JeffM2501 wrote:Yes I understand... that's the current situation. My point and question is whether such deliberate anarchy is a good idea.
It can't be anything else other then one. We can not apply our morals to systems we do not directly controll.
"can not"? You certainly can, it's just a question of whether you should. As DTRemak said, but works both ways, they would be free to set up their own list server.
Well you don't have to read the thread if it contains things you don't like. That's it. Vote with your mouse button.
DTR is voting to disagree by replying. A feature of this forum.
Sorry, just to be clear, what I wrote wasn't what I believe. I was using the very words DTR said back at him... making a point of "it would be wrong to censor stuff" in one place, versus "we may well censor you" in another is somewhat incongruous.
The comparison with web servers is exremely valid. game servers serve up content, and the game is given away free for the viewing of said content. That's the extent of the base system. The list server is a convience feature put in the game to help people find conent. The game defaults to a list server run by the maintainer ( much like the default home page of firefox ), this is just a defaut, users are more then welcome to change it and use the apps as they see fit.
As above, that argument works both ways - servers that don't comply with a minimum standard would be free to set up their own server.
Or perhaps it could be a voluntary thing where servers with a '+' in front of their name subscribe to a set of common principles (and maybe all '+' servers get listed before other servers). That type of thing
In terms of having a better total sum of happiness for bzflag players, perhaps policy could change so server admins that host popular maps aren't able to repeatedly and unfairly screw over players (think of the mmmad.servegame.com example). Why wait for each player individually to get screwed over.
And yes on any given GAME server the owner or admin is AUTOMATICLY right in the scope of that little game on the net. You chose to go there, they didn't make you. Heck your using there bandwith for free, they can do what they want with it. I could make a server that requires people to be named bob, and ban anyone who isn't. Now then I would get no real players, so what's the point. The nature of this type of system is somewhat self regulating, if admins are jerks, player counts go down, and so does position on the list server. People don't want to play alone, so they move to the servers with the beter admins. These servers with higher player counts get more players, and it all balances out. This is why secretplace is one of the most popular servers.
Yes I agree. But that doesn't correspond to an automatic right to be listed in the list server, at least with nothing to indicate to users that it's adminned badly, or that secretplace is good. People get very upset when admins screw around. I know I do. I boycotted skater6000.bzflag.co.uk because the admin there started screwing around to cheat unfairly. Could I just leave? Yes, but that didn't make me happy. Were other players annoyed? Yes. Then the argument goes "you could just set up an alternative server", to which the answer is that my net connection is such that I can't (and buying a high bandwidth shell account somewhere isn't exactly cheap). And either way I can't use their map. But after I left there, people did keep going back, so what has that admin learned about decent admin behavior?
[quote[How do you know where to draw the line? Do you filter on conent? admin style? things like that? I personaly don't feel that that is the realm of the list server, I feel it is the responsibility of the client.[/quote]
You guys are all admins... where do you draw the line about acceptable language, accidental vs deliberate TKs etc. Everyone's capable of making value judgements. As long as it can be substantiated by "witnesses", it could work.
The client could/should have better tools to allow filtering of the list based on things such as server prefrence, player rating, language rating, and things like that. This lets those players who don't want to see the servers THEY consider bad, not what WE consider bad. Everyone has diferent lines they draw in the sand. In the web world, this is done by services such as cyber siter, and other content filtering 3rd party tools.
That would be fine by me. Right now, no-one knows until they are screwed over whether a server is poorly run or not.
There had been talk of a karma system for players. That could easily be a good idea for servers too.
Domain servers don't realy provide content. and if you try to compare it to the DNS system, then the list server is the top level domain system, and they don't pull anything based on conent ( just look up all the porn site names ). The web server is the closest one to what we have, and very viable for the concept of public servers that just serve up data to any user, since that's all bzflag servers do. They don't HAVE to register with the list server. DNS hosts do, if they expect to work since it's a distributed system.
Using earlier arguments back at you, you could always use your own DNS root servers. There's nothing stopping you. In fact that's a very analogy showing why saying "you could just do your own" isn't a very good argument. People have been very annoyed with how Verisign runs large areas of the DNS, but you can't just say "start your own root servers" as you well know.
) allowed to make up rules as they go along without them being part of some known policy?
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