[IDEA] More Ban Settings

[Stellonia]

Currently, there is only one type of ban: a permanent one, in which nations are not permitted to enter a region or post on its Regional Message Board. This is a bit limited, which is why I feel that a larger quantity of ban options should be made available to Regional Founders, Delegates, and Regional Officers. For instance, nations could be barred from posting on the RMB, from holding a particular function as a Regional Officer, or from entering a region while still being able to post on the RMB as an embassy nation (this may come in handy as a security measure).

What do you think, NS?

[Leppikania]

For instance, nations could be barred from [...] holding a particular function as a Regional Officer,

Couldn't you just not appoint them?

Also, bans aren't technically permanent, as any RO with border control authority can unban someone.

[Cresenthia]

Currently, there is only one type of ban: a permanent one, in which nations are not permitted to enter a region or post on its Regional Message Board. This is a bit limited, which is why I feel that a larger quantity of ban options should be made available to Regional Founders, Delegates, and Regional Officers. For instance, nations could be barred from posting on the RMB, from holding a particular function as a Regional Officer, or from entering a region while still being able to post on the RMB as an embassy nation (this may come in handy as a security measure).

What do you think, NS?

I'm not sure why we would need the one preventing a nation from holding a function as Regional Officer. But what would be the implications for influence in these scenarios? Also, isn't this somewhat similar to the proposal to allow those with Communication authorities to prevent nations from posting to the RMB without banning them?

[Stellonia]

For instance, nations could be barred from [...] holding a particular function as a Regional Officer.

Couldn't you just not appoint them?

What if some other person with Executive authority in your region decided to appoint someone in spite of your objections?

Also, isn't this somewhat similar to the proposal to allow those with Communication authorities to prevent nations from posting to the RMB without banning them?

I hadn't heard of such a proposal, but it does sound like a good idea. Would you please provide a link?

[Leppikania]

Couldn't you just not appoint them?

What if some other person with Executive authority in your region decided to appoint someone in spite of your objections?

If you're the delegate, remember that the founder overrides your authority. If you're the founder, unappoint them and send a stern TG to the delegate. If they appoint that officer again, unappoint them and take away the delegate's executive authority.

[Stellonia]

What if some other person with Executive authority in your region decided to appoint someone in spite of your objections?

If you're the delegate, remember that the founder overrides your authority. If you're the founder, unappoint them and send a stern TG to the delegate. If they appoint that officer again, unappoint them and take away the delegate's executive authority.

What if the political situation of the region somehow necessitates that the delegate have executive authority?

[Imperium Anglorum]

Couldn't you just not appoint them?

What if some other person with Executive authority in your region decided to appoint someone in spite of your objections?

If you're the delegate, remember that the founder overrides your authority. If you're the founder, unappoint them and send a stern TG to the delegate. If they appoint that officer again, unappoint them and take away the delegate's executive authority.

What if the political situation of the region somehow necessitates that the delegate have executive authority?

There are two people who can hold Executive authority. The Delegate and the Founder. The Founder will always have it unless he founded the region without that function. The Delegate has it at the discretion of the founder (except when the founder did not found the region with it or has ceased to exist).

There are no other people who have executive authority. Considering the other things which you've proposed, I don't understand what you're suggesting in the hypothetical. Either that or this is again one of those things related to the perennial elections in your region.

[Nariterrr]

Currently, there is only one type of ban: a permanent one, in which nations are not permitted to enter a region or post on its Regional Message Board. This is a bit limited, which is why I feel that a larger quantity of ban options should be made available to Regional Founders, Delegates, and Regional Officers. For instance, nations could be barred from posting on the RMB, from holding a particular function as a Regional Officer, or from entering a region while still being able to post on the RMB as an embassy nation (this may come in handy as a security measure).

What do you think, NS?

I don't think it's a bad idea to be honest. I think we should allow regional officers to ban people for a certain amount of time.

[Enfaru]

As well as being able to kick/ban by IP address would be helpful.

No I don't mean actually expose the IP address, just a button that says: "Ban all accounts from region associated with this account?" Of course, that'd catch some shared puppets but ho hum you shouldn't be sharing anyway. Though an exception rule would be useful...

[The Blaatschapen]

Currently, there is only one type of ban: a permanent one, in which nations are not permitted to enter a region or post on its Regional Message Board. This is a bit limited, which is why I feel that a larger quantity of ban options should be made available to Regional Founders, Delegates, and Regional Officers. For instance, nations could be barred from posting on the RMB, from holding a particular function as a Regional Officer, or from entering a region while still being able to post on the RMB as an embassy nation (this may come in handy as a security measure).

What do you think, NS?

With regards to barring a nation from posting on an RMB, I'll quote Ballotonia:

You can already chose from which regions nation can post on your RMB, by selecting only those to exchange an embassy with those regions' nations you trust.

For RMB posting control we have the suppression mechanism, allowing a founder or delegate to suppress undesirable posts from the RMB.

The only option to prevent nations from posting to your RMB in the first place is to ban them from your region.

Note that the price for silencing others is it being public that you do so. This is on purpose.

Ballotonia

[Enfaru]

I should point out that "suppressing" does not allow good practice moderation as it is easily circumvented by such apps as NS++. It is not a real way of limiting the exposure of undesirable posts. If we're going to bring this matter into the topic, it would in fact be best to have an actual suppression system that can't be circumvented by attaching a data check in the PHP, checking whether the post should be called before it is sent to the client rather than any client side CSS/Javascript fix.

I think it would be useful to have a function to bar people from using the RMB rather than just banning them. For example, I myself am currently barred from my own RMB for improper conduct. Mostly I abide by the government decisions but if the punishment of banning is too severe, then there is little action the regional government can take.

Accept all or Ban, is not really good practice for moderation, there's no middle ground.

[Dooom35796821595]

As well as being able to kick/ban by IP address would be helpful.

No I don't mean actually expose the IP address, just a button that says: "Ban all accounts from region associated with this account?" Of course, that'd catch some shared puppets but ho hum you shouldn't be sharing anyway. Though an exception rule would be useful...

I agree, a way to kick the puppets of an offender would be a useful tool, it would also be nice if there was a way to find out if two nations were being controlled by the same person.

[Mallorea and Riva]

As well as being able to kick/ban by IP address would be helpful.

No I don't mean actually expose the IP address, just a button that says: "Ban all accounts from region associated with this account?" Of course, that'd catch some shared puppets but ho hum you shouldn't be sharing anyway. Though an exception rule would be useful...

I agree, a way to kick the puppets of an offender would be a useful tool, it would also be nice if there was a way to find out if two nations were being controlled by the same person.

That is not going to happen. Privacy concerns as well as legitimate gameplay functions would be compromised by such a system, not to mention how incredibly complex it would have to be.

[Dooom35796821595]

I agree, a way to kick the puppets of an offender would be a useful tool, it would also be nice if there was a way to find out if two nations were being controlled by the same person.

That is not going to happen. Privacy concerns as well as legitimate gameplay functions would be compromised by such a system, not to mention how incredibly complex it would have to be.

Ah well, guess we'll have to do it the hard way.....case by case.

[Boguran]

That is not going to happen. Privacy concerns as well as legitimate gameplay functions would be compromised by such a system, not to mention how incredibly complex it would have to be.

Ah well, guess we'll have to do it the hard way.....case by case.

That's how it's supposed to be, if you suspect a nation is using a puppet to bother other people, file a GHR

[Enfaru]

I agree, a way to kick the puppets of an offender would be a useful tool, it would also be nice if there was a way to find out if two nations were being controlled by the same person.

That is not going to happen. Privacy concerns as well as legitimate gameplay functions would be compromised by such a system, not to mention how incredibly complex it would have to be.

What "legitimate gameplay functions"? What precisely might these be? I'm not asking anyone to reveal IP addresses, nor am I asking anyone to reveal whose puppets are whose. I'm just asking for a blanket ban. if in regionX, If nationx_ip_add == nationy_ip_add then eject nationy end if eject nationx end if. We'd need to loop a few times of course, but I can't see how this would break "legitimate" gameplay functions.

Considering the FAQ advises strongly against any use of puppets Considering the OSRS advises strongly against any use of puppets, but doesn't outlaw it simply because there are benefits to sharing accounts. However it's always been a long standing given, that if you associate with a puppet with someone who has a tendency to get into trouble, you risk the consequences of the very least having that puppet if not yourself as well punished.

And...no it would not have to be incredibly complex. If the code takes up more than 20 lines, then someone either has too much white space or they need to consider how they could have written their code in a more concise format. The use of ? is a good way to shorten some if statements.

The only thing I can see here, is that it *might* take up some cpu, in which case, it can be limited to run on cycles i.e at update or something. So an IP would be listed back end and if nations match that IP address in their history, then...eject. Many simpler ways of going through this.

[Wrapper]

Considering the FAQ advises strongly against any use of puppets

No it doesn't.

[Enfaru]

You're right. It doesn't, I could have sworn I remember reading it there, I'm either mistaken or it was removed from the FAQ.

However... it is in the OSRS.

viewtopic.php?p=16394962#p16394962 under "Regarding Sharing Accounts"

And I quote

Is sharing nations among multiple players allowed?
It is allowed, but moderation's stance on the act is to avoid it as an unnecessary risk.

[Wrapper]

You're right. It doesn't, I could have sworn I remember reading it there, I'm either mistaken or it was removed from the FAQ.

However... it is in the OSRS.

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopi ... #p16394962 under "Regarding Sharing Accounts"

And I quote

Is sharing nations among multiple players allowed?
It is allowed, but moderation's stance on the act is to avoid it as an unnecessary risk.

Okay but that's not what puppets are.

[Leppikania]

You're right. It doesn't, I could have sworn I remember reading it there, I'm either mistaken or it was removed from the FAQ.

However... it is in the OSRS.

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopi ... #p16394962 under "Regarding Sharing Accounts"

And I quote

Is sharing nations among multiple players allowed?
It is allowed, but moderation's stance on the act is to avoid it as an unnecessary risk.

That's regarding shared accounts, not multiple accounts. (Emphasis mine)

[Reploid Productions]

Just going to be a total Captain Buzzkill (I'm apparently good at that) and share the last "RMB ban" suggestion where Fris pretty neatly spelled out why that's pretty unlikely to happen, along with [violet] basically saying that it's a fix looking for a problem.

[The Blaatschapen]

That is not going to happen. Privacy concerns as well as legitimate gameplay functions would be compromised by such a system, not to mention how incredibly complex it would have to be.

What "legitimate gameplay functions"? What precisely might these be?

Just to add to all the things already said:

A defender liberation of a region would have at most 1 shot with this. If it fails then after that, the blanket puppet ban would ensure that all puppets of defender X would be banned from entering.

[Reploid Productions]

What "legitimate gameplay functions"? What precisely might these be?

Just to add to all the things already said:

A defender liberation of a region would have at most 1 shot with this. If it fails then after that, the blanket puppet ban would ensure that all puppets of defender X would be banned from entering.

Not to mention the whole "nations exist independent of one another and we have no automated system to tie puppets together" thing that makes "ban all puppets of X" entirely unfeasible. It'd be one thing if a player simply had a user ID that all of their nations were tied to, but we don't, and adding one would probably necessitate a near-complete re-write of the game. As I'm sure has been mentioned elsewhere in Technical, when the boss first tossed the game together, it was not with the anticipation that the site would still be running more than a decade later or that it would ever service more than a few dozen accounts.

[Luna Amore]

That is not going to happen. Privacy concerns as well as legitimate gameplay functions would be compromised by such a system, not to mention how incredibly complex it would have to be.

What "legitimate gameplay functions"? What precisely might these be? I'm not asking anyone to reveal IP addresses, nor am I asking anyone to reveal whose puppets are whose. I'm just asking for a blanket ban. if in regionX, If nationx_ip_add == nationy_ip_add then eject nationy end if eject nationx end if. We'd need to loop a few times of course, but I can't see how this would break "legitimate" gameplay functions.

Considering the FAQ advises strongly against any use of puppets Considering the OSRS advises strongly against any use of puppets, but doesn't outlaw it simply because there are benefits to sharing accounts. However it's always been a long standing given, that if you associate with a puppet with someone who has a tendency to get into trouble, you risk the consequences of the very least having that puppet if not yourself as well punished.

And...no it would not have to be incredibly complex. If the code takes up more than 20 lines, then someone either has too much white space or they need to consider how they could have written their code in a more concise format. The use of ? is a good way to shorten some if statements.

The only thing I can see here, is that it *might* take up some cpu, in which case, it can be limited to run on cycles i.e at update or something. So an IP would be listed back end and if nations match that IP address in their history, then...eject. Many simpler ways of going through this.

IP addresses aren't remotely unique enough to reasonably use in that manner. Through my mobile network alone, I'm probably attached to dozens of random nations.

You try to ban one person, and your ban list gets clogged with a bunch of random unrelated nations.

[Lockdownn]

What "legitimate gameplay functions"? What precisely might these be?

Just to add to all the things already said:

A defender liberation of a region would have at most 1 shot with this. If it fails then after that, the blanket puppet ban would ensure that all puppets of defender X would be banned from entering.

Not to mention influence cost, and what would happen if someone had 200+ puppets within a region that you wanted to ban essentially surpassing the ban list limit.