[MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens

[Gunnar Kreitz]

On Fri, Mar 31, 2000 at 04:06:13PM -0700, Fred Clift wrote:
> I'm almost to the point of turning on Character Approval though.  A
> character named HugePenis logged in and started spamming public channels
> with crude language.  Disconnection didn't help.  Deletion didn't
> help.  What did help was deletion and banning his IP for new character
> creation.

This can be remedied by putting restrictions on new players. Give them some
rather severe restrictions on how quickly they can write stuff on public
channels and if you want, ban some bad words.

Then put up some in-game goal which takes about an hour or so to reach to
remove these restrictions. On a level-based system, level 2 (provided you
start on level 1) might be a good point. This should be enough to get rid of
most of the create-a-new-char-for-a-quick-spam problems.

> Which answers someone elses question I saw earlier.  What kind of
> mechanical things can be done instead of a ban, since bans have bad
> side-effects?  Well, we can ban particular characters, ban an IP, ban an
> IP for new character creation or ban an IP for all but a specific set of
> characters etc.
> 
> Polite email to us saying, my site is banned for new character creation,
> but I'd love to play, will usually result in us creating a character of
> the race and class they'd like and then presto, they can play.  Yes, it
> takes human intervention, but it's way better than them not getting in at
> all.  When a site is banned, a polite note is sent to the user trying to
> connect explaining the type of ban and how to get in touch with us if they
> want to appeal, etc.

This can be automated. Have two types of bans when it comes to character-
creation, manual and automatic where manual works like the thing above. A
personal, polite e-mail will get you an account then. Also add a list of
e-mail addresses of known troublemakers.

Automatic e-mail creation might work something like:
  FooMud, what's your name: Boffo
  I'm sorry Boffo, your domain has been banned from creating new characters
  without an automatic e-mail registration. Please enter a working e-mail
  adress to which I can send you a code which will enable you to create the
  character Boffo. This will be done automatically, and the e-mail should
  arrive within five minutes. If you have already done so, then please enter
  the code you received instead: boffo_32532 at hotmail.com
  I'm sorry Boffo, hotmail.com has been blocked from e-mail registration.
  Try again: troublemaker at bad.com
  I'm sorry Boffo, troublemaker at bad.com has been blocked from e-mail
  registration. Try again: already at taken.com
  I'm sorry Boffo, we have a player with that e-mail already and we don't
  allow multiplaying. Try again: foobar at good.com
  Thank you, the code is being sent to you now, hope to see you soon.
  [Send him a code. I prefer a MD5 of (his username + e-mail address +
   some random data)]

Now with this code, people from a "lightly banned" IP can create characters
quickly and you get a valid e-mail to track them by. E-mails at free
mail-providers (Hotmail etc.) should be blocked from doing this, since it
would be easily circumvented by creating a new account otherwise. Except for
such addresses, most people have a rather small set of addresses they can
receive mail to.

--
Gunnar Kreitz <gunnark at chello.se>



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