Battlezone Forums

Hi there, I wanted to write about a few things that concern me about the current state of the BZ community as a whole. I'll probably wind up writing about single things rather than ranting about everything as a whole and trying to fix the whole dang thing at once, guess you can consider this me learning from Obama not trying to use an all-star-fix-it-all-in-one-go method. ^^;

I wanted to touch on the thing that I'd consider problem #1 that needs to be fixed; the throwing around of people's personal info. I tried to address this before on the BzC forums but I failed because I think I didn't actually address the issue the way I had intended, I think I was trying to more test the waters rather than point out why I thought the way these things are handled are a detriment to bringing in new players. It's about image and what it's saying to potential new players.

Personally, I think those things are extremely intimidating. It's not just the posting of IPs, but it's more of the concept of "Piss me off and I'll hunt you down on Facebook!". And please don't use the excuse of that's it's only a picture, CMU showed me this week that even a picture can be quite damaging: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11218/1165626-28-0.stm. Now I'm not exactly sure how that data mining works, but if it goes into things like online shopping records... I think you get the idea.

Not to mention I'd really, really love to open up more with my previous shipmates on Facebook and friends I've met over cons, but I can't. Why not? Because I can't trust certain people not to use that against me. I also do online shopping to import items I like from Japan like certain models that aren't available in the US. I can't be the only one like this. You people like to taunt other about posting this sort of info online, but what and I supposed to do to hook up with my old crew that's scattered across the fleet and the world? "Oh sorry, I can't hang with you guys, some guy might want to take revenge for me owning them."

I'd love to hear about any other community that other than anonymous that tries to hunt down other's identities for any reason. I know the Sonic the Hedgehog fanbase is quite split for different reasons, yet I haven't seen any of their admin heads or famous people having their face being paraded around, or their addresses being plastered on some "hate-me wall".

It really doesn't matter at this point who started what, or if you were really only aiming these attempts and only a select few, because those walls some people seem to have a hard-on for are saying a heck of a lot more than you want want, and intend to. Also, the explanation of "This doesn't happen in the chat rooms! ^^" isn't very applicable because those live chats aren't accessible unless you have BZ already installed, which requires you to either download an installer, or like me, have a disc. I think this explains why most people who stop by are mostly vets or younger people, they don't know what's going on.

The forums are our public face, the admins are the ones who make the rules, and when you spread the info of big names of the community around, it also can help send that message "that it can happen to you too if you cross me". Considering how people are trying to connect online more and more in this day of age, that single message can be a death knell. Even Starcraft 2, the most hailed sequel ever wasn't immune to this, so what makes you guys think a 13 year-old hybrid can?

Agree with you on many points, Firestorm.

I have separate identities for anything I do on the web that aren't necessarily related, that I don't want overlapping.
Social sites and battlezone are examples of this.

I have a semi-real persona (I never really use my real name) for talking with friends, colleagues, etc... and for example, an entirely different persona with no real name attached for bz (I have even used the HG persona on physical mail once, sending a package to Eddy )
You can have my IP address and do what you like with it. All you get is where I likely am, but sometimes I use a HSPA wifi modem so I appear to be halfway across the country.

I think it's unfortunate, but given nearly any online activity, having all your info and data out there can be a dangerous thing. There are some tragically disturbed people in the gaming communities that make real-identity connections rare and unlikely.

I really don't think the forums are a "detriment to bringing in new players", most people never use the forums and just play the game, what language and behavior in the game/lobby however is a proven detriment to the game. After Parents see what goes on there, the cd is tossed out or installer deleted.

Apollo wrote:I really don't think the forums are a "detriment to bringing in new players", most people never use the forums and just play the game, what language and behavior in the game/lobby however is a proven detriment to the game. After Parents see what goes on there, the cd is tossed out or installer deleted.

I've never ran into too much of that in either the 911 or BZ1.net servers, unless there was a severe behavior change over the months I haven't been really active. o.0;

And I never said the forums are a detriment, it's things like the treatment of people's IRL identities that can be a major problem for most new gamers. If anyone here doesn't know about Blizzard and their attempt of implementing RealID, lemme know, and I think it has relevance with our case.

While Hitchcock does have a good way to avoid the problem, expecting people to harbor alter-egos in BZ1 isn't quite how I'd go about it. It sorta feels like we're all expected to kinda be in-the-closet players. I'd like to show this game off at a local anime gaming room convention, for example, but I can't because of my name being exposed... I really do think we need to start catering towards how the mass of RTS and FPS players expect an environment to be like rather than telling them they gotta hide their stuff because whatever reason. I can't see many people tolerating that sort of distrust for long, especially for those who play for an escape from things like politics.

Or an escape from reality - hence the alternate pseudonyms.

I see your point about making it easier to share, and ultimately that is the promoter's choice.
No matter what I don't think you can avoid identity abuse, no matter what or where, so you take your chances.

Look what happened with BZU.

HitchcockGreen wrote:Or an escape from reality - hence the alternate pseudonyms.

I see your point about making it easier to share, and ultimately that is the promoter's choice.
No matter what I don't think you can avoid identity abuse, no matter what or where, so you take your chances.

Look what happened with BZU.

Yea, that's true, but what does it speak of someone's chances of ID abuse when admins openly abuse each other as if there's no moral issue with it at all?

It's kinda like what I was trying to allude to above. I doubt neither side wants to send such a message, but both aren't looking at what their actions could be saying outside the context of server vs server.

Firestorm29 wrote:Yea, that's true, but what does it speak of someone's chances of ID abuse when admins openly abuse each other as if there's no moral issue with it at all?

It's kinda like what I was trying to allude to above. I doubt neither side wants to send such a message, but both aren't looking at what their actions could be saying outside the context of server vs server.

Sorry, you lost me there, can you be more specific?
What admins, what abuse and how does that apply to your ID being abused to a point you are afraid to come out of the closet?

I think the real players are in the game playing, no one needs a real ID in a game being played for fun.
If you chose to release your RL ID that is your choice and once it's out, it's too late to take it back.
Also, if you think you are being abused, you can always sue.

This is another Spock thread

Apollo wrote:

Firestorm29 wrote:Yea, that's true, but what does it speak of someone's chances of ID abuse when admins openly abuse each other as if there's no moral issue with it at all?

It's kinda like what I was trying to allude to above. I doubt neither side wants to send such a message, but both aren't looking at what their actions could be saying outside the context of server vs server.

Sorry, you lost me there, can you be more specific?
What admins, what abuse and how does that apply to your ID being abused to a point you are afraid to come out of the closet?

I think the real players are in the game playing, no one needs a real ID in a game being played for fun.
If you chose to release your RL ID that is your choice and once it's out, it's too late to take it back.
Also, if you think you are being abused, you can always sue.

If you look at the walls of shame on both sites, you'll find pictures and at least partial addresses. Also, I've had others tell of of things like more specific living areas, their jobs, and a whole assortment of other things. I'm making a serious attempt not to name names or get more specific since some of this stuff was discussed in PM. As far as me being abused, to my knowledge, I haven't yet. It's the risk of things happening like ID theft and having your car spray painted and the plates removed that can make people pass on the game altogether. Remember, many mainstream players probably have something like a facebook for various reasons. I have one to keep in contact with my old crew.

I mentioned the idea of a lawsuit once, it was laughed off like it was a bad joke.

Zax wrote:This is another Spock thread

If you're claiming me to be posting for Spock, you probably don't know about our past history.

"walls of shame" I see that on bz1.org and forum.bz3genesis.com/bz3/ which one is upsetting you?
You stop the laughing when they are served. Ofc, you have to be able to prove your case.
Most hosting companies don't allow abuse or hatrad. Assuming the hosting company is in the states.

Apollo wrote:"walls of shame" I see that on bz1.org and forum.bz3genesis.com/bz3/ which one is upsetting you?
You stop the laughing when they are served. Ofc, you have to be able to prove your case.
Most hosting companies don't allow abuse or hatrad. Assuming the hosting company is in the states.

The ones on bz1.org and at the club (it's listed at BZ's worst offenders sticky) are the ones that bother me. The one for bz3 genesis doesn't, it just shows the forum name and what they did to screw up. Ragnarok Online and Neopets had the same things, name and offense and ban length. No names, no neighborhoods, no pictures.

The problem with lawsuits is the ability to afford it, well that and I'm not sure if the same privacy laws for admins of networks is the same for individual people. Either way, you'd have to have quite a bit of cash to blow to succeed.

I'm pushing this because I wanted to try and do a LP series and maybe get a few LP names in there to get the game around with the 1.5 patch. I think it'd be easy to sell that way. The problem is trying to sell the community to the general public.

A general public that might not go through the hoops that Hitchcock goes through. A public that has Facebook pages. A public that might be offended by the way people's info seems to get tossed around like some beach ball through walls and PMs.

So why I'm doing is part for the moral argument, part because I want to try and sell the community as a whole and not just advertise for one group. I'm not playing forum politics as far as one server good vs one server evil.

Yes, the general public likely wouldn't go to such lengths to protect their privacy. Especially younger people as they seem more than comfortable publishing every embarrassing detail of their lives online.
Could also be my core Canadianness. We have stricter privacy laws in Canada than there are in the U.S. For example, if you purchase a .ca domain it automatically comes with privacy features to protect the domain owner. Facebook was ordered by the government to change their privacy settings, and the government levelled legal action against Google when their streetview cars were found to be collecting wifi data.

In my opinion, separating your identities is just a good idea. It doesn't have to be battlezone related - there are nutjobs everywhere on the net and things could turn nasty if you piss one off. I know some cyber-sleuths and it's impressive what they can find on people through knowledgeable and intense digging on the web alone.

Now, when it comes to sections of each site that publicly shame...well I tend to ignore it. But that's because I already have an opinion. Newcomers won't yet and as we've seen many times they believe one or the other.
When I moderate at bzclub I tend to move posts or split posts that turn into so-and-so bashing and put them in the Fight Club section. The only reason I do this is because I feel that's where it belongs. I would prefer if casual browsers of the site don't necessarily see that unless they go digging (by which I mean register - which is when they can actually download any installer, etc).
I'd rather not have that kind of negativity open to the public on any forum let alone one where the community is significantly reduced due to the age of the game.

As for advertising for 1.5 or whatever version, I've done that too. My host provides me with some ad credits with a handful of sites (google, yahoo, facebook, etc) and prior to renewing with them I burned up those ad credits in a bit of an experiment. It didn't do as well as I'd like, but working with just a credit and not injecting funds into the 'project' it did pretty much what I expected. I tried to advertise the game, and not the forum community. Of course, I had to provide a link to where you can download, so it wasn't exactly neutral. In my opinion that was the best way to do it. This, I think, is in line with what Apollo is suggesting. While the forums may provide some useful information for people who might have issues, or want to get some additional content in map packs, addons, etc, the point is to draw people into the game and not necessarily the forums. People may appear in game that don't ever register at any forum.

Ok now I've lost my train of thought...need coffee...

By Spock thread, I mean that "if you could go back in time and stop Spock from ever existing, this thread would have not existed either due to various snowball and butterfly effects"

HitchcockGreen wrote: As for advertising for 1.5 or whatever version, I've done that too. My host provides me with some ad credits with a handful of sites (google, yahoo, facebook, etc) and prior to renewing with them I burned up those ad credits in a bit of an experiment. It didn't do as well as I'd like, but working with just a credit and not injecting funds into the 'project' it did pretty much what I expected. I tried to advertise the game, and not the forum community. Of course, I had to provide a link to where you can download, so it wasn't exactly neutral. In my opinion that was the best way to do it. This, I think, is in line with what Apollo is suggesting. While the forums may provide some useful information for people who might have issues, or want to get some additional content in map packs, addons, etc, the point is to draw people into the game and not necessarily the forums. People may appear in game that don't ever register at any forum.

Ok now I've lost my train of thought...need coffee...

A problem with this approach is that I've seen private info being exchanged in the game as well, or at least used to. However, the way certain people act, I don't have much reason to believe this has changed much...

I've been kicking around about a 3rd server/forum area that makes a sterner approach about things like identities and the like in order to do essentially what thinks is impossible; have the game without the extensive politics. I think I'll be able to afford one soon without breaking the bank.

[Edit]

Zax wrote:By Spock thread, I mean that "if you could go back in time and stop Spock from ever existing, this thread would have not existed either due to various snowball and butterfly effects"

Erm... I wasn't trying to go in that direction. I feel like that brings up tons of moot points and fixing nothing pointing fingers since this privacy problem happens on both sides. I'm not trying to debate removing either server or community either. Not to mention, that brings up all sorts of messy temporal stuff which if Star Trek has taught me anything, is best left undisturbed. >.>;

"BAN List Recommendations: Battlezones worst offenders"
So how does posts about what a few hackers did effect you?
What is illegal there?

Last time i saw a picture of spock, he looked a little different.

"battlezone1.net/wall/"
Ok it has pictures and a state, was the pictures available else where online?
I still see nothing illegal.