Identifying Major Issues

[SparklesTheClown]

@Ganymede I don't think I understand. You mean geared towards preventing people from being bored rather than enabling people to just go out and do shit?

[Ganymede]

@HelloProject said in Identifying Major Issues:

I don't think I understand. You mean geared towards preventing people from being bored rather than enabling people to just go out and do shit?

The opposite. Policies regarding PRPs are often geared to preventing people from going insane shit, and not to enable people to just go out and do shit -- and thereby have fun.

[faraday]

@Ganymede said in Identifying Major Issues:

Any staff member who thinks requiring an e-mail address will be a shield against harassment is naïve.

Where did anyone say requiring an email was a shield against harassment? There are a variety of concretely useful things you can do with an email - idle notifications, password resets, automatic alt tracking, roster claiming, etc. And for a game with a wiki/website, as @surreality described, or a forum -
email verification is the single biggest widely-accepted mechanism for guarding against bots and spammers. It is foolproof? Certainly not. Is it necessary? Clearly not - games have been muddling through without it for years. That doesn't mean it's not a good idea though.

[surreality]

I know it's relevant for my purposes.

Create at login is not going to be enabled.
Guests will not be enabled at all times.
Wiki is required.
I am not allowing anonymous users account creation access on the wiki, and I do not trust the extensions that handle this in an automated fashion; further, they would not provide means to send the player their initial MUX password.

I'm going to need an email, because people will need to email to request a login for the MUX and wiki, and that's really just all there is to it. Ultimately, I am not going to cater to what I consider an unreasonable degree of paranoia about what is undoubtedly going to be, or quite easily can be, a throwaway gmail address.

If someone genuinely can't be bothered to create a throwaway email address if they're that concerned about being identified by one of two headstaff who can see their IP address anyway, I can't really say I have much sympathy, and can't imagine how, if this is somehow beyond their ken, they would ever make it through chargen on any MUX, anywhere, pretty much ever. Even CG on Shang is more complex than creating a throwaway webmail addy somewhere.

[Coin]

Honestly, a lot of people throw their arms up about the whole "requiring e-mail" thing, and I've never gotten the big deal. E-mails are easy to come by, easy to drop.

I just never got it.

[surreality]

@Coin In all seriousness, I wouldn't care if somebody made surreality-is-a-bitch@gmail.com to register with, I just need something to send them their damn passwords.

...now I kinda wanna see if that's available, but no.

[Thenomain]

@Coin said in Identifying Major Issues:

Honestly, a lot of people throw their arms up about the whole "requiring e-mail" thing, and I've never gotten the big deal. E-mails are easy to come by, easy to drop.

I just never got it.

It is not a little ironic when people are also complaining that a game based on telnet is a barrier to entry. I believe that we are projecting our own capabilities and understanding, and ignoring others as they are convenient or not convenient to us.

[faraday]

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

It is not a little ironic when people are also complaining that a game based on telnet is a barrier to entry. I believe that we are projecting our own capabilities and understanding, and ignoring others as they are convenient or not convenient to us.

I have to respectfully disagree there. Using an email to register for a site is ubiquitous. It's something any entry-level internet user in the modern era is familiar with. Either they don't care about their privacy, or they've learned to create a dummy email they use for untrusworthy sites.

That's very different from a barrier that involves downloading a special app with a non-intuitive GUI that you use to connect to a game with no GUI and command-line text prompts.

[Thenomain]

@faraday

And to counter: Every MMO requires a very special app to download and its interface must be taught. This describes every computer game, even. The method which is taught in learned is the opposite of ubiquitous, but it is universal in being the accepted way of doing things. And yet, in the complaints of using telnet, I don't recall anyone really explaining how we are going to get out of this cycle.

You know that I'd love to talk about exactly that with you, but this right now is to make a point and I'm going to be late for work.

[surreality]

@Thenomain Realistically, there's no catering to every preference or personal distaste. At a certain point, it's either 'accept the terms, or don't ride the ride'.

Age limits (18+ only players) are a barrier to entry.

'Must be able to communicate in English' is the case for most MUXes, is a far more significant hurdle, and that is also a barrier to entry.

I really do not believe this is a case of capability; it's a case of preference 99.999999999999999999999999% of the time.

[faraday]

@Thenomain And MMOs require an email address to register. Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Thenomain]

@faraday

Yeah. I know. That's why I went with MMOs. Dork.

[SparklesTheClown]

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

And yet, in the complaints of using telnet, I don't recall anyone really explaining how we are going to get out of this cycle.

I have a long-term plan, but I don't like talking out of my ass until I know something is feasible.

[faraday]

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

Yeah. I know. That's why I went with MMOs. Dork.

And to counter: Every MMO requires a very special app to download and its interface must be taught. This describes every computer game, even.

More seriously though... I think that comes down to whether you think of MU*s as a video game. I really don't, because it's text, not graphics. It's already got a heavy slant toward being a web app, as evidenced by how heavily MU*s these days rely on wikis.

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

And yet, in the complaints of using telnet, I don't recall anyone really explaining how we are going to get out of this cycle.

Well, I pitched a way out of the cycle but it wasn't well received. The only way out of the cycle is for the majority of players to want out of the cycle.

[Ganymede]

@faraday said in Identifying Major Issues:

Where did anyone say requiring an email was a shield against harassment?

It's been brought up in other threads here, but I was directly addressing this:

"And if I'm running a game? Honestly, there are things I will want for my own security and game features that will require this. And if you can't trust me enough to even provide a burner e-mail for that, fine. Play elsewhere. There are other options." (Emphasis added.)

If your game requires the e-mail address for functions to work, that's fine. For the wiki? Cool. But if anyone thinks that the e-mail address will provide some sort of security against harassment, hacking, or whatever, it really won't.

That's all.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Ganymede said in Identifying Major Issues:

If your game requires the e-mail address for functions to work, that's fine. For the wiki? Cool. But if anyone thinks that the e-mail address will provide some sort of security against harassment, hacking, or whatever, it really won't.

This is my feeling on it. I'm fine with creating a gmail account specifically for MU use, particularly for wiki access, though there are other ease-of-use features (password retention that @faraday mentioned, and Arx's character creation was done via registering the session you're cg'ing from to an email, rather than creating a bit on-game). But for security, it's a joke. I do get annoyed when that's trotted out as a rational, which is pretty common, even though I think there are a lot of decent reasons to exchange an email with a staffer.

[Paris]

This is probably over-elaborating, but I would strongly suggest that folks ONLY use email made for that game, just so it can't be used against you (as several folks have cited examples of).

Re: IPs, those change. Re: emails, I've used my main one since gmail was a thing. I just never ever use it when it comes to MUSHing.

I suggest the same for MMOs (since those got mentioned), since you get weirdos there, too. One tried to get my details after he found out I was ill (through a mutual friend), and became obsessed with finshing the job when I wasn't dying fast enough. It's not just me, either, we've had to ban fixated people trying to get real life details from some of my staff (yes, I saw the logs).

I used to be a lot more open, but not anymore. I love roleplayers and gamers, but damn do a notable number have no concept of boundaries and self-control.

(Edit: If I'm coming up with a lot of cautionary tales, I've been MUing since 1993 or so. The crazy factor has remained constant.)

[SparklesTheClown]

In my experience, in just ten years alone this hobby has almost entirely changed as far as staff conduct and what is or isn't acceptable in most games. While WoD has been slow to progress with this rest of the hobby, even those games are showing huge amounts of progress every time a new one pops up.

So I don't know about crazy remaining constant, this is a totally different hobby from when I joined, which is good because I'd have otherwise just quit by now due to being sick of all the bullshit and insane staff practices that used to be the norm.

Also I join -way- too many games to make a new email every single time. I would literally have over 200 emails if I did that from the start of my time in the hobby.

[Paris]

They're still the norm on WoD games, in my opinion, and is presently why I only RP on my own game. If I was healthier, I'd be more adventurous, but I'm tired. I'll put in the time and work (building, helping players, making sure jobs are done on time) on a game where I know it's appreciated.

[Thenomain]

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.