NationStates Jolt Archive


New UN members admition system

Utopia Pacifica
25-01-2005, 22:02
After a couple of friends & I where expulsed from the UN because of the very well known problem that we used the same computers since there are no others on the campus, I got to think about the issue.

Reading through the different topics I have noticed that I'm not the 1st one, neither will I bee the last one to have this problem.
The mainly affected persons seem to be brothers, or people that log in through school or other computers that are used by more than 1 person, mostly LANS.

Know the reason given why a user can't have more than one nation in the UN is the following

However, please note this important point: we cannot take your word on how many people are really behind your computer. This is not because you are untrustworthy; it's simply that otherwise there is no way to enforce the UN rules.

Q: But that's not fair!
A: True, and again, I'm sorry if you and your friends have been punished unjustly. However, this is the closest we can come to fair. If we accepted people's explanations that they were using a public computer with their friends, we would have to let people create as many UN nations as they like. This would destroy the whole point of the UN.

But does that really fix the problem?

I think not.

Currently in order to become a UN member all you got to provide is a valid E-mail account, nothing more.
I know that there're people in NS that have 30, 40 or even more puppet nations.
In order to enlist this Nations as UN members they require nothing more than an hour in order to created 40 emails that will be used only one time for the verification. After that; nothing.

Also a person ejected from UN can apparently just go & join UN with an other nation but the same E-Mail address.

So does the current system protect the UN from being flooded by fraudulent Nations?
Not really
Does it prevent cheaters from creating new fake UN member nations?
Not really neither.

So if someone really wants to cheat he just can keep going on & on & on.

But as said I have been thinking about this & come to the following conclusion:

NS should implement a membership system based on the IP addresses.
One IP, one UN member or maybe in order to make things fair for people that can’t afford 2 or 3 computers, 2 or 3 Nation in the UN per IP.

Also login should then be restricted to those IP addresses.

I know, people will come say “hey, but what about those that still log in via dial up?”

Well, for that the system would have to work as followed:
In setting you would have to declare if you use a computer that is connected via LAN, DSL, Cable, ISDN, Satellite or one that is via Dial up.

LAN, DSL, Cable, ISDN, Satellite connected players would be able to connect from 2 or 3 different IP addresses (top) to there nation, allowing them so for example to connect from home, work/school.
Every IP address would have to be declared in the settings & saved.
Nation would be able to change there IP address to log in, but a 24h quarantine would be enabled that would disable the player from taking any action in the game regarding the UN.


“Dial Up” players would be only allowed to log in from different IP addresses & maybe 2 or 3 times from the same. After that, the nation would be disabled to take any actions in the game regarding the UN.

Also people should be allowed to switch between the 2 options since a person that is traveling between different locations would need to the “Dial Up” option in order to be able to keep playing.

Note that this is just a general aspect & I haven’t gone further into the software details for know
The Mindset
25-01-2005, 22:20
I was under the impression that it already was one UN nation per IP.
Myrth
25-01-2005, 22:24
This is totally impractical because it is not only LAN members that share IPs, but subscribers to several ISPs also share the same IPs.
Utopia Pacifica
26-01-2005, 04:32
That is why I proposed to allow a couple of UN members per IP & bound the UN mebership to those IPs, since the mail system doesn't work anyway for someone that whants to have several nations in the UN
Flibbleites
26-01-2005, 07:18
I think that this is a situtation where the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies. And in my opnion the current system works just fine.