Forums » General

Abuse of the Relay

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Jan 14, 2004 FiReMaGe link
The relay meaning the Vendetta IRC Relay, a.k.a the character IRC on Vendetta and the IRC user vendetta on IRC (irc.slashnet.org #vendetta-ingame).

----- Forum Moderator
I obseved a discussion about using IRC to continue to chat while muted. The IRC bot *could* be muted, but that wouldn't be fair to other users. If you are muted and prefer to attempt to go around the disciplinary measure rather than agree to modify your behavior, you will be banned.
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Notice: I haven't fully tested these new features but here goes.

I have addressed this problem by adding muting, ignoring, unmuting, and unignoring. If you see that someone using IRC to chat is either disturbing the players of Vendetta or is bypassing a mute by a guide or developer, you can mute them with the mute command. To do this, you just message the IRC character the command.

- Example: /msg IRC mute FiReMaGe
IRC user FiReMaGe will then be muted for ten minutes.

Don't think ten minutes is enough? Ask other people to use the mute command. For each mute, the mute time increases by ten minutes. IRC users can also use the mute command.

- Example: /msg vendetta mute FiReMaGeII
IRC user FiReMaGeII will then be muted for ten minutes.

If Vendetta users are abusing the mute command, you can use the unmute command. If you're the one muted, you're going to have to ask other users to unmute you.

- Example: /msg vendetta unmute FiReMaGe
IRC user FiReMaGe's mute time will then be decreased by twenty minutes. Yes, twenty. Vendetta users can use this command also with the IRC character.

- Example: /msg IRC unmute FiReMaGe

A note, Vendetts users must have at least 10k score to use mute and unmute.

Also, for IRC users, if any Vendetta user is bothering you, you can just ignore them.

- Example: /msg vendetta ignore Defense Ship 3
(Yes, no quotes.) Defense Ship 3 will then be ignored for ten minutes. Again, you can ask more users to ignore Defense Ship 3 to lengthen the ignore time. If anyone is abusing the ignore command, you can just use unignore.

- Example: /msg vendetta unignore Defense Ship 3
This will decrease the ignore time by twenty minutes. No, Vendetta users do not get an ignore and unignore command as there is no need for it.

For those that still think the mute and ignore commands don't last long enough, you can use the mute and ignore command as much as you want after they are no longer muted or ignored. This means if they are no longer muted, you can just mute them again if the mute time wasn't long enough. However you can't keep using the mute command to continue to increase the mute time to something like 1440 minutes.

As time passes, I will change whatever's needed to decrease the amount of abuse of either using the relay to send disturbing messages or the new mute and ignore commands.
Jan 14, 2004 Archon link
SmarT.
Jan 14, 2004 SirCamps link
Very nice addition, FM!! I applaud you!
Jan 14, 2004 Forum Moderator link
Wow. Thanks!
Jan 14, 2004 Arolte link
There's a problem with this. What if someone wants to be a jerk by logging into Vendetta and muting people on IRC just for kicks? What's to stop anyone from doing that? Let's say you hate someone on IRC and you decide to get a couple of buddies to log into Vendetta to type in that mute command. Boom! You got instant op access with muting privelages to #vendetta-ingame just by logging into Vendetta. Or... does this work by having the bot simply ignore any messages sent to it by such and such individuals? Again, still abusable IMO. I think it should work like a voting system where it takes at least three mutes to shut someone up.
Jan 14, 2004 Suicidal Lemming link
Perhaps there could be a password?

For instance:
/msg IRC mute AnnoyingJerk 1234

And only trusted people would get the password.
Jan 14, 2004 Eldrad link
Arolte you did see the "unmute" peice right? If you can get half the number of people to agree that you should be unmuted as are muting you it won't be a problem. The system isn't perfect, but that fail-safe is pretty strong. If 2/3rds of players don't want to hear someone in IRC that person is probably worth muting.
Jan 14, 2004 Arolte link
There's a problem with unmuting. You have to know the person is muted before you can unmute 'em. As I said before, someone could just anonymously log on, mute 'em, and walk away as if nothing happened. Nobody would know that person was muted. The only way something like this could be solved is to have a live person moderating #vendetta-ingame and using their best judgement on whether to mute the individual. I don't think that the problem is so common that it would require such a muting feature that has potential to be abused itself.
Jan 14, 2004 Sheean link
Maybe a simple 'bla is muted' message?

Also, maybe exclude certain people from being muted... like vets and the like (use the vet list in the forum to get a nice do-not-mute-list.)
Jan 14, 2004 SirCamps link
FiReMaGe, here's an idea:

Let's say you want to mute me on IRC.

/msg IRC votemute Serco Fighter 1

<IRC> "FiReMaGe" has started a vote to mute Serco Fighter 1. Five votes required. Type /msg IRC yes to vote yes. Type /msg IRC no to vote no.

Three votes would kill the votemute, and five would approve (numbers can vary). The vote could time out after 30 seconds.
Jan 14, 2004 FiReMaGe link
First, I'd like to thank all of you on your input.

Okay, the bot announces if someone is ignored or muted already. However, it only does to IRC users because I don't wish to disturb the players of Vendetta.

A player will know they are muted when they try to use the say or me command. They can just ask someone else to unmute them.

SirCamps, I had that idea in mind but Eldrad suggested it to be instant (And probably only for trusted users like Suicidal Lemming's idea.). I plan to just see how this goes. So far, the new commands haven't been used. Regarding Suicidal Lemming's idea, that requires me to compile a list of trusted users that will always have at least one of them monitoring. I rather just leave it to the players.

The way I have it now allows IRC to say the minimal amount of things needed. I wish IRC to be as least attention grabbing as possible.

What's planned:
+) The command "list mute" and "list ignore" to see who's muted or ignored and for how long.
+) Users that mute a user also disallow that user to use the relay's private message future to message them.
+) You can only mute IRC users that have said at least one message five minutes ago.
+) Users that use the mute command and then log off will have the mute decreased by ten minutes as if they never used the command (The bot already knows when users log on and off.).
+) The announcing (to Vendetta users) of mute and ingore commands when they are used.

And if the mute command is abused greatly...

+) Required payed (Vendetta credits) subscription to use certain commands of the relay, such as mute and ignore.

If I'm convinced, I might change it to voting. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a need.
Jan 14, 2004 ahdinh2 link
voting is good, POWER to the people!
Jan 14, 2004 Pyroman_Ace link
if these new commands could be used by ANYONE, I can think of one guild that will eventually go on a power trip with this, the SMs. They are already the most hated guild to exist and 01 is a power hungry person, I fear that 01 and the SMs may simply use this as a way of "/ignore"ing someone for everyone.

I would like to encourage that the "/mute" and other such tools be reserved for only a trusted few who would be monitored closely by the others so as to not allow the power to be rampantly abused. A small collection of users with the power could monitor the others in that group to insure no abuse was being done. Sort of a massive community watch effort, only kinda different.

[SDF] Black 1
CO, SDF
Jan 14, 2004 mastacrasha911 link
You are so petty Pyroman.... seriously...
Jan 14, 2004 Pyroman_Ace link
I am merely concerned that your group is known to possess rogues that arent to be trusted, and not only I feel this way.
Jan 14, 2004 Suicidal Lemming link
Pyroman, keep the SM out of this, your post can easily take this thread and light it on fire.

Like paper and matches.
Jan 14, 2004 Pyroman_Ace link
Gladly Lemming, this isnt the SDFs or SMs place to argue, lets take it back to the Ban Petition thread.

Sry all on this thread. Not intended to start a flame war
Jan 15, 2004 asphyxia link
well, i'm online during the hours of 9am - 6pm gmt so i can cover that timeslot for relay "moderation"

asphy
Jan 15, 2004 asphyxia link
actually, how about this

if someone is abusing the irc relay to get around a mute, they're kickbanned until what ever time the ops see fit?

asphy
Jan 15, 2004 SirCamps link
The forum moderator previously said that anyone using a bot such as IRC to get around a mute will be banned.