Working on a player list.

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DM Always This Late
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by DM Always This Late » Fri Dec 01, 2017 10:50 am

Hmm,

I don't think the portal does anything to enable "stalkers" and this isn't a problem we have brought up often. Of course if you feel like a player or user is using Arelith tools to abuse your privacy we can look at and handle that situation individually instead of ending useful tools for everyone who is using them honestly.

I don't think blanket cutting a tool out is a good solution to fix a problem I don't view as common and the tool is many times more useful then it is abused and I think the level of abuse cappable with said tool is really limited.

(This was posted in regards to removing the portal.)
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rookie
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by rookie » Fri Dec 01, 2017 11:06 am

I'm not sure if your responding in part to my post or not Liareth, it seems like you are though you may have skipped over my last sentence which was kind of important to the meaning of the post.

I'm in agreement with what you said, though in the last NWN example probably if an account had a 24/7/365 connection time that should raise some red flags.

My main point was changing the scry tool is just the illusion of security, I didn't take it all the way to the logical conclusion like you did but the same point as people seemed to hate cih's work but were fine with everything else that existed applies.

Personally I've never been a big fan of it and how clicking on someone's icon in chat reveals their player name to metagame disguises but I've never felt worried over cyberstalking with any of the information available, regardless of how it is presented.

Edit - And I'll add even my dissatisfaction with how disguise can be treated is minor, I'm amazed at the work the team has put into the server and it is the most well built one I've played on by leaps and bounds.

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BegoneThoth
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by BegoneThoth » Fri Dec 01, 2017 4:09 pm

Liareth wrote:- Almost every game has some sort of /who functionality which shows whether you're online, your level, and in some games, such as WoW, your area.
- Some games expose an API to query this information, but not all.
- DDO has a web portal where you can look any connected character up from outside of the game and see their area and everything about their character.
- LoL lets you view any game of any account from the web via an API, and maybe even allows you to view replays?
Strong counterpoint; this is how other games do it.

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/3592919466

You can opt out. It's possible to have a functional API and let people opt out.
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Liareth
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Liareth » Fri Dec 01, 2017 4:32 pm

BegoneThoth wrote:
Liareth wrote:- Almost every game has some sort of /who functionality which shows whether you're online, your level, and in some games, such as WoW, your area.
- Some games expose an API to query this information, but not all.
- DDO has a web portal where you can look any connected character up from outside of the game and see their area and everything about their character.
- LoL lets you view any game of any account from the web via an API, and maybe even allows you to view replays?
Strong counterpoint; this is how other games do it.

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/3592919466

You can opt out. It's possible to have a functional API and let people opt out.
That's an example of one game, though. It's the exception, not a rule, in my experience. LoL, as the immediate counter example, doesn't offer that service, and it's only rarely that you see a game with /who functionality that allows you to hide yourself from the list entirely.

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Ridiculously Circuitous Plans
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Ridiculously Circuitous Plans » Fri Dec 01, 2017 4:47 pm

Hehe, bet Cihparg wishes he never changed the color scheme now...

And not to make light of people's concerns over privacy, but if you have someone stalking you using this tool as their main source of information... you should probably be thankful that you have an extremely ineffective and low tech stalker, and one who's only venue for stalking you is a game where DMs can and will shut it down very quickly.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Queen Titania » Fri Dec 01, 2017 4:51 pm

Ridiculously Circuitous Plans wrote:Hehe, bet Cihparg wishes he never changed the color scheme now...

And not to make light of people's concerns over privacy, but if you have someone stalking you using this tool as their main source of information... you should probably be thankful that you have an extremely ineffective and low tech stalker, and one who's only venue for stalking you is a game where DMs can and will shut it down very quickly.
Exactly. I've never seen or received a stalking report in all my tenure on Arelith either, so this is not something that is common at all.
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BegoneThoth
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by BegoneThoth » Fri Dec 01, 2017 5:02 pm

Liareth wrote:
BegoneThoth wrote:
Liareth wrote:- Almost every game has some sort of /who functionality which shows whether you're online, your level, and in some games, such as WoW, your area.
- Some games expose an API to query this information, but not all.
- DDO has a web portal where you can look any connected character up from outside of the game and see their area and everything about their character.
- LoL lets you view any game of any account from the web via an API, and maybe even allows you to view replays?
Strong counterpoint; this is how other games do it.

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/3592919466

You can opt out. It's possible to have a functional API and let people opt out.
That's an example of one game, though. It's the exception, not a rule, in my experience. LoL, as the immediate counter example, doesn't offer that service, and it's only rarely that you see a game with /who functionality that allows you to hide yourself from the list entirely.
LoL is run by Tencent, a company that sells gives its userdata to the Chinese government.

https://www.pymnts.com/safety-and-secur ... -concerns/

It's a really bad argument to try and say LoL does anything 'right' given their owner/s.
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Twily
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Twily » Fri Dec 01, 2017 6:48 pm

Again, People who are concerned about privacy are barking up the wrong tree...

This tool doesn't prevent people from gathering your online playtimes; even if this was the only tool doing this, and that the removal of this tool would prevent it, What does it actually achieve?

Odds are some of you voicing concerns about privacy use Google, Chrome, Facebook, Android, and dozens of other applications and services that gather information about you, that in some cases like Facebook is personally identifiable information, and sell it to advertising companies.

This tool does nothing even remotely close to that in any way at all.


As far as online stalkers goes, again, this tool can't do anything aside from let a stalker know when you're on and likely to be logged in on Arelith.
The literal worst that can happen through someone using this tool is getting a tell in game: "Hey baby, Wanna com-" *-notells/report*. Problem solved.
Even if wherever the information is stored gets hacked and leaked, it can't do anything beyond saying when you generally play on Arelith; which to be blunt, is too small for companies to even care about.
(on the other hand, if someone gets your name the literal worst that can happen is someone looking up your address on a people search engine, showing up at your house in the middle of the night, and you get the idea... there's bigger fish to fry)


If you're that concerned about privacy and stalkers*, you should be opting out of people search engines, using DuckDuckGo instead of Google, add-ons like Privacy Badger and Disconnect, disabling cookies on your browser, and likely uninstalling half of the apps on your smartphone(because many apps also track your information and sell it).
Those are things that actually could be a leak of privacy, credit card information, etc.
*Which I'm not saying is a bad thing, but if you're so concerned as to attack this tool, then all of this would be a thousand times larger a deal than what this tool shows. And for the record, I care about privacy too, and I've actually done everything that is on this list.

This arelith tool is not a genuine privacy violation.


More over, by attacking this tool, you're causing features and functionality that other players quite liked having access to (such as the total list of characters on someone's log in name) to be entirely removed.
You're killing it for the rest of us over something that is inconsequential, and with other means of handling it in the extremely unlikely event it did become an issue(reporting it).
Last edited by Twily on Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:08 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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BegoneThoth
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by BegoneThoth » Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:28 pm

Thank you for your comment.

I am still opting out, however.
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Twily
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Twily » Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:44 pm

Cihparg:

Can you please bring back some of the previous functionality? All of this being on by default, opt-out if someone wants to?
I really liked the information you had it showing before, it was quite useful in various situations and it's a shame to see it gone.

Showing the list of characters under an account, and the date(not time) they were made.
-These are things players would know anyways as even Arelith makes no effort to hide what characters tie to what account(ie, portal page). If a player doesn't want someone knowing what previous character they played, they aren't going to use the same account name, because at least a handful of players on the server will still remember.
Also see my last point.

-In regards to the concern of the character list showing duplicate characters that were remade, I imagine it might be possible to code it to only show the most recent of extremely similar names? (Assuming this isn't too much work. It would make the list look cleaner either way)


Total playtimes.
-I liked being able to see my own total playtime, and this helped in the point below.


First time the account was seen, both date and time(second not needed).
-I frequently used this one in combination with the above to locate alternate accounts that a troller is using when I know one is about, and it's actually surprisingly accurate and has helped me fight back against trollers on the server until a DM can get there many times. IE: If you know a troller is about, there's a brand new account that was just made, total playtime <20min, with a single character under their account, then you know that's someone to keep an eye on. That+stealthmode=deadtroller when they go to try something, rather than dead players and NPCs



All of this being active won't do anything to reveal what time zone someone is in nor their usual playtime, which are really the only actual privacy concerns with how it used to be. It'd only show one time stamp that never changes, and without others for reference and comparison, there'd be no way of knowing.
Last edited by Twily on Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Yorick Shadowfeather
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Yorick Shadowfeather » Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:59 pm

I'm sorry Thoth, But just for the sake of being restated and collected into one post.. Could you state which information the player-list shows that you have an issue with?

I'm having a hard time understanding why people knowing any information from the site at all could be harmful- In more or less any way at all. People knowing that information cant be used against you in any way; It can't hurt you in any way. People have used this list as a means of finding old friends or remembering old characters. As well as finding out what time they can play or meet with that person- Or , at absolute worst.. Avoid that person entirely.

There isn't, nor ever was, any personal information attached to the site at all, So far as I can see. People (stalkers or not) can't even use the knowledge given by that site to do anything more than get on at the same time as you. And even then, If someone decides to be creepy, there are DM's that it can be reported to. Resolving the issue entirely.

If there are severe issues, Then I think there are better ways to resolve them than to blind other players. Or require them (and Cihp) to do more work- Just so other players CAN see them. And at a much smaller limit- Considering that Many players do not use the forums. Or the Player-list. They would be forever hidden, And of the 99.99% (or more) of players who would use that information properly, They now could not.

I just can't see limiting such a great tool as a good thing. And as far as privacy goes, You actually have the character you currently play In your forum name. It seems a bit strange I admit, That you have so much of an issue with the player-list, But no issue openly stating your most played character where many more players are likely to see it.
Last edited by Yorick Shadowfeather on Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Improv
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Improv » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:00 pm

Would there be a way for characters who have been played for less than an hour to stop being displayed in the user name search? Part of my own objection is seeing a record of every time I tweaked a name few times when starting a character as well as all the characters I made as tests or changed my mind about...

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Twily » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:07 pm

Improv wrote:Would there be a way for characters who have been played for less than an hour to stop being displayed in the user name search? Part of my own objection is seeing a record of every time I tweaked a name few times when starting a character as well as all the characters I made as tests or changed my mind about...
This wouldn't get in the way of me using the tool to spot trollers either, so this could be another possible solution.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by BegoneThoth » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:09 pm

Yorick Shadowfeather wrote:I'm sorry Thoth, But just for the sake of being restated and collected into one post.. Could you state which information the player-list shows that you have an issue with?

I'm having a hard time understanding why people knowing any information from the site at all could be harmful- In more or less any way at all. People knowing that information cant be used against you in any way; It can't hurt you in any way. People have used this list as a means of finding old friends or remembering old characters. As well as finding out what time they can play or meet with that person- Or , at absolute worst.. Avoid that person entirely.

There isn't, nor ever was, any personal information attached to the site at all, So far as I can see. People (stalkers or not) can't even use the knowledge given by that site to do anything more than get on at the same time as you. And even then, If someone decides to be creepy, there are DM's that it can be reported to. Resolving the issue entirely.

If there are severe issues, Then I think there are better ways to resolve them than to blind other players. Or require them (and Cihp) to do more work- Just so other players CAN see them. And at a much smaller limit- Considering that Many players do not use the forums. Or the Player-list. They would be forever hidden, And of the 99.99% (or more) of players who would use that information properly, They now could not.

I just can't see limiting such a great tool as a good thing. And as far as privacy goes, You actually have the character you currently play In your forum name. It seems a bit strange I admit, That you have so much of an issue with the player-list, But no issue openly stating your most played character where many more players are likely to see it.
If you want to take part don't opt out.

I don't like third party websites logging/scraping my info without my consent. I want the scry tool to, if you opt out, show a last seen date with no hour or minute display, and not show alts.

I also don't really feel any compulsion to explain my opinions to you or go into detail about why I don't want a third party logging my online activity, so I won't. Likely some of us simply have had to deal with things you fortunately have not.
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:19 pm

If people think the playtimes are useful information (total, current, etc) are useful information, I suppose.
I mostly hid them because it's mostly unnecessary processing for the user.
* Perhaps an expandable section under account would serve the purpose well.

As far as the character history, been trying to think of what to put up with the data.
Having every single character (including deleted ones) rendered is pretty pointless.
It doesn't currently cache when the character was last seen either. (albeit I've meant to put that in there a long time ago)

If last seen is added to the character history, then I can add a feature that displays recently active characters (characters seen within a month).
It's just that there's no guarantee it won't corrupt the entire cache with the current model.
Last edited by Cihparg on Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Zavandar » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:20 pm

why don't we have people opt in to see how many actually want to put their info on display
Intelligence is too important

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Twily
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Twily » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:21 pm

That's not a terrible idea as far as keeping the list up to date goes, although that would still make it difficult for people trying to locate and reconnect with an old player, which might need some deleted characters still visible on the list.
I know some people use it for that.
Last edited by Twily on Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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BegoneThoth
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by BegoneThoth » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:22 pm

Zavandar wrote:why don't we have people opt in to see how many actually want to put their info on display
And if they don't opt in, reduce the amount of info shown to that of the default Portal.
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Twily
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Twily » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:24 pm

BegoneThoth wrote:
Zavandar wrote:why don't we have people opt in to see how many actually want to put their info on display
And if they don't opt in, reduce the amount of info shown to that of the default Portal.
Reducing it by that much is not needed.

If, in theory, it was made exactly like I detailed in my comment to Cihparg, there's no information that can be used to figure out play times in any way at all.

Additionally, lowering the information by that much would prevent uses such as reconnecting with people, spotting trollers, etc.
Last edited by Twily on Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:26 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Zavandar
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Zavandar » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:25 pm

I think the forums are adequate for finding old players
Intelligence is too important

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BegoneThoth
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by BegoneThoth » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:28 pm

Twilly I disagree with you 100%.
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Twily
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Twily » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:31 pm

Zavandar wrote:I think the forums are adequate for finding old players
Why is worse to have two options?
If the info posted on the page is chosen carefully, it won't reveal any sort of information about a player in any way at all.

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Twily
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Twily » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:31 pm

BegoneThoth wrote:Twilly I disagree with you 100%.
Then please elaborate?

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by BegoneThoth » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:40 pm

BegoneThoth wrote: I don't like third party websites logging/scraping my info without my consent. I want the scry tool to, if you opt out, show a last seen date with no hour or minute display, and not show alts.

I also don't really feel any compulsion to explain my opinions to you or go into detail about why I don't want a third party logging my online activity, so I won't. Likely some of us simply have had to deal with things you fortunately have not.
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Yorick Shadowfeather
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Yorick Shadowfeather » Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:42 pm

BegoneThoth wrote: If you want to take part don't opt out.

I don't like third party websites logging/scraping my info without my consent. I want the scry tool to, if you opt out, show a last seen date with no hour or minute display, and not show alts.
Well, That's fine if you don't want those things for yourself. But what you are doing here is effecting other players, And we should be more worried about Arelith as a whole than about your own personal privacy, which you still have not stated how it is being breached.

Now, I don't mean to attack you, Not at all. But what information is being breached? How can that knowledge be harmful? In what case can that information be used improperly?

There are far, FAR better ways of resolving those issues than removing a tool that helps people get ooc information related to the game- Again, being able to meet with other characters.

If you refuse to give a reason as to why things should be changed- and only say: "They are collecting my information." Then it doesn't seem like an issue.Especially when you refuse to even state what the information is. You are sharing much more about yourself through the forum than that site ever did.
I also don't really feel any compulsion to explain my opinions to you or go into detail about why I don't want a third party logging my online activity, so I won't. Likely some of us simply have had to deal with things you fortunately have not.
It wouldn't matter if I have not been in situations like that. That is not a valid reason to not share exactly why you are threatened.
Last edited by Yorick Shadowfeather on Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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