The Watchlist

[Ethan Allen]

This something is dangerous and will be misused at every convenient opportunity. I’m truly ashamed at the NSGP elites for pandering this off as anything else than what it really is, which is another layer of control for them to exert their influence over your regions.

[Bowzin]

This something is dangerous and will be misused at every convenient opportunity. I’m truly ashamed at the NSGP elites for pandering this off as anything else than what it really is, which is another layer of control for them to exert their influence over your regions.

Seeing as this is an OOC tool for protecting communities, if August or anyone else decided to misuse the bot for IC political gain, I'd assume they'd end up in a similar situation as you, so I doubt they'll be doing that.

[Latrovia]

This is the single most unapologetic, unprofessional and dishonest approach I see from the "elites" of the game on a matter that could violate the privacy and security of our users. Ladies and gentlemen you don't help smaller communities with this bot, you control them. And control is what this is all about. If you care to protect your users from sexual harassers or people that violate their personal integrity, do the decent thing and call the authorities. Don't act like superior forces by blacklisting people. It doesn't work and it will never work, because the monsters you are allegedly fighting, are still out there and will return whether they want to.

And it is shameful to see these self-called political figures supporting a tool that can be misused in a massive espionage without asking for strong evidence that there is no way that August and their team are not secretly storing our information and data collected straight from our personal servers. While I am not putting in question that this is a great tool to have around, I am not going to put my community's privacy and my members privacy in jeopardy, because some NS elites trust August. It's like turning your own home into a TV show and Big Brother watching you.

Now more than ever we need awareness and I am personally going to refuse using any unfiltered, unchecked and suspicious bot that its own creator is refusing to provide concrete examples of what information are being stored.

[August]

I don't understand the timing complaints, tbh. If anything, the timing says "Not only are we not going to magically forgive dangerous players for the crimes they've committed, but also here is this versatile new tool the community can use in the struggle to keep people safe!"

I think this was timed perfectly.

You hit the nail on the head.

This bot, the creator, and the members of the NSL server are completely untrustworthy. This is just another political tool used to spy and discriminate. I warn everyone against using this bot.

I am pretty good at ignoring people when I do not want to communicate with them, but I saw this and conceded defeat. You could not have given the bot, its creator, and NSL a more glowing endorsement if you tried.

The bot has everything from Vermont, Block. Everything. If I were the kind of person you have accused me of being, I would publish every message ever sent in the Vermont server, or maybe just hit a few buttons and construct a perfect copy of the entire server from the backups and logs, then post the link somewhere. GP would love it, but fortunately for you, that would be completely antithetical to my character. My standards have been protecting your privacy for months, and will continue to do so forever despite any abuse you fling at me.

I have never spied on you with the bot, and neither has anyone else. Believe me, if I would not do it to you, I would not do it to anyone.

[Altino]

-snip-

You seem to have issue with the bot. Maybe you missed this before:

All of this would be better directed at the AAbot thread.
...
Again, this is a criticism of the bot, not of the Watchlist.

Thank you. :)

[Latrovia]

-snip-

You seem to have issue with the bot. Maybe you missed this before:

All of this would be better directed at the AAbot thread.
...
Again, this is a criticism of the bot, not of the Watchlist.

Thank you.

Alt, if I want to get in touch with Technical Support I'll give you a call. Thank you.

[Altino]

Oh, alright. Your jabs at the bot's function here in the Watchlist thread and insistence that the bot's creator answer questions unrelated to the Watchlist about the bot confused me into thinking it was the bot you had questions about. Carry on, I suppose.

[Ethan Allen]

August, your conduct offsite leads me to believe that everything you just said towards me was a lie, aside from your not so thinly veiled threat of leaking logs. That threat, shows just how right I am that people should not trust you, your bot, or your little oligarchical discord server.

[Syberis]

I'm honestly really glad that the community has come together to create such a useful tool for protecting our members and users, and I'm proud of the unanimous support and glowing endorsements from the general Gameplay Community.

[The Gilded Star]

I can't find the post now without rereading everything, but if I remember correctly, there would be a neutral server from which the bot's watchlist and justifying evidence could be accessed, correct? If so, this would remove the need for people to add the bot to their own servers out of privacy/security concerns. While it would prevent any sort of automated services from the bot, it would still allow people to stay informed and manually apply bans and such where desired.

Unless there can be a way to design the bot so its access is restricted to an entry channel and not the entire server (not even sure if this is possible), this seems to be the best middle ground for people concerned with being monitored, unless I'm mistaken.

To me this still sounds like a pretty useful project, and I suspect people that would rather forgo automated services in favor of server privacy are the types that prefer applying their security manually anyway.

[Lycos]

I can't find the post now without rereading everything, but if I remember correctly, there would be a neutral server from which the bot's watchlist and justifying evidence could be accessed, correct? If so, this would remove the need for people to add the bot to their own servers out of privacy/security concerns. While it would prevent any sort of automated services from the bot, it would still allow people to stay informed and manually apply bans and such where desired.

Correct. This neutral server is the NS Leaders server.

[August]

I'm honestly really glad that the community has come together to create such a useful tool for protecting our members and users, and I'm proud of the unanimous support and glowing endorsements from the general Gameplay Community.

Thank you for the support, Syberis--much appreciated!

At some point, once we have moved past the issues of timing and trust, NSL staff and I are looking forward to answering questions on the specifics of how the Watchlist works and how best to contribute evidence. Building the system was not even half the battle; now we need to start putting some names in the queue.

[Tim-Opolis]

While August’s bot won’t be touching most of the servers I’m dedicated to anytime soon, it’s nothing personal as most of those are places where any NS-tied bots are specifically run by someone in that group for a reason.

Though I’m not 100% confident in how well The Watchlist will go in a more publicized state, the team behind it are people who truly and deeply care for this community and protecting players. Hell, August just basically ended 94 Block’s career all while establishing his commitment to maintaining integrity in regards to his privacy assertions with his bot.

Anything that continues to help towards protecting our community from those elements who lurk on the fringes, seeking to cause genuine problems, is good in my books.

My one concern comes with this level of public disclosure in regards to evidence, as often times much of that is absolutely brutal shit. Doxxing cases, harassment, ERP’s, etc. In cases like that how do you intend that more or less necessity of a more private distribution of evidence. Often times, for example, we ultimately have to resort to strong-willed word of mouth when dealing with regions whose administrators are minors, etc

[Davelands]

Honestly, this all seems like a lot of complaining about nothing.

• Is the timing of the announcement really that important? If people are going to wait for the "perfect" time to make an announcement then there will be very few announcements.
• If you think that the bot will be reporting and saving all your data for future blackmail, then don't install it on your server. Simple as that.
• If you think that the Watchlist will be used to shun undeserving people, then don't look at the list or use it. Pretty easy.
• If it comes out in the future that August and his staff are using any collected information for nefarious purposes, I'm pretty sure that Gameplay will punish him/them appropriately and much like forum and server destroyers, nobody will ever accept them into their communities again.

[Syberis]

Honestly, this all seems like a lot of complaining about nothing.

• Is the timing of the announcement really that important? If people are going to wait for the "perfect" time to make an announcement then there will be very few announcements.
• If you think that the bot will be reporting and saving all your data for future blackmail, then don't install it on your server. Simple as that.
• If you think that the Watchlist will be used to shun undeserving people, then don't look at the list or use it. Pretty easy.
• If it comes out in the future that August and his staff are using any collected information for nefarious purposes, I'm pretty sure that Gameplay will punish him/them appropriately and much like forum and server destroyers, nobody will ever accept them into their communities again.

The only criticism I have about your post is that we seemingly allow forum destroyers and rogue admins to go free all the damn time and wait until they do more "serious" shit.

We SHOULD be running them out of the game though. Enabling distrust of adminship is terrible for the long-term health of NSGP.

[August]

My one concern comes with this level of public disclosure in regards to evidence, as often times much of that is absolutely brutal shit. Doxxing cases, harassment, ERP’s, etc. In cases like that how do you intend that more or less necessity of a more private distribution of evidence. Often times, for example, we ultimately have to resort to strong-willed word of mouth when dealing with regions whose administrators are minors, etc

Responded to this offsite the other night, copying my answer below with slight edits.

Watchlist evidence can and should be censored for victim privacy. As for underage admin teams, NSL's stance is that they should not exist, and it is not our responsibility to work around children in adult positions. In addition to the assistance we provide to promising regions, we actively push for unprepared, immature regions to shut down. Our guidelines state that graphic evidence should be clearly labeled as such, and the #watchlist channel is marked NSFW, which is a superficial measure given how easy the barrier is to click through, but it is meant to show that some evidence is unsuitable for children and we are not liable for those who decide to seek it out anyway.

[Twins of Hearts]

If I wanted to submit evidence to the watchlist of a recent problem player, how would I go about doing so?

[Davelands]

If I wanted to submit evidence to the watchlist of a recent problem player, how would I go about doing so?

Well, if you aren't a Founder in the NSL server then I would suggest giving the info to someone who is and let them submit it on your behalf.

[The Seeker of Power]

Paranoia is running freely lately in GP, I mean most than usual... But hey, is not like a group of individuals with ulterior motives and known toxic behaviors are flocking around communities trying to justify themselves, is it?

Good work August. I do not think any server I run or are responsible of will use it directly, but surely we will have access to the watchlist through the NSL server and that will help us keep our community safe.