- Joined
- Feb 15, 2016
- Messages
- 239
- Reaction score
- 58
Request:
Support logging of permissions changes, preferably via a player-accessible method.
Currently:
Changes to faction permissions, or placement of public/faction permission blocks, leaves no logged hints as to who did what. This defect is being used to grief entire servers.
This request complements:
Result of proposed:
Suggested Method:
Defects/Workarounds:
Support logging of permissions changes, preferably via a player-accessible method.
Currently:
Changes to faction permissions, or placement of public/faction permission blocks, leaves no logged hints as to who did what. This defect is being used to grief entire servers.
This request complements:
T1508 Inconsistent faction claim reports- Read by Council - General-ledger for faction points and player credits.
Result of proposed:
- Players can independently verify what's happening with valued in-game assets.
- Improved administrative transparency.
Suggested Method:
- Using existing in-game mechanics: add a single-line news entry when faction permissions change. At a minimum, log faction block permissions changes.
- Adding public/faction permissions module placement logging would also be helpful.
- Include who applied the change (e.g. admin command or menu, and which admin/player applied the command).
- Automatically purge entries after 30 (?) days.
- As a short-term term solution, at least logging faction block permissions changes (e.g. log both old/new setting, and who made the change) in server-side logs would be something to start with...although that does not address the admin abuse topic also broached here.
- Why do auditlogs, changelog, and software versioning and revision control systems exist?
- Currently, the only means of reviewing faction permissions changes, is to examine backups. This is tedious, time-consuming, and still does not help identify who did what. In the case of admin abuse, it does nothing to help players. In the case of player mistakes, it helps reduce demands upon administrative resources.
- This game has a serious badmin reputation, worse than any other ORPG in recent memory. I'm sure there's legitimate cases of admin abuse, but in my personal experience admins get far too much blame for things they had nothing to do with, defensive resources are basically non-existant; undermining administrative trust does not help players, it hurts immersion, and it hurts public perceptions of software quality.
- Players should be able to independently verify permission changes, without seeking out (and/or relying upon) administrative assistance.
Defects/Workarounds:
- This will have a marginal impact on disk space requirements. Although I can't imagine this consuming more than, at worse, 1MB per faction. The social/political benefits far outweigh the costs.
- Abusive admins will be force to further shift towards less convenient means of griefing: increase their risk of exposure, create deterrents.
