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Protocol for CN admin and alliances with Multis


Denisov

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Hi, I take the new applications along with my staff over in MHA. Currently when we catch a multi's we demask them and do not let them be members. Our process does prevent them from being a member if we know they are multi's. Several other members believe that we need to report them all to the CN admin or CN admin may take actions against MHA members/alliance. I would like some clarification on this. The reason being is the time involved in reporting to you every time we catch one and believe me there have been a lot just in the last week. I assume that by not making them members, when we catch them is all that necessary to keep MHA out of trouble with CN admin. Is this procedure ok to do or do we need to change the current policy in our alliance to insure that CN admin knows all of our multi's? We do document all cases that are multi's (the ones that we have caught) and would have them readily available if CN admin wishes to see, which is our normal protocol.

I am not thrilled with idea of having to report our found multi's due to the time involved in doing so. Others in our alliance feel that I should be for fear of what CN admin would do to MHA as punishment for letting in a multi to MHA. I'm writing to see what actions you intend on taking if you find a multi within our alliance and has past our screening, if any at all. Its is of course not intention to let a multi join but I would assume that we probably have about 15% multi's in every alliance. I do not want to held accountable to MHA members if MHA is found to have multi's. We do have them we are just currently unaware of it. Currently when there nations delete often there right back at the door applying again with another nation recently started. Technically if we catch them, we do not allow them entrance. My concern is that I know they are slipping by we do not currently have a protocol to prevent it, like checking an IP address.

There are some members that are in so much fear regarding your stance on multi's that they believe we should searching peoples IP addresses and cross referencing them with known ghosts. Thats over 750 nations to check against one new IP address and with 25 to 45 applications a week, no one who plays this game would be interested in doing for free. I do not believe you actually want us to that and it would become a internal affairs nightmare that I would not want to be involved in. I believe our current method is good enough.

It is important to us. Your decision could change policy in MHA.
Is our current procedure good enough to keep CN admin happy?
Do you want us to report known multi's?
Do you want us to start searching all of MHA members and ghosting nations for dual IP addresses?
Do we need to be cross check all applicants for known multi's?

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Moved to the Question Center. Please read the [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=5465"]pinned threads[/url] before posting in the moderation sections of the forum. Please also read the [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules"]rules[/url], as they should explain everything you are asking.

[quote][b]Aiding Rule Violators[/b]
Any user found to know of a serious rule violation without reporting it to a game moderator (eg. knowledge of a user with multiple nations) will be given a warning or, in more serious cases, have their nation deleted.

[b]Aiding Banned Players[/b]
Any user found to be harboring, aiding or otherwise knowingly helping a banned user will be deleted. This includes knowing of their existence within the game without reporting it to the game-moderation staff.[/quote]

I'd also suggest reading the [url="http://www.cybernations.net/terms.asp"]Terms of Service[/url].

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The diction seems imprecise, however. The reading of the second paragraph should be that the key criteria is knowingly, am I correct?

At the same time this creates issues because it suggests that a pure "don't ask, don't tell" policy with regards to rule breakers is valid.

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The rules should answer your Q's, but I do have one for you--do you really think 15% of every alliance is multies? :o That seems a tad high...

To help quell any undue paranoia...you don't need to change your procedure and don't have to screen people to see if they're multies for any moderation-related reason. You should report any you do find, though. A lot of alliances complete the scans for internal security reasons but do file multi reports in the Game Abuse forum or send in private reports (to Game Mods), partially because it is in the rules to do so, but also I suspect because of in-game reasons. Like not wanting to have cheaters in your ranks, sure, but also because it stands to reason that you might be busting in-game enemies trying to spy on you (or have their friends spy on you from a shared network) and the like. Whatever the reason, it shouldn't be too time consuming, just send in the report it sounds like you're already compiling.

Do you do this once a week or so? I wonder there's been so many just in the last week. I guess it [i]is[/i] mating season...

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It must be mating season. There has been 3 in the last two days. 5 in the last week. There has been no set procedure as of yet. As of today there will be. Our interviewers and staff will just post as we get them. Considering the amount of applicants we get, you can expect to see an increase in reports. Thanks for your responses. We will not be changing anything other then reporting to you when we find a multi.

My estimate of 15% may be high, considering MHA is a very large alliance of some 600 plus it could be true for us. The smaller alliances, probably not as high. We will do our best to indicate who are the multi's. I am troubled that if we mistakenly identify them as multi's it will get their nations deleted. Since we won't be checking with IP addresses there is chance that they are not multi. We can only guess based on related names. We do have a guy that can check IP's but again, its an internal nightmare to do so and we wont be doing that on a regular basis unless we can find a way to implement that into the process of screening applicants.

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[quote name='Denisov' timestamp='1303351162' post='2695111']
It must be mating season. There has been 3 in the last two days. 5 in the last week. There has been no set procedure as of yet. As of today there will be. Our interviewers and staff will just post as we get them. Considering the amount of applicants we get, you can expect to see an increase in reports. Thanks for your responses. We will not be changing anything other then reporting to you when we find a multi.

My estimate of 15% may be high, considering MHA is a very large alliance of some 600 plus it could be true for us. The smaller alliances, probably not as high. We will do our best to indicate who are the multi's. I am troubled that if we mistakenly identify them as multi's it will get their nations deleted. Since we won't be checking with IP addresses there is chance that they are not multi. We can only guess based on related names. We do have a guy that can check IP's but again, its an internal nightmare to do so and we wont be doing that on a regular basis unless we can find a way to implement that into the process of screening applicants.
[/quote]
Don't know what forum software you run, but I know there's a way in vB to have automatic detection of multiple accounts that access with the same IP. There's probably comparable plugins in other major software.

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Yes, we have something of the sort.

However, I have to question whether such a policy is too intrusive.

For instance, I am not a root administrator on our boards, nor should I be. I'm a government official, I have no stake in the actual financing of our boards. I have no ability nor right to access the root admin capabilities of our forums. That said, even if we did find multi's on our forum, I have to question if we've actually really found anything at all. Multiple forum masks registered on a forum does not mean an individual or perhaps even vulgar/nonsensical registered masks on our forums have multiple nations in game.

Our forum host should have no obligation to run ip checks on our boards. We routinely find someone who says in their application they have another nation or whom looks really suspicious and every time they are reported, but it's very rare. I have to emphasise that while we report every instance we know about users who break the CN ToS, I believe my members to be overtly concerned about something that is not in our capabilities (and would seem to be invasive to private property,) from my vantage point.

I can honestly say that no one genuinely knows about multi's if/when they exist on our boards. I am concerned that if an individual, one in 600+ decideds to take that risk, they jeapordize the entire alliance. While I believe the precedent is that that particular individual will be punished, it seems as if there is a growing sentiment that the entire alliance would be. I do not feel this to be in line with the spirit of the rules.

Does this sound alright?

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My IP changes almost everytime I disconnect/reconnect to my service provider. My IP is not static. Since there are only a limited number of IP's associated with my service provider the IP's are reused. It is conceivable someone might have the same IP as one I have used previously (though not at the precise same time). This is true with a great number of users (and service providers like AT&T, Sonic, Comcast etc.).

edit- clarified

Edited by masterbake
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There is a possibility that they are not multi's. Is there way for you to check before you delete there nations? We can give the link to nation to check it. We don't have the admin personnel to do that.

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[quote name='Denisov' timestamp='1303358846' post='2695252']
There is a possibility that they are not multi's. Is there way for you to check before you delete there nations? We can give the link to nation to check it. We don't have the admin personnel to do that.
[/quote]
They're not going to delete someone just because a player claims it's a multi. That would lead to a lot of specious reports against political and personal enemies. Think of it more like telling the mods "Hey, this guy is suspicious" so they can do a more thorough check.

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[quote name='Delta1212' timestamp='1303362335' post='2695289']
They're not going to delete someone just because a player claims it's a multi. That would lead to a lot of specious reports against political and personal enemies. Think of it more like telling the mods "Hey, this guy is suspicious" so they can do a more thorough check.
[/quote]
Thats good to know.

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Maybe you could have a list of multis and nation link, along with possible evidence. Then once a week, get some IA grunt to fill out the paperwork and bulk report all of them, instead of doing it every time you spot one. You could probably take turns every week doing it. Should be less tedious.

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To my understanding:
[list][*]There is no obligation to do anything to [i]find[/i] multies. The MHA doesn't need to run IP checks nor any other kind of check to detect rule-breakers.
[*]The MHA won't be punished if one/more/many multies will be found within their ranks, unless evidence of it being an alliance-run program are found.
The burden of proof for alliance-level misbehaviour (and for anything else, for that matter) is on Moderation, it's not the alliance that has to prove she's innocent.
[*]Anyone openly saying that s/he has multiple nations (unless it's an obvious joke) should be reported to Moderation by the people that know of that.
[*]In case of an admission (of having multiple nations) within an application on the MHA board, it can't be assumed that anybody is aware of that until the application is processed, or a reasonable amount of time has elapsed with other applications being processed (say, 1-2 days?)
[*]At least the person processing the application (in your case: rejecting it for having multies) is responsible for reporting the case to Moderation.
[*]The rules are not designed to go witch hunt people for not rushing to the Moderation forums, but rather to prevent that people knowingly assist rule-breakers by remaining forever silent about their infractions.
As players are allowed to have a life, they can have unexpected Internet issues, they can have their mother/husband/child/etc. suddenly require attention/assistance etc., and as the Mods don't anyway have a sure mean to know that no report was sent via PM to another one of them, it's not essential that reports are [i]immediately[/i] done.
That said, it's wise and in the best interest of the people informed of the infraction to post/send a report without delay. I'd advise against waiting one week.
[*]No alleged infraction is acted upon solely based on player-collected evidence, thus the MHA doesn't need to worry about harming innocent people.[/list]

Last but not least, reporting someone doesn't take a lot of time. You just need to have a standard code to copy paste and to do a few clicks to retrieve the links. Something like:

[code]
[b]Alleged offender:[/b]
[list][*][b]Nation:[/b]
[*][b]Ruler:[/b]
[*][b]Nation link:[/b] [url=""]clicky[/url][/list].

[b]Alleged offender:[/b]
[list][*][b]Nation:[/b]
[*][b]Ruler:[/b]
[*][b]Nation link:[/b] [url=""]clicky[/url][/list].

[b]Alleged offender:[/b]
[list][*][b]Nation:[/b]
[*][b]Ruler:[/b]
[*][b]Nation link:[/b] [url=""]clicky[/url][/list].


[b]Alleged offence:[/b] having multiple nations.


[b]Additional information/commentary/evidence:[/b]

[/code]
(Obviously you can take this one and use it as is, or edit it to suit your needs.)


Also MHAil! :)

Edited by jerdge
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[quote name='caligula' timestamp='1303354630' post='2695188']
Yes, we have something of the sort.

However, I have to question whether such a policy is too intrusive.

For instance, I am not a root administrator on our boards, nor should I be. I'm a government official, I have no stake in the actual financing of our boards. I have no ability nor right to access the root admin capabilities of our forums. That said, even if we did find multi's on our forum, I have to question if we've actually really found anything at all. Multiple forum masks registered on a forum does not mean an individual or perhaps even vulgar/nonsensical registered masks on our forums have multiple nations in game.

Our forum host should have no obligation to run ip checks on our boards. We routinely find someone who says in their application they have another nation or whom looks really suspicious and every time they are reported, but it's very rare. I have to emphasise that while we report every instance we know about users who break the CN ToS, I believe my members to be overtly concerned about something that is not in our capabilities (and would seem to be invasive to private property,) from my vantage point.

I can honestly say that no one genuinely knows about multi's if/when they exist on our boards. I am concerned that if an individual, one in 600+ decideds to take that risk, they jeapordize the entire alliance. While I believe the precedent is that that particular individual will be punished, it seems as if there is a growing sentiment that the entire alliance would be. I do not feel this to be in line with the spirit of the rules.

Does this sound alright?
[/quote]

There is a difference between an admin and a root admin. Your forum software should allow the root admin to limit other admin's access on the Admin Control Panel to certain areas (i.e Masking members and running IPs (sometimes running IPs is even a Moderator tool)). Multiple forum accounts does not necessarily mean anything, however if they are clearly trying to be two different people with different nations, and if it clearly isn't a dynamic IP mixup, then it should be reported.

There is no obligation to run IPs on your forum. The only obligation is to report all ToS offenses you are aware of.

The only reason that one person having multiple nations would jepordize MHA in any way is if MHA members were knowingly allowing or assisting the person in having multiple nations, and there has to be clear evidence that those members are aware of the situation. Even then, only those members involved would receive any sort of punishment.

Hopefully that cleared things up.

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[quote name='Blue' timestamp='1303484499' post='2696574']
There is a difference between an admin and a root admin. Your forum software should allow the root admin to limit other admin's access on the Admin Control Panel to certain areas (i.e Masking members and running IPs (sometimes running IPs is even a Moderator tool)). Multiple forum accounts does not necessarily mean anything, however if they are clearly trying to be two different people with different nations, and if it clearly isn't a dynamic IP mixup, then it should be reported.

There is no obligation to run IPs on your forum. The only obligation is to report all ToS offenses you are aware of.

The only reason that one person having multiple nations would jepordize MHA in any way is if MHA members were knowingly allowing or assisting the person in having multiple nations, and there has to be clear evidence that those members are aware of the situation. Even then, only those members involved would receive any sort of punishment.

Hopefully that cleared things up.
[/quote]
Yes it does. Thank you. We will be reporting any questionable multi's to you. It will up to you CN admin. to decide if they are multi's. Our applicants will be referred to link used to report them. The applicant will then be responsible for returning to MHA with proof of clearing them of any wrong doing with a screen shot or a link to CN forums. Once we turn it over to you guys we trust you will investigate it your own way. We will not be doing any pinging of IP addresses. We will leave validating a multi up to you and as mentioned letting the applicant retrieving and bringing the info back to MHA if they want to proceed with their application. Thanks for the time on this issue. I believe we have a firm understanding on how to deal with this now.

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