Whats the stance on griefing ?

[Koub]

Well I won't go as far as OdinYggd. But the whole question about this topic is : is there a way to :
1) protect non griefers from griefers
2) do so avoiding false positives (we don't want people being prevented to play under false assumtions of griefing)
3) make that the cure is not worse than the disease, especially for the potential victim ("just let the griefer go and revert to a previous save" is NOT a good answer)
4) also make it that the solution is maintainable and resilient (so that it can be used as long as there will be people playing Factorio)

This is more a brainstorming topic than anything else.

You can't spot a griefer before he has done some griefing. Once the griefer has been spotted and identified as such, what solutions can be provided to the community to protect itself from that griefer again ? Every solution that has been suggested here so far has advantages and drawbacks.

I admit I personnally don't really care : I am that kind of people who doesn't like multiplayer because I don't like people in general. Call me misanthrope if you feel so, you're probably not THAT wrong. I *might* play occasionnally multiplayer, only with long lasting friends I personnally know, but will never connect randomly to public servers to meet people. That way, if that friend does some griefing, I know where he lives, I get at his home, and I break his fingers, which should prevent any further griefing .

So I don't speak for me, but for players who deserve the best online experience with Factorio.

[NoPantsMcDance]

Interesting thread that was mostly pointless complaining. Anyways we really should have whitelist and other basic features. I don't believe we should have a developer blacklist though. Mostly because it's just going to make kids salty and no reason to waste devs time for such a silly thing.

I do believe we as a community can make our own blacklist system. Personally I just ban people and move on because it's not worth the time. I would like to see a community blacklist though that server owners can submit players onto and said player can file appeal and go through they entire process if they so desire to be removed from it. Not everyone that "runs a server" should be able to just submit a player either and haha they're banned but should require every name they submit to verified (aka reported more than once by either multiple or a more trusted admin). This type of system will require moderation and time but if you want this type of system then it'll be worth it in the long run. Bisa keeps talking about working on one but he's lazy and so am I.

[OdinYggd]

I do believe we as a community can make our own blacklist system. Personally I just ban people and move on because it's not worth the time. I would like to see a community blacklist though that server owners can submit players onto and said player can file appeal and go through they entire process if they so desire to be removed from it. Not everyone that "runs a server" should be able to just submit a player either and haha they're banned but should require every name they submit to verified (aka reported more than once by either multiple or a more trusted admin). This type of system will require moderation and time but if you want this type of system then it'll be worth it in the long run. Bisa keeps talking about working on one but he's lazy and so am I.

Yes. Long term such a solution will solve a great many more headaches than it causes, but it needs to be implemented correctly from the start or it will just turn into an out of control disaster that will be worse when used than the griefers are. Requiring multiple servers to report someone as bad, sorting the ban types into behavior groups for fine grained control of what a particular server wants to allow, and 24/7 volunteer moderation are all required to maintain its effectiveness and usefulness.

But a community blacklist will remain ineffective if the game itself does not provide tools for server moderators to identify and remove griefers on a per-server basis, that data collection level is necessary for any solution to be effective.

[Kewlhotrod]

Evidence #1: You are opposed to anti-griefing measures of any sort, as would anyone who intends to be a griefer. It is logical to keep the option to grief open if possible when one intends to.

Evidence #2: Your most recent statement implies that you will not be using the same name in-game as you do on the forum, although a great many people try to use the same username wherever they happen to be visiting. While there are legitimate reasons not to use the same username, using a different username in-game is very commonplace among griefers in order to avoid people discovering their real world identities and facing potential backlash outside of the game for their actions. Griefers also often change usernames to avoid bans against them. A DRM-like mechanism to track the game install itself is necessary as part of the blacklisting scheme in order to block this method of bypassing bans.


Unfortunately for you, I've been a server administrator for many years. I've seen a few things that make it easy to spot suspects. Naturally since you haven't griefed anywhere that I monitor, I cannot say with certainty if you actually are or not. However, you certainly act suspicious, and if you came on a server I managed would find yourself followed by someone with moderator or better access.

Evidence? you mean theory, because evidence would imply you actually had A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment, IE the broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.

another thing, there is already a way to protect against griefers, banning them yourself. instead or relying on a un-elected third party to ban somebody else for you, its your own server which you should be policing yourself. Why are you giving away your control of something you own? it doesn't make any sense.

also, your theory* about usernames, any intelligent human being doesn't use the same username everywhere he goes, you know how easy it is for me to track your history if you do such a thing? literary one google search away from knowing everything about you, I don't even need you full name.

[OdinYggd]

another thing, there is already a way to protect against griefers, banning them yourself. instead or relying on a un-elected third party to ban somebody else for you, its your own server which you should be policing yourself. Why are you giving away your control of something you own? it doesn't make any sense.

Administering a server very quickly becomes a dreaded chore, completely destroying the fun of the game when you are constantly being called away from other things to deal with some kid being a brat or a griefer trashing the spawn town or a million other things that could go wrong.

Having a community-run user tracking service as a totally opt-in and unofficial service helps reduce one of the largest administrative burdens that server owners would face, by preventing bad actors from entering in the first place instead of waiting until they have made a mess to manually remove them and clean up after them.

I stress that this sort of system should only ever be community run opt-in. It should not be an official service in any respect other than possibly the registration of a username due to the necessity of matching usernames to purchased game copies for the purpose of preventing griefers from just making a new name whenever they are banned.

also, your theory* about usernames, any intelligent human being doesn't use the same username everywhere he goes, you know how easy it is for me to track your history if you do such a thing? literary one google search away from knowing everything about you, I don't even need you full name.

Unfortunately, most people really do use the same or similar username for everything they do, only changing it once a decade or so as their interests change or community drama makes them want to start over.

As you say, this does indeed make it a piece of cake to see everywhere on-record that a person has been, what they are like, what their interests are, and even their real name and contact info. But trying to educate people about why reusing their usernames and passwords is a completely lost cause because most people are not concerned enough about their privacy to worry about who might be following their trail and looking for useful information. And thus some almost trivial exploits are possible by way of social engineering through information obtained in that trail.

[Koub]

Having a community-run user tracking service as a totally opt-in and unofficial service helps reduce one of the largest administrative burdens that server owners would face, by preventing bad actors from entering in the first place instead of waiting until they have made a mess to manually remove them and clean up after them.

I stress that this sort of system should only ever be community run opt-in. It should not be an official service in any respect other than possibly the registration of a username due to the necessity of matching usernames to purchased game copies for the purpose of preventing griefers from just making a new name whenever they are banned.

Even if it's community driven, the game should provide practical ways to add such a community driven blacklist on your own server easily. A little like the Adblock lists. Like "add a blacklist" > enter file or URL > Save.

[Xelephant]

The Question for such a blacklist would be, how would you provide concrete evidence that some griefed in the first place. You can't really tell if someone is playing on a server with or without the "verified_user_identity: true" option. So no one would no if a someone is impersonated. How would that be resolved?

[MobRules]

Evidence? you mean theory, because evidence would imply you actually had A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment,

There's no proof, certainly. But this is the subjective impression that you've been making on more than one person. If it's false, you might want to look at why you're coming across as though it's true.

another thing, there is already a way to protect against griefers, banning them yourself. instead or relying on a un-elected third party to ban somebody else for you, its your own server which you should be policing yourself. Why are you giving away your control of something you own? it doesn't make any sense.

Who's giving away control of anything? No one is forcing server owners to disallow blacklisted players. (Heck, if a server owner wanted to allow ONLY blacklisted players on their server, that's their prerogative.) What's being discussed here is something to prevent server owners from spending three fourths of their time investigating, banning, and cleaning up after griefers.

I am glad that the community is taking a serious look at the problem of false-positives (both malicious and based on misunderstanding) up front, because that does need to be addressed for any system to be effective.