Posts made by Sunny

@Macha

I'm sorry you're going through this.

@Tinuviel said in TS - Danger zone:

@Derp said in TS - Danger zone:

Though somehow I think that people would miss the joke and take it way too seriously.

Experience has taught me that... yes. People will send you logs.

Please. I would subscribe to this newsletter if you carried through with this threat.

ETA: Derp's best impression of Gordon Ramsey's critique on TS logs would be -- I mean, you could probably do a patron thing.

@Derp said in Privacy in gaming:

@Sunny said in Privacy in gaming:

Thanks Dew, wherever you are, yes, for that gloriously colorful code.

Stooorytime!

So, BigBad was, before he was BigBad, a coder that I'd played with fairly regularly. He came on to help with Ashes in the early stages, we were pals. He did a fairly impressive job for us with code, and everything was going well. Until he began monitoring peoples' pages, then brought logs of this monitoring to me as proof that people were OOCly plotting against him. I sitebanned him. He accessed the game around the siteban and nuked a very large portion of our code before we were able to do anything about it. We were not in full open, but we were in soft RP, and while character bits had stats and such on them, the entire framework was gone.

I don't know how she managed it, but Dew built us a chargen and sheet code in what seems to me in hindsight like it was absolutely no time at all -- if it wasn't a weekend then it was a week/two at max -- using the stats that were all on everyone's charbits. Basically built us a framework for someone else's insanity that WORKED, and not only did it work, but she set it up so that I, a complete code incompetent, was able to maintain it without her.

It was -- like a rainbow vomited on kermit, then scooped it up and put it in the blender, then dumped it on our game. It was colorful but not in any particular way, but my god it was ours and it worked.

ETA: Oh oh oh and she gave us complete permission to share it as much as we wanted to, as long as I was supporting it and not her.

ETA2: The person who came along after I had spread it to several other games deserves mention. They not only cleaned up Ashes, but they went to the other games and updated that code, and then chased me back to my 'we do not test in production' room and -- yeah. They did fix Ashes' code, and the code that came from Ashes' code, and they spent many years maintaining and it was awesome. I'm not sure what they go by these days around here, but this is def recognition for them. So much appreciated.

@Tinuviel

The coder was doing key word searches on the pages of people he was monitoring. He then brought evidence from this source to me as proof that people were plotting OOCly against his character. So. It's less banal and far more malicious when it does happen, I expect.

ETA: I will grant the quality though, on the grounds of stupid. OK, the premise itself I agree with.

Thinking about it -- sorry, this was a REALLY long time ago -- we had a young lady who we (my co-gods and I) eventually agreed that if she wasn't actually a minor, we still didn't want her on the game because she acted so much like one, and so we banned her basically on the suspicion of being underage.

So that's the other experience I had on the subject. I also place the 18+ on the connect screen for everything but sandboxes, because it would be insane to do otherwise.

I also state in no uncertain terms that while IC public areas will be monitored, private rooms, pages, and @mails will remain private save in the case of suspected RL endangerment/law issues/I am not going blah blah to that extent right now, but it's a very very specific set of circumstances outlined that are exceptions. I also state in no uncertain terms that anyone found to be in violation of this rule will be sitebanned. Period.

I would expect to be destroyed -- and would deserve to be destroyed -- if it were discovered that I were to violate this.

I'm not quite so strict in my requirements in regards to where I play rather than staff, but it's literally only because I no longer play on games where I don't actively trust the people running them, so my boundaries are easier.

ETA: I sitebanned a coder for breaking this rule. It did not go well. We recovered. Thanks Dew, wherever you are, yes, for that gloriously colorful code.

@gryphter

His mom was damn cool about the whole thing and it turned out quite well for everyone in the end, particularly as I was an additional voice poking him about homework. He got into the college he wanted and -- so on. I mean, I'm talking of course about a specific incident that went about as well as this sort of thing could ever possibly go, but this is in reality what actually happened the one time I ran into this as a game administrator. It was the only time it ever came up.

I was a TERRIBLE kid, and because I was a terrible kid, I know there isn't anything I could do as a game administrator to keep terrible kids out. It's just not possible, and beyond that, it falls into the realm of undue burden and such. It's just not reasonable.

So while I agree that there's probably things that could be done (and should be done in the cases of games that focus on themes that are popular with children) in the case of the prevention of harm to minors, I don't think it's really a privacy concern.

Legal, moral, and ethical obligations are all different sorts of obligations. It's important to be clear with ourselves on which we are discussing at any given time, since things can get muddied quickly.

@gryphter

Those are different issues. They have nothing to do with this. The short answer is that games are not legally obligated to care if kids lie. If the game becomes aware that a child is present that has lied to be there, via an IAgree, the game IS legally obligated to care, and to remove them if they are discovered. If it is an 18+ game.

I discovered a 17 year old on my game once upon a time. I talked to legal help VERY QUICKLY. Amusingly enough, I was able to obtain written permission from his mother to allow him to be there, we took some precautions, and everyone won. Legally tho, because of how it works, we generally can't be held liable if they lie.

@faraday

Email is PII, but 'email' is not a requirement for mushing as a hobby, it is game specific policy. I disagree that in the context of mushing an IP would be by law considered PII, as the context mattering is why your quote says 'may' rather than stating it's an absolute.

ETA: Yes, but the fact that it happens does not mean that a mush is legally obligated to some sort of care as to who can access the staff side stuff.

@gryphter

Obviously. But I vehemently disagree that 'proper application of the law and our hobby wouldn't exist' is accurate. That's absolute nonsense, especially if the basis for that is PII, when there is no PII.

ETA: I mean seriously with a claim like that? Citations needed.

@gryphter

No PII is involved in a mush. Your IP does not, in most cases, qualify as PII, as it identifies a computer, not a person. So, uh, yeah.

I am going to repeat myself here because the point seems to have gotten missed in the rest of what I said:

I do not care about my privacy because I am worried about someone reading my pages and mail, or watching my TS. I don't have anything to hide, I don't share stuff I care about being seen, etc.

I care about my privacy for my privacy's sake, because I value it.

My expectation of privacy is not that any given someone MUST provide it. It IS a selection criteria for me. If somewhere has it on policy that they will not be what I, specifically, find reasonable about my privacy I will not play there no matter what. I can understand the reasons for it, respect that it is their decision, and never once darken their doorway ever. Which is perfectly reasonable.

If you aren't trustworthy enough to respect privacy when there is no need to violate it, then you aren't trustworthy enough for me to play at your table.

If I were playing somewhere and discovered that I was being spied upon in a way I found objectionable, I would leave (immediately) and probably holler about it here to make sure nobody else was surprised like I was. I have no expectations that my communication is secure, and I know damn well how easy it is to spy. I still have an expectation of reasonable privacy, and if I don't get it, it's a deal breaker. Not because I said something I don't want to be made public, not because I'm super worried about my ts being watched, but because privacy itself is valuable, and if someone violates it for their own gain or entertainment, they aren't someone I can trust in even the most basic way.

@Aria

I have that exact zit right now and it is driving me batty.

ETA: And my acne is finally cleared up because my hormones are under control! It's infuriating! So I totally get it.

@DareDaemon

No, this is you twisting someone else's words to imply what you want to imply so you can sound like you're being oppressed.

@DareDaemon

Peoples' opinions being different than yours is not a personal attack.

@saosmash said in Why don't we have a general board game thread anyway?:

@Sunny It's a great game! We're gonna buy the expansion soon for our group.

COMPLETELY worth it. 100%. I have no group right now but maybe someday. SOMEDAY.

@saosmash

Lords of Waterdeep is hands down my absolute favorite board game ever. I -- enjoy it so much for so many reasons, including the assistance in getting my tabletop group further interested in the actual lore surrounding the world we were playing in for our game.

@Tinuviel said in TS - Danger zone:

I'm trying to get across the point that I'm not saying what anyone can or can't do. I'm saying it's stupid to try, and that there are inherent dangers with that position.

people this is the point

there are inherent dangers with that position

Like real actual dangers. Right or wrong that it should be, this is the point.