Abusive server titles

[Metatron]

All years again...
Welcome back to nursery-play-school....

[han]

There is a very simple solution here with a modification to the master server code to add a "RejectFalsePlayerCount" boolean setting. Upon receipt of a beacon, the master server would perform a /players/ query against the reporting server's query port. If the quantity of players returned does not match the player count integer, reject the beacon.

Should be rather useluss as one can fake that too. And this feature just sounds like "abuse me for DOS". And even if that would work, one can just put some invisible Pawns in the game which get reported as Players.

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

There is a very simple solution here with a modification to the master server code to add a "RejectFalsePlayerCount" boolean setting. Upon receipt of a beacon, the master server would perform a /players/ query against the reporting server's query port. If the quantity of players returned does not match the player count integer, reject the beacon.

If you don't think this is worth implementing, I'll start up work on my standalone master server project again.

lol

I guess that means servers like mine that have fake players (bots) in server info but reports the real player count should be banned.

It's a complete joke to work around a variable like that anyway. You don't even need fake pawns, a custom udpserverquery (like mine) does that too. In fact I think it reports version 888 too...

The only sensible thing, but flawed in a similar manner, is to just censor/blacklist curse words. As mentioned, there's a million different permutations of curse words, not to mention different languages. This isn't a battle we can win.

[V00D00]

The only sensible thing, but flawed in a similar manner, is to just censor/blacklist curse words. As mentioned, there's a million different permutations of curse words, not to mention different languages. This isn't a battle we can win.

Totally agree, it cannot be "won" but it can be curtailed. As Smirftsch mentioned about the permutations of the word "idiot" alone, yes, it could prove insane in the amount of permutations that would be necessary to put in all such things as a filter.

To me, it's not the words in that server title (either the original ones or the current ones) and it's not the amount of "blank" servers and it's certainly not to do with the player count.

For me it will be a sad day if I fire up the game, hit Multiplayer and see 7 populated servers: 6 of which are "complaining" about the other one    

That is pretty much putting it the best way I can without losing my own forum integrity

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

For what it's worth, you can also fake all server information based on IP only to the master server. Thus being able to bypass any restrictions set upon by the master server to begin with.

[Smirftsch]

Was talking some time the morning with Darkelarious, one of the people behind 333networks.com about this issue as promised.

He is working on an implementation of an easy blacklist option for the 333 masters, the idea however to add a fakeplayer check he thinks will be rather useless because far more advanced methods to fake it are already known to him from the UT community. That doesn't mean that this couldn't  be discussed yet though ( to BreakDanceJ) but help is always welcome in this project, so anyone willing to participate should register here:

http://forum.errorist.tk/viewforum.php?f=35
or visit
#333networks @ irc.synirc.net .

Anyone is asked to add technical suggestions and ideas there how we can get this managed.

[Syntax-Error]

It's not really a waste of time. A basic master server can be written in < 100 lines in a higher-level language. In fact.. I even have a proof-of-concept hacked together in the form of a cli php script that works surprising well

I would be interested to see how it works...

BTW...
The abusive server titles are annoying, so what I did is add all my favorite servers to the favorites list and select a server to play on from there...

Not the best solution, but no need to firewall anything or use other measures... But won't see what I don't want to see.

My 11yr old son is allowed to play Unreal every now and then. I don't want him to see crap like that either. So I added a number of servers to his favorites list and explained to him to use that list to select a server to play on.

I know there are a bunch of offending servers because someone dislikes Redrum. There is a history about it, but I will not bother you guys with that.
I still think it is a childish action though...
But that is just my opinion.

Someone stated they will go away eventually. I'm not sure, since this guy is keeping up for months already.

Stan (Redrum) recently approached me with a request to blacklist them on the Multi Master Servers. It is not up to me to decide this for others.

I do see it as a problem for people who dislike bad language or try to prevent their young ones to see unneeded stuff like that.

I don't think blacklisting is an option.
There are a number of Multi Master Servers in the Unreal community where blacklisting could be possible. But it is up to the admin of the MS to decide to blacklist a server or not.

I haven't tried what happens with banned servers during the synchronisation process between the Multi Master Servers... (if the bans are copied to the other Multi Master Servers, or get overwritten for not beeing on the other Multi Master Servers)

But...
To prevent to be blacklisted to easily, a number of people should be member of some new type of "board" to decide if a server should be blacklisted or not.

Then again...
The list of Unreal servers is slowly getting shorter which makes me wonder if the effort would hold...

There are still other games as well which can suffer from the same issues...

And...
Do we want this kind of censorship?

Who will be the upper one to decide if someone would get blacklisted or not...

There will always be ways to sneak through, so...

I think it might be better to approach the person directly and try to setup a discussion trying to convince them to stop, instead of blacklisting...

[han]

Just came to my mind that maybe some "report offensive server" or sth. button might be worth at least some thoughts. As there seem to be a lot of people pissed off by server titles they would be a great up to date information source about these servers. Sure it probably can be abused to report other servers as bad, but that might be filtered out by heuristics, etc.

[Hellkeeper]

I really don't see why anyone should do anything about this. This is a violent game for adults with a lot of potential for cruelty. It has crucified aliens, bloody gibs and a working eletric chair. This is not a game for kids. Hence people playing and opening the server browser should be adults and deal with this like adults, ie. just go elsewhere if they don't agree.

If 227 starts implementing measures to ban specific people, servers, languages and filtering stuff people on OldUnreal don't like, this patch has officially jumped the shark.

[Kajgue]

I really don't see why anyone should do anything about this. This is a violent game for adults with a lot of potential for cruelty. It has crucified aliens, bloody gibs and a working eletric chair. This is not a game for kids. Hence people playing and opening the server browser should be adults and deal with this like adults, ie. just go elsewhere if they don't agree.

If 227 starts implementing measures to ban specific people, servers, languages and filtering stuff people on OldUnreal don't like, this patch has officially jumped the shark.

I agree in some respects, in this situation more specifically because it's just a bit of name calling (correct me if i'm wrong); but I do very much appreciate and respect the civil and friendly nature of the communities' sovereignty.

I do think it's a different story however, when the content or context of the insults/patronising discharge/abuse is related to things which are or are directly personal.

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

It's rated M for mature and has reduced gore in Germany for a reason

Yep. Unreal also has animated decapitations, yet the word "Fuck" is too obscene.

[V00D00]

I do think it's a different story however, when the content or context of the insults/patronising discharge/abuse is related to things which are or are directly personal.

I couldn't agree more

There's a big difference between the game itself (indeed any game played over the net) and the REAL people at the other end who are playing the game. Yes our game has violent/gory content but it isn't real, but the people who play it are. Yup, it's just a bit of name-calling and no biggie I guess. The thing is though, and I'm not just talking about Unreal here or this example, when someone feels "wronged"  by something that has occured over the net and it has made them mad or angry, they invariably and indirectly take their frustrations out on real people close to them like friends, family, girlfriends, boyfriends etc., beacuse they cannot "get to" the person who annoyed them over the internet - this is not good.

I am personally very glad something was done about it; the person with the server titles met us halfway by altering their titles. This is a good thing, it means we still have a community that communicates and to be honest, even asethetically it looks a little better now, so to me we have been "adult" about the way it has been dealt with. It's personally irrelevant to me who the people involved are, to me it was more just a case of tidying up the gateway to our game. If someone painted my real gate with offensive wording, I would clean it, not think "oh what the hell - I'll leave it where it is".

Yes it's not necessarily a b i g deal, but firing up the server list lately has been a bit like picking up your favourite book only to find the Index and Chapter titles have been scrawled over and obscured by a child messing with a pen. Yup I agree with Hyper in that this abusive server title thing has always been with us, but in the old days, there were that many servers that the abusive titled ones were almost hidden. With so few populated servers nowadays, it really stands out, especially when there's 5 of this one.... hell... just having 1 would have done the job better....

Happy fraggin' Nali Protectors 8-) and those that shoot them as well 

EDIT - afterthought
-------------------
Unlike Facebook, we are a small enough community to manage and be manageable.
This is a good thing.

[Smirftsch]

If 227 starts implementing measures to ban specific people, servers, languages and filtering stuff people on OldUnreal don't like, this patch has officially jumped the shark.

No worries, I am more interested in the aspects of pushing such servers into populated lists while no one is on it, which I honestly dislike. We always had some servers like this over the years and even if its only some bots populated servers, oh well....
But the combination of the titles AND the populated list I find really annoying.
Besides it wouldn't be a 227 thing either way, more a MasterServer thing.

[strategy-(DOG)-]

about a week ago a player joined our servers and talked to me. i figured out he wasn't a big fan of "mr. redrum", so i asked him, if he got anything to do with those servers "attacking" redrum.... obviously he was that admin, i found out after several private messages. since he agreed to follow newbies rules and i wanted to learn more about this, i started to ask about the background of his story and what he was trying to achieve with his actions.

right from the start i made him clear, that he would not target at redrum only, but moreover at the whole community. he wasn't aware of that and as i explained him that the whole community was annoyed by his servers, he started to think over it.
as a first action, he renamed the server names to be "less" offensive.
and second step was to offer a solution to let players know about his experience and the "truth" about some admins without "spamming" the unreal server browser...

well, the background of his actions is, that he, and a person that is very important to him, had been treated rather badly on redrum by stan - yet if only half of the things he told me would be true, i can understand him (of course stan gave me another explanation, when i asked him why someone would attack him...).

this guy - and i don't consider him hostile at all after spending a lot of time talking to him behind the scenes in meantime - spent some time to create a small map that should represent the scence from matrix, when morpheus offers neo to learn about the "truth" - (you remember the blue pill - red pill story )... if picking the pill that would reveal the truth, the player is being disconnected from the server and being led to a simple website, where he learns about the background... the website doesn't contain that offensive stuff you might expect. just an expression of a person that had been treated not too good.

my personal opinion - no one would take upon this effort to show someone off, if there wouldn't be some truth behind it....

at least i could convince that admin to remove that "fake-player-script" and not to set 5 servers active...


what we can learn from this? well, if admins abuse their "power" unjustified, this can harm the community even more than some frustrated players...


p.s. i set an "amnesty" for all bans on newbies and deleted all ban-records on our servers - except of TiagoPinto.

[Smirftsch]

Thanks for this explanation, I also had my trouble with Stan in the past, and I believe everything has its reason, yet if justified or not is always a different question and something we can't answer here, but the serverbrowser is the wrong battlefield for that if you ask me.

And thanks for helping out in this situation

[Dr.Flay™]

333 is ever moving forwards and blocking and filtering is an area we will strengthen for users.
We are also looking at recomending things like Xbrowser as the client interface, as this also gives the players more flexibility.

Fake players on empty servers, is something we have had several arguments about on other sites.
We can hide them, or rename, or recolour.
It has been agreed by majority feedback that we should deal with fake players, but as for server names it is not a conversation we have had.

If the majority of the community want masterservers to rename offensive servers, it could be done, but I think it should be handled with the client interface.
eg. If you could combine Xbrowser with the common anti-swearing server tools, then users can control it as they wish.

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

You have to remember that people on the forums are going to be the vocal minority.

The general populace may not even care or even have their voices heard.

Fact of the matter is censoring is bad, but filtering abuse(heavy server spammage) isn't.

[genericoptoficial]

First of all, i DONT need your amnesty, i have my servers created by me without help, your newbiesplayground members keep join my servers even knowing that they are banned, this problem should be solved by you, controling your clan members.

When it comes to server titles I've only done it once, I haven't done it in many years, which I have nothing to do with anymore, and I'll never do it again, I don't gain anything from it, besides that I saw an insinuation from Rubie now a member of NewbiesPlayground about this subject, before insinuating or asserting, evidences must first be presented, it is important to investigate, in case you don't know it's easy to steal identity in Unreal, players copy other people's names, only knowing by their IP, the servers ips change like was happened to my several times, the players IPs change was well, this making it difficult to ban those players who do it.

Blocking servers from the masterserver is a mistake, many players can play on every server they want, your truth its NOT others truth, that is a utopia in your head, every player have their own characteristic server, ie: i built my server for people over +18 years old wich have foul language, dark jokes, sexual references, a lot of monsters mutators, mixed weapons etc...besides that it has a [+18] advise on server titles, joins who have the sense to read the servers titles and see that it a server for adults, other admins built a family friendly servers.

Of course i DONT agree with offensive server titles to harm other players or admins, no one had a conversation with me about this, which I didn't even know was happening, I was away from Unreal at the time, if you don't believe me, that's your problem at end if was other person writte this topic, its ok, its a validate opinion, but this its GenericoPT, so im the wrong here.

[Kajgue]

First of all, i DONT need your amnesty, i have my servers created by me without help, your newbiesplayground members keep join my servers even knowing that they are banned, this problem should be solved by you, controling your clan members.

When it comes to server titles I've only done it once, I haven't done it in many years, which I have nothing to do with anymore, and I'll never do it again, I don't gain anything from it, besides that I saw an insinuation from Rubie now a member of NewbiesPlayground about this subject, before insinuating or asserting, evidences must first be presented, it is important to investigate, in case you don't know it's easy to steal identity in Unreal, players copy other people's names, only knowing by their IP, the servers ips change like was happened to my several times, the players IPs change was well, this making it difficult to ban those players who do it.

Blocking servers from the masterserver is a mistake, many players can play on every server they want, your truth its NOT others truth, that is a utopia in your head, every player have their own characteristic server, ie: i built my server for people over +18 years old wich have foul language, dark jokes, sexual references, a lot of monsters mutators, mixed weapons etc...besides that it has a [+18] advise on server titles, joins who have the sense to read the servers titles and see that it a server for adults, other admins built a family friendly servers.

Of course i DONT agree with offensive server titles to harm other players or admins, no one had a conversation with me about this, which I didn't even know was happening, I was away from Unreal at the time, if you don't believe me, that's your problem at end if was other person writte this topic, its ok, its a validate opinion, but this its GenericoPT, so im the wrong here.

Hey TiagoPinto.

Sorry to have to remind you again but unfortunately this is not the DOG clan website.

Also not only that, but you should understand you are banned both here and in the DOG website/servers, that means don't come back - whether that's here or the OldUnreal discord. We don't need to explain and re-explain ad nauseum why that is.

Best regards and adios,
Kajgue

[Hyper]

Those childish angry (fake or real) server titles, is that even still a thing?
I never banned anyone from my master server*. And Unreal has multiple master servers now and most game clients query multiple of them. So if you get banned by one master server your game servers will still show up because master servers are not a single point of failure anymore.

But Unreal is half dead now. Why even bother spending the server resources of keeping a server up just to show some childish angry server name that only a handful of players will notice and maybe one or two will understand.

*Manually. I do use firewall and security software capable of banning IP's and those come with cloud managed badware IP blocklists. If you end up on these lists all my services go dark because everything is hosted from the same home server on a residential IP address.

[TiagoPinto89]

Hey TiagoPinto.

Sorry to have to remind you again but unfortunately this is not the DOG clan website.

Also not only that, but you should understand you are banned both here and in the DOG website/servers, that means don't come back - whether that's here or the OldUnreal discord. We don't need to explain and re-explain ad nauseum why that is.

Best regards and adios,
Kajgue

Hey kajgue

You are not smart, il not explan because you have a brain the size of a pigeon, re-read my wrote, you have weak minded the admins of this dump ban me without let me defend my self, make players dont join my servers, that called cowardice, putting me in the middle of a mess that isn't even my fault, what you, whatever member or oZ should do is talk to me, send me a message on my discord, and solve the problem, instead of accusing me of putting ofensive server names, without evidences, someone, mentioned my name.

Every admin have right set up a personalized server, like mutators, mods, rules, when i said rules, i mean bad language allowed, dark jokes, some players dont find this offensive, for i.e: on my servers i have [+18]is obvious players il see that my server is for over +18, If you don't like the way the server is structured or the rules by which it's made, then don't join, No one has the right to tell an admin how to set up a server, Players can use another player's nickname and VPN, then do a lot of nonsense. This is called identity theft. How can you know if it was me who put an offensive title, or insulted or provoked someone on this fake server or any other server? Since they are using a VPN to connect to an IP address? this is the cinical victimwood from a community, and i inform you that newbiesplayground members was banned from my Unreal servers/discord server but they still join my servers, PLEASE DONT JOIN MY SERVERS, Newbiesplayground are PERSONAS NON GRATAS!! i hope you understand, unfortunately i lost this hope, if you dont understamd, I can't do anything else, unless I make a drawing for you...

My regards

GenericoPT

ByeBye pall!!

[Leo T_C_K]

The next chapter in the Unreal Drama Saga?

Anyways I don't wanna get into this, but as an observer I saw some interactions before. I know a lot of people in the community had dirt on them to say the least, but the difference is if you learn to move on and put it behind you. I know that tiago was provoked in the past and there were identity thefts and there were misunderstandings regarding idioms that lead people to take what he said even harsher. But you can't deny a certain attitude, I am not here to judge anyone. There are things that were done and said but yea he is right about one thing, don't assume someone did something without evidence. You know how easy it is to pretend to be someone else, we saw that recently (well few years back by now) with vulpes and co. and even bots they used.

On that note I don't think the relations between the dog clan and tiago can ever be repaired, they are just enemies and let's leave it at that. But I also was shocked how years back you people got tiago banned from the master server, such measures should never be implemented no matter what. I have to say that bad actions were taken from both or multiple sides.

Hell I even made some jokes regarding tiago myself and dealt with an impostor with a sense of humor. But still I know where this leads to and the entire thing is not nice.

I mean..I remember myself laughing at stuff like Kajgue once saying on another forum TiagoPUNTO and such stuff and I found that ridiculous.

[TiagoPinto89]

The next chapter in the Unreal Drama Saga?

Anyways I don't wanna get into this, but as an observer I saw some interactions before. I know a lot of people in the community had dirt on them to say the least, but the difference is if you learn to move on and put it behind you. I know that tiago was provoked in the past and there were identity thefts and there were misunderstandings regarding idioms that lead people to take what he said even harsher. But you can't deny a certain attitude, I am not here to judge anyone. There are things that were done and said but yea he is right about one thing, don't assume someone did something without evidence. You know how easy it is to pretend to be someone else, we saw that recently (well few years back by now) with vulpes and co. and even bots they used.

On that note I don't think the relations between the dog clan and tiago can ever be repaired, they are just enemies and let's leave it at that. But I also was shocked how years back you people got tiago banned from the master server, such measures should never be implemented no matter what. I have to say that bad actions were taken from both or multiple sides.

Hell I even made some jokes regarding tiago myself and dealt with an impostor with a sense of humor. But still I know where this leads to and the entire thing is not nice.

I mean..I remember myself laughing at stuff like Kajgue once saying on another forum TiagoPUNTO and such stuff and I found that ridiculous.

I'll explain a few things, first regarding the OldUnreal community ban from masterserver like you wrote:

But I also was shocked how years back you people got Tiago banned from the master server

That shows that what I've been saying on long time ago..... about this subject is true, but Newbiesplaground is partly to blame, because they make up stories about me, defame me, using my image to ridicule it, makes players dont join my servers, im not judging, its facts with evidences by Leos wrote.

Regarding my relationship with Newbiesplayground, I remember emailing X21 asking for help, but after that, before I was cowardly banned from the forum and unable to defend myself, I accused Strategy of giving orders not to help me, which Strategy denied, and X21 said he would help me, in the email I sent asking for help, X21 said he would help if I apologized to Newbiesplayground, to which I replied that if they apologized to me first, In another email, I changed my mind and said that I was really wrong to lose my temper, and asked X21 to have Strategy send me an email to end the nonsense and raise the flag of peace, in the end, nothing happened.

About the server title, its easy to accusing, when someone hates you, to the point of accusing you without evidence, a simple act of sending an email or message on my discord, and things would be resolved, In the past, there were players who used my nickname to cause trouble, and at that time, no one bothered to find out who the impostor was, when you laughhing before about suppose ridicculous think i wrote, today you regret what you did, that is a positive point for me, i admit it, i say things wich i regret too, i lost my temper, on my side i assume my partial fault, i never should go other than newbiesplay server servers wen members are playing to cause trouble only to get my revenge, always i fight bad misunderstandings, always tries be clear when i write textes, its hard put things behind me when im begin harmed, even more for things I didn't do, My relationship with Newbiesplaground? Well... I try to calm things down, resolve everything amicably, but the other side doesn't, If you want to help me without other people's restrictions, telling what to do or not to do, that's fine. I think everyone has the freedom to do what they want.


My regards


GenericoPT

[Leo T_C_K]

From experience I would say I'd like if we all could just get along and move on.

But yea the master server side-banning...the master server was never designed with that in mind, so yea I am against centralized banning, especially when the whole situation could have been avoided in the first place.

[TiagoPinto89]

From experience I would say I'd like if we all could just get along and move on.

But yea the master server side-banning...the master server was never designed with that in mind, so yea I am against centralized banning, especially when the whole situation could have been avoided in the first place.[*]

For me ist ok move on if the communitys stop prejudicate me and my servers, and find the guilty who cause this trouble, find a solution for fight identity thiefts, anyway its not depend me move on, It depends on the other side, recognizing their are wrong too, for me to be sure that everything is alright, il keep with my servers on, try bring new players, put this game on top aguen.