NationStates Jolt Archive

I posted something about the advantages of gagging (muting) a nation vs. baning. I was told by Neut to create a thread here, and that's what i'm doing.

I think that gag is a must. Especially in The Rejected Realms, where ban is not allowed and spammers can do what they wish. Also, this could solve problems in the Pacifics, if ban were disabled and only gag enabled. Anyway, adding gag as an alternative to ban is something good IMHO. Of course, in most regions both will be enabled. Or maybe enable ban only for founders? I think in the pacifics only gag should be enabled, as it should be in the RR.
Also, i suggest muting not to be permanent, maybe for only 24-48 hours?

What do you think?

Here's what has been discussed about this lately:

He desn't have to ban them, i think it's enough to gag 'em. BTW, why is gag not implemented in this game? Somebody spams, gag, and that's all. You don't have to ban people. This would be useful in the Pacifics, and RR especially... It will make a lot of controversies disappear...
What do you say about this?

I argued like hell for this when the regional controls were put in. I believe even violet responded on this topic. I got an emphatic no. I'll see if I can find the thread (if it still exists).

Ah, here it is:
http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20574

I was arguing in this thread as insaneweasels, one of my now dead *sniff* puppets.

Also, notice violets stated reason for the ban feature....

13 pages!!?
umm.....
could ya give me the short version please?
Wish i could but it would require me to read through it too.
The very short version is "no, can't have it"


*edit*
found the appropriate message (the things I do for you guys..sheesh)


Please, can someone answer me why booting is better than muting given the problems violet is fixing and that regions are password protected?Obviously there are drawbacks to booting.

People can (and frequently have) made nations with abusive names and mottos (e.g. "<nation> is Gay"), in addition to spamming the regional message board. It would be impossible to mute their name and motto.

In addition, muting might even encourage region-crashing, because you could invade a region and mute all the previous residents -- hilarious fun for region-crashers, I'm sure.

So I don't think muting is a better solution than ejecting. But I appreciate the constructive suggestion.

i voted first :D

Well, thank you Hc... :roll:

In addition, muting might even encourage region-crashing, because you could invade a region and mute all the previous residents -- hilarious fun for region-crashers, I'm sure.

Well, i think right now the most hilarious thing a delegate does is banning, especially because they can ban 40%, change the delegate, ban another 40% of the rest and so on... I dunno, this could be an issue though...

Awaiting your opinions... Come on, don't be shy... :wink:

my opinion is i do't know and i don't care 8)

Interesting idea, I'd like to hear more opinions on it.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/salusasecondus/salusasecondus2.jpg
SalusaSecondus
Tech Modling

I guess it could have it uses,the problem I see is that people would use it to stop anyone going against their wishes

So a gagging order would mean a nation would be blocked from posting in regional forums for a few days? And presumably unable to send telegrams either?

It does sound like an intriguing idea. Adding such a feature to Regional Controls would be going too far, but giving it to the Moderators might give them an extra tool in their arsenal, perhaps something more effective than a first warning?

I like it. Many of my allies and I have experienced spammer problems first hand, in some cases the offenders got deleted, in most others they got away. It might be useful.

The reason that giving such an ability to UN Delegates would be troublesome is that instead of ejecting people, they could gag them and keep renewing the gag, were they to be so inclined. It would be a form of oppression less visible and more sinister than griefing. I can see it opening up a whole new can of worms. But giving it to Founders in Regional Controls would be OK, I think.

EDIT: Events in the Pacific would seem to be a strong case for ruling out such privileges from being bestowed upon UN Delegates in Founder-less regions, be they feeder regions or not. The potential for the misuse of such privileges has been demonstrated beyond doubt.

I rather gave it to the founder. A founder likes a lively region, so he would never use that ability to shut inhabitants down to grieve them. Delegates would be way to powerful in crashing regios this way.
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Corinthe, Queen of Eternity.

There's a difference between gagging and muting:

Gagging is where that person can't speak on whatever channel the gag is functional on.

Mute is where that person can speak, but you auto-filter is so you don't have to read/hear it.

Regarding Muting:
The latter is useless IMHO, as it is important to have all the information regarding your region. If there's opposition against you, one should know. So, personally, I would never use a Mute functionality.

Regarding Gagging:
Being able to totally silence any opposition is going too far in my opinion. it opens up lots of room for abuse. Everybody should be aware who they cannot hear, and it'll just make people wonder what they're not allowed to listen to. I'd probably never use this feature either.

I don't see what use it has against spammers, as it will only be used after the spam has already hit the board. Next day, a new puppet is created. It doesn't truly solve the problem of spamming.

Ballotonia

I disagree, most spammers I have seen move from region to region, spamming each in turn. So although it might be too late for you, a quick reaction will save others further down the line. Then the spammer could be reported to the Moderators. It would be like the 30 minute autoblock feature on my firewall for dealing with portscans, while you work out what to do about it.

And I tend to see a Founder's authority as final. Giving them further dictatorial powers would not be damaging freedoms much - they created the region, they can do as they please to it and its inhabitants as long as they choose to remain there. UN Delegates, however - no way!

I don't see what use it has against spammers, as it will only be used after the spam has already hit the board. Next day, a new puppet is created. It doesn't truly solve the problem of spamming.

Ballotonia

Ballotonia,
I would be interested in hearing your opinion on what would stop spammers. How would you stop a spammer before their spam has been posted? :?

Pre-emptive banning! I pushed for this a couple months ago and never heard anything further...

My idea was to allow nations to be added to the regional ban list, without them physically being in the region.

This would obviously not eliminate spamming by any stretch of the imagination, but it would end the vicious cycle of "Nation Spams Region, leaves to avoid ejection, Returns and spams some more, Leaves, etc."

This idea (preempitive banning) is (I believe) on the to-do list.

Pre-emptive banning! I pushed for this a couple months ago and never heard anything further...

My idea was to allow nations to be added to the regional ban list, without them physically being in the region.

This would obviously not eliminate spamming by any stretch of the imagination, but it would end the vicious cycle of "Nation Spams Region, leaves to avoid ejection, Returns and spams some more, Leaves, etc."

It would also make region-crashing near-impossible. All a Delegate would have to do is go around to prominent region-crashing regions and ban their members from entering the region, and an incredibly complicated attack would be required to have any chance of success.

This would be useful for Mods and Founders, but as some delegates illustrate all to well*cough*--Fra--nc-o*coughcough*, this should be a Founder/Mod only thing.

Do we really need permanent bans. Most cases a cooling off period is all that is needed. This would take care of spammers, and they would be banned long enough for a report to the MODs to be processed. When I say Spammers, I include a number of other sins as well, including very inappropriate language.

Attackers could be twarted by a temp ban as well.

A set percentage like 10% with a total maximum number of countries set to say 99 nations should be the limit of what a delegate can eject and ban from a region or double that if eject and removed from the banned list. A region with less than ten, these numbers are useless. After 1 nation is ejected, then the failsafe would be put into place and the feature of ejecting a nation would be locked out.

I would be interested in hearing your opinion on what would stop spammers. How would you stop a spammer before their spam has been posted? :?

Spamming can never be stopped 100%, so I'm automatically skeptical whenever combatting the problem of spamming is used to back up a new feature request.

It is possible however to reduce the problem, by increasing the effort involved in spamming. Examples:
- After moving to a new region, one has to stay there for X timeperiod before being allowed to move again (with exceptions such as being banned). Those helicopters moving nations around need to refuel, right? ;)
- After posting a message on the Civil HQ board, one cannot post again for Y minutes.
- Maybe also: if the last message in the Civil HQ Board is your own, and isn't older than Z minutes, you cannot post to it.

Fill in whatever is appropriate for X, Y, and Z, such that it minimizes the burden on regular players, yet still is expected to have an effect on spammers.

Note there are ways around the above for spammers. It won't get rid of spammers, it'll just raise the bar.

Ballotonia

I have a slightly different take on this. Instead of "Gag" and "Mute", it should be "Time Out" and "Mute".

Mute: Spamming and people who do malicious things should be muted and, failing that, banned. These people have absolutely no wish to behave and play by the rules.

Time Out: This is used in those cases where we have experienced players (especially those who play by the rules) who start wars not IC but OOC. "Hey, you're attacking me for no reason!" or "I don't accept that tech, I'm ignoring your attack!" Just give them a Time Out, stop them posting, give them time to calm down.

As for the region thing, I think it should be allowed, though if Delegates abuse the powers, they can have that power removed, or even deleted. But that's what I think.

I want Delegates to have this power. It would be the perfect weapon against the Spam-Bastards!

Ok, to make a resume of what i think about some game improvements, based on the other people's posts till now:

Gagging:

* Gagging would mean to deny a nation it's ability to post anything on the local regional board, for a certain amount of time (like 6-12 hours); after that the gag would be "lifted" automatically.

* It would be better if only founders would have the power to gag by default, but they might want to be able to give that power to delegates too.

* In regions without founders, UN members should vote whatever the delegate is allowed to gag or not; there would be 2 ways to do that: i) either 50% + 1 of all UN members must vote Yes, or ii) it would be enough 50% + 1 of the votes.

Only for case i): obviously, the ability will come into power as soon as the requirement will be meet, and stay like that for an amount of time (12-36 hours) - this because new UN members could come into the region.

Only for case ii): the ability would come into power after 3 days (?) of voting, and stay like that for a longer amount of time (48-72 hours).

* In the Rejected Realms, the UN Delegate should have that power no matter what, because they can't eject spammers.

* Gagging would not have too much effect on invasions, cause invaders could still talk to each other using with telegrams.

* Every region should have a list of gagged people. This is a must, to defend against abuses.

Muting:

* Muting would be something private, done by just one nation: if they add a nation to the mute-list, they will no longer receive any tg's from that particular nation/all nations with the same e-mail adress/IP.

* There should be a limit to the list, like 15 nations?

Endorsements / UN delegates:

* There should not be an unlimited number of endorsements one can give, to prevent blind endorsement swapping.

* The limit should be the size of the nation in millions divided by 100 (?), and with a minimum of 1. Thus nations with 5 million, 10 mil or 100 millions would have only 1 vote. From 101 millions to 200, 2 votes etc.

* Important: UN delegates with less than 25% of all UN members votes shouldn't have at all the power to ban, no matter what.

* Important: Maybe the position of "UN delegate" should be renamed, something like... i dunno, "Region Guardian", or something similar. Or even make a distinction between a real "UN Delegate", who would have only UN-related abilities and a Guardian ?... This would surely resolve some issues and make the game a lot more interesting...

* A nation shouldn't be allowed to become delegate till the second UN update after it comes in the region, if there is already one.

* More telegram space for Delegates, maybe proportional to the number of nations, or UN members in the region? ;)

Game bonuses for big nations:

* I think there should be bonuses for big nations.

* Nations with more than 500 millions people should be allowed to have a capital city ;)

* Nations bigger than 1 billion should be allowed to have "semi-aliases" for telegrams and regional messages, 5 of them maybe. Something like a telegram from the nation "XXX", and below it's name a title: "Prime minister zzz", "Foreign minister yyy". The same for regional boards. This would improve RP. Of course, anyone that fits in the category would write the positions for themselves.

* Also big nation > 2 billions should be able to make their own titles in the nation's name. Like "The Most Powerful Federation of...", with a limit of 64 characters?

* A lot of other stuff for bonuses, name one :) .

Throttles:

* Nations should not be able to change regions for 5-10 minutes after last change.

* Nations should not be able to send telegrams faster than one at every 120 seconds to the same nation, maybe to other nations too?

* Nations should not be able to post on the board faster than 3-4 minutes.



Thank you for your opinions till now, awaiting for new ones. There is a lot to discuss about, like "What happens if you make the UN Delegate's inbox 30 messages big, but it stops being a delegate?"

I hope [violet] won't throw anything at me. :P

If this discussion gets interesting, maybe a mod would rename the thread to "Game improvements" and make it sticky?

BTW, please excuse my poor english.


Daciana / Carpathya (yes, it's me, lol). http://www.chip.ro/forum/images/smiles/10531766.gif

Whew . . . Lots of ideas in here, and I'll address them all later. But, a brief overview:

Gagging: Interesting idea, I'm still playing around with the consequences of it. It's permissions would go hand in hand with those of the rest of regional controls (or so I would guess, to limit the code changes). As far as displaying the list, that's another good idea, but not an easy one. I do have some ideas, though, that I'm kicking around.

Muting: It's a good idea and one I'd like to see at some point.

Endorsements:
- Limited Endorsements: Interesting, but probably not (easily) doable with the current system.
- Ranks of Power: (depending on level of endorsement) Same answer as limited endorsments.
- Rename: Ehh, The position doesn't seem to be splitting anytime soon.
- Delay in position of Delegate: I like this one (I don't know how anyone else will feel about it though). It would be a bit interesting to code, however.
- More telegram space: It's been suggested before, but what happens when you lose the delegacy?

Bonuses: I like all of your suggestions.

Throttles: The timing might need some tweaking, but all seem reasonable (though the region travelers will hate us).

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/salusasecondus/salusasecondus2.jpg
SalusaSecondus
Tech Modling

I don't agree with the posting throttle. I've taken part in some debates on this board where I've replied to a reply to my last post every 15 - 20 seconds...

This throttle would destroy the boards.

I don't agree with the posting throttle. I've taken part in some debates on this board where I've replied to a reply to my last post every 15 - 20 seconds...

'this board' ? Perhaps you're confusing this forum with the Civil HQ Board in regions, because the latter is what the throttle suggestion is all about.

BTW, this forum already has a throttle (flood control), but it's set low.

Ballotonia

I don't agree with the posting throttle. I've taken part in some debates on this board where I've replied to a reply to my last post every 15 - 20 seconds...

'this board' ? Perhaps you're confusing this forum with the Civil HQ Board in regions, because the latter is what the throttle suggestion is all about.

BTW, this forum already has a throttle (flood control), but it's set low.

Ballotonia

Sorry, automatic response...

When I see 'board' on phpBB, I automatically think forum... ;)

And I know phpBB has a flood control. It's set to ~20 seconds at the moment...

While it might be ok for founders, I don't think that delegates should have the power to gag a country. It could be used to unfair advantage
by a delegate trying to retain their position.

Sorry, automatic response...

When I see 'board' on phpBB, I automatically think forum... ;)

And I know phpBB has a flood control. It's set to ~20 seconds at the moment...

Mine is set at 3 minutes, that will teach them :P


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Corinthe, Queen of Eternity

While it might be ok for founders, I don't think that delegates should have the power to gag a country. It could be used to unfair advantage
by a delegate trying to retain their position.

I agree. You people must understand that many changes can really destroy the fun in this game. I respect the really "Wise people called mods" :)

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Corinthe, Queen of Eternity.

While it might be ok for founders, I don't think that delegates should have the power to gag a country. It could be used to unfair advantage
by a delegate trying to retain their position.

So can kicking, but delgates can still do that if they have regional controls. The way I see it, this should just be added to regional controls.