to provide the initial MUX login password (and any resend if the person ends up with a temp ban and gets change-passworded until the ban expires; this is relevant, will mention how/why below). That part isn't, and really can't be, opt-in, so the 'provide an email' thing isn't something I can call 'opt-in' completely. There's bonus 'we hope this is helpful and if people want it they can sign up for it and we'll happily do that extra work for you in an attempt to be helpful' stuff, yeah, that absolutely is opt-in. Just, the over all 'we need an email' isn't.

Re: the temp-ban things mentioned above:

My judgement call on this is to work with @newpassword, rather than an IP ban. IP bans are not as reliable in the days of VPN, and like I mentioned before, can adversely impact innocent third party roomies or spouses, etc. in ways I, personally, consider quite unfair, and would not feel comfortable with.

I have seen good effects come from the use of temp-bans, or 'enforced vacations' if one's feeling euphemistic (I'm usually not feeling euphemistic). A more accurate definition of this, to me, is 'cooldowns' if I had to pick an effective euphemism.

There are long-term temp bans that should be called precisely that for actual abuse, or infractions. Permanent ones if it's bad or repetitive, obviously, or intentional abuse that can be clearly proved in some way.

But! ...even the nicest, most reasonable, most fair-minded people can have the occasional meltdown and asplode. And sometimes they will not stop asploding until someone steps in and contains it. You can come up with some kind of elaborate coded prison cell or something to lock someone up in to sit on the game and fume in silence, but I'm not that code savvy, and I actually think that's less effective than temporarily removing them from the environment entirely, because the environment is, at that time, clearly not the one they should be in, usually for their own sake and that of the others on the game. Cutting someone off to go back to the real world for a while is much more effective; leaving someone to sit connected and non-communicative and stewing tends to only make them hyperfocus on the anger/frustration/etc. Basically, confinement and a sense of helplessness in a restricted online space is not the best way to accomplish a reality check, and most of the time, this is what someone actually needs.

@newpassword and @boot does this the most cleanly, IMHO.

It's possible, I guess, to create some kind of login, similar to a guest, that can potentially only communicate with staff or something, to handle these kinds of 'pop back in to get the return password', or otherwise handle things like this, but that seems like a lot more work than just sending somebody an email with their new password when the cooldown time or temp ban has expired. There are options for this with the cron that are also worth looking at. Still, emailing the new password is the easiest, lowest code-overhead method.

[faraday]

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

But how many know that they know, how many would know how to set up and manage multiple accounts with their email client, or know how to find a better client that would do this? How many would give up before getting that far?

But let's back up a step. How many Millennials would even care in the first place? Look at the state of the internet today. Look at how well gmail and most other email clients filter spam. Look at how freely people share things related to their real identity in the most silly and trivial of ways.

Either you don't have the degree of internet paranoia that many of us dinos grew up with, or you do but you've already figured out the burner thing because you've come across this problem before. The only people it's really a barrier to entry for are the people who are worried enough to care but for some reason this is the first time it's come up for them.

Personally I think that's a significant minority.