PS nowadays

[Karyuu]

Not sure. It seems excessive now. The issue we argued about was basically the probability of players not wanting to be logged all the time like that, and how to go about reading/accessing those logs without violating privacy, etc. I think we kind of left it at a "No good, not now." Might revisit the idea.

[zanzibar]

Not sure. It seems excessive now. The issue we argued about was basically the probability of players not wanting to be logged all the time like that, and how to go about reading/accessing those logs without violating privacy, etc. I think we kind of left it at a "No good, not now." Might revisit the idea.

Well... if there was a more reasonable time limit on it (even 5 minutes), I think that violations of privacy would be far less likely.  After 5 minutes, the log would be lost unless the /report function was in place.

I think that the /report function has to be retroactive or else it's somewhat pointless.  People who are aware of how the /report function works are in a position to exploit the fact that it only catches players who are repeat offenders... you can get away with it the first time since the /report function won't catch it.

Hope that made sense, I'm feeling a bit incoherent right now.

[Karyuu]

Ah, I think I'm getting the point now. So once /report is activated on someone, their before-/report 5-minute logs are put in the more permanent category to look at later, as well as whatever text they may say for the next 5 minutes. Should that work, that would be awesome.

[Tarel]

Ah, I think I'm getting the point now. So once /report is activated on someone, their before-/report 5-minute logs are put in the more permanent category to look at later, as well as whatever text they may say for the next 5 minutes. Should that work, that would be awesome.

If this is possible, it would be great to have that function.
Most offences are done with the first sentence they speak.
When report is started nearly no one is talking anymore.

[Peacer]

If this is possible, it would be great to have that function.
Most offences are done with the first sentence they speak.
When report is started nearly no one is talking anymore.

maybe  a little addition to the report command making it able to put a number of how long it should be reported, where a -1 will make you have to manually stop it

[Darkblade]

I don't think that should be implemented, manual control of how long the /report function lasts. Consider that if someone accidentally puts -1, and forgets to disble it. You'd have a freaky long log, which I know is very annoying to go through. And takes a long time.

Not to mention that that could be abused, if someone felt like making trouble.
So, I'd have to say that the report function should not be dependant on the users.

[Kerol]

I'd also vote for the +5 minutes before /report, but also to keep it logging till logout of the target.
However, the target should also get an according system message (maybe even in the red "gmwarning" fashion), stating that the chat is being logged and for how long.

Many people will stop their bad actions just by seeing that message, which I think is better than having a silent logging, only to have a reason to punish. I think it is not the best to punish people, in any way and for whatever they do. It is better to make them stop, reconsider and make them change their attitude for the future (which is more unlikely if they don't know that their actions are being recorded and will have direct consequences).
And it is a good thing that players have a means to make other people stop doing whatever they are doing wrong just by putting the spotlight on them, but that only works if the harassing person _knows_ that their actions are being logged and will have consequences.

[Pestilence]

This would be a good idea if the five minutes before are logged. Otherwise people will stop and think they are smart and just continue later on. With no proof a GM wont know if that person really was annoying or it was misuse by the reporter.

[Vengeance]

Saving chat history for 5 minutes and making /report retroactive makes a lot of sense to me.  We should definitely do this if it would make PS safer for kids.

Another thing we could do is make /report auto-ban people if we get too many filtering hits.  This way if people drop the f-bomb with each other in acceptable ways, the server will let it slide, but if someone gets /report'ed and continues to curse or abuse people, we could be a bit less dependent on a GM being around.

This type of behavior is not acceptable and the development team will continue to add features as we think of them until we know that kids and others who don't want harassment are safe.

- Vengeance

[zorbels]

Saving chat history for 5 minutes and making /report retroactive makes a lot of sense to me.  We should definitely do this if it would make PS safer for kids.

- Vengeance

I think it is a wonderful idea as well, vengance. Also it warms my heart ... being a parent and all to read those text words. This is why I am proud to be a PSer. Also because I get to test stuff.  *Zorbels goes back to poking at server*

[Tarel]

Saving chat history for 5 minutes and making /report retroactive makes a lot of sense to me.  We should definitely do this if it would make PS safer for kids.

Another thing we could do is make /report auto-ban people if we get too many filtering hits.  This way if people drop the f-bomb with each other in acceptable ways, the server will let it slide, but if someone gets /report'ed and continues to curse or abuse people, we could be a bit less dependent on a GM being around.

This type of behavior is not acceptable and the development team will continue to add features as we think of them until we know that kids and others who don't want harassment are safe.

- Vengeance

Maybe both things you mentioned can be implemented.
This way the GM's can see the reports made from players.
And auto-ban can pick the normal swearing.

I notice players who add spaces between the letters of swearwords, to bypass the wordfilter.
So with both things implemented, the swearing players have a pretty big chance of being caught by one of the 2 systems.

[Seytra]

I don't at all like the idea of being logged, especially since you need to log not only /say, but also all other channels, including the seemingly private /tell channels, as you can easily abuse someone via /tell if they don't know how to work the /ignore feature (even though one should never ever trust anything that one doesn't want to be broadcast in the news to any unencrypted internet link, there are things that just don't justify the effort but on which privacy must still not be broken without good reason, like /tell and /group).
However, given the obvious necessety (and the fact that I've experienced similar situations before) a backlog of 5 minutes seems tolerable to me. I've wished for a /backlog feature these times, so if it's implemented in the suggested way (severely time restricted unless /reported) it's fine with me.
There isn't that much of an issue of /report timing out after 5 minutes. If you think it's required, one can just keep entering /report every couple of minutes to keep it running, no? And while I don't generally believe in second chances, the suggestion about the system warning the one being logged about that fact does make sense, especially since it gives the system even more power in case the one still doesn't stop.

[Syilph]

I don't agree with the "you are being loged" warning ideea. If people are warned about being loged they will stop and continue after. If that thing gets implemented though, the perfect system message for that would be "Please have a five minutes brake, go smoke a cigarette and continue swearing after that".

[Kerol]

I don't agree with the "you are being loged" warning ideea. If people are warned about being loged they will stop and continue after.

With the retroactive logging, it would be already too late to stop swearing when you see the message. The GMs would have evidence of the misbehaviour, the way round or the other. But the fat warning would have an immediate psychological effect. This way you get someone to stop doing crap (as he thinks he could avoid the logging) _and_ get evidence of the misbehaviour. If he stops completely, a GM wouldn't have to become active at all. If he stops swearing but still keeps his attitude, a GM would have evidence what happened and could talk some sense into him. If he doesn't stop swearing, the auto-ban kicks in, modifyable by a GM (shortening or adding to the ban).

I'm not convinced about the auto-ban however. An auto-kick might be sufficient to give a GM enough time to see whats going on and set a ban manually.
And if auto-ban, then only for an hour or a day, not more. An automatic system of this sort would need a lot of tuning if the ban is to last longer.