talkedz...
aix...
Whoops! I guess I misunderstood how (not-so-) high we wanted the bar to be set. LOL :D
But a couple of clarifications are worth adding.
Truth be known, I was only just getting started on ideas and the rationale behind them. But I'm very slow at writing and deliberately called time on that first post. Eeek! LOL :D
Non-negotiable :
''Trust'' is a multi-facetted thing which can only emerge after sufficient time and contexts have played out.
@talkedz
Absolutely, I totally agree, the ''bad-guys'' can be extremely clever too. Bright but anti-social individuals ''gaming the system'' for reasons of gain and ego is exactly why so much of real-life contemporary economics and society looks the way it does, sadly.
Hence my suggesting an overkill ''belt-and-braces'' approach, stress-testing crucially for Temperament and Maturity, in that deliberately protracted, probationary, staged way.
I suppose I was
responding primarily with the stated-aims posted by aix in mind --- those when he originally announced Lightning, at least in the first and second incarnations (the current shortened version no longer elaborates on server philosophy and goals).
Those initial aims, iirc, did seem to be :
adult bias, detail-focused, collaborative, unixy, geeky.
I obviously seriously underestimated the desire to remain widely accessible and inclusive.
Ironically, I actually thought I'd been including concessions in that direction by suggesting the tutorial element in the tasks for ''genuine beginners'' of the right type who might need it.
Ignorance is the default initial state for us all. It wasn't that many months ago I was in that ''beginner and also genuine'' category myself and welcomed every bit of helpful guidance, which included in-game tutorial elements here and there. I'm long the type that silently thrashes StartPage for wiki and forum answers rather than trouble anyone else with my newbie questions, but as with a lot in the FOSS ecosystem, info can be hair-pullingly patchy and/or out-of-date.
When you ''don't know what you don't know'' and when systems rest on arbitrary protocols and procedures --- which can't all be deduced or second-guessed or found by experimentation among the myriad combinations and permutations of contexts and keystrokes and clicks --- it's a Catch-22 condemnation to eternal noobness unless you get to be apprentice with proficient practitioners or have proper documentation available.
Probably I should have been clearer that
in suggesting educative tasks, challenges with a tutorial element,
it did not imply ''in-your-face'' enforced-classroom modes nor pop-up ''spoon-feeding and hand-holding'' --- an approach which would undermine (no pun intended :D ) the broader IQ-screening for entry.
Genuine question : how much of a target for alpha-geek griefers are these voxel-worlds..?
Enough to endure such time-consuming probation tasks and delays with reduced privileges..?
Are there any reliable stats, even any anecdotes?
Would not ''hacked clients'' be more their weapon of choice anyway? And surely hacked-clients is a very different topic than Trustworthiness of players as per O.P. above?
The erstwhile paragon Xanadu had no real entry-screening it seems, and apparently still hasn't recovered since a script-kiddy wreaked havoc. Old players and potential new players are still suffering the fallout!
Venn-diagrams ...
the sufficiently IQ-puzzle-capable
AND sufficiently able to hoodwink established players with a non-slipping facade of emotionally-mature reasonable temperament throughout a protracted probation
AND sufficiently motivated to endure all that just to cause whatever extent of griefing
... surely tiny, vanishingly-small, or am I being naive about griefer mentality and ubiquity?
Looking for analogues in the real world, how do prestigious clubs and societies approach the new-members issue?
All-too-aware of Gaussian distributions, sure, I freely admit very few would pass my suggested arrangement; they'd be mainly patient thoughtful mature creative and tecchie-types. People like us, people like me. No big surprise, I've suffered and lost too much in real life at the hands of the other types. I'm not overly fond of a lot of them. What's more, there's already plenty of existing opportunities for the neuro-typicals, the mainstreamers, the ordinaries, to get their quick fixes of dumbed-down instant-gratification play elsewhere, surely..?
I'll say again. IIRC :
adult bias, detail-focused, collaborative, unixy, geeky.
But yes, of course, most of those who'd fail tough tests aren't (intentional) griefers or untrustworthy.
But
being able to ''trust'' that an individual's intentions and behaviour will be considerate, ethical, and constructive and not be selfish, malicious and destructive,
is not the same thing as being able to ''rely on'' their results always being benign.
Not everyone is sufficiently sensitive to the ripples and wake and footprint they leave.
There's a reason the old expression includes ''fools'' alongside ''rogues.''
And a reason that sanity usually legislates children away from vehicles and weapons.
Immature or
lower-ability does not mean a Bad Person! It does however skew certain probabilities and require more from the environment --- better pre-emptive design, more robustness, more monitoring, more chemspill, more repair, whatever. Have you ever taught or cared for Children or Special-Needs? Probabilities vary across the spectrum.
Anyway, returning to the core theme of Trust and Griefing...
Yes, definitely
Owner/Area Protections-systems do need to be retained ... but I was hoping to explain how they might be augmented and enhanced.
I already mentioned multi-user Shared-Chests; I do still think some improved form of in-game Groups and Group-Permissions would be the right direction to pursue, enhancing both gameplay and anti-griefing.
Relevant reference : from my very first post on these forums I learned (surprised and miffed to find) that
not all items/blocks could be crafted by all players. Specifically I was trying to craft a teleporter, but was told that only admins could do that in that world.
Based on that discovery, I've wondered whether, for example,
all block-types might carry extra characteristics --- comparable to the ''diggable-by-minimum-pickaxe-type'' --- characteristics which limit the block's diggability, placeability, craftability and usability to certain threshold group membership,
in concert with a much greater number of ranks than just player/moderator/admin.
Imagine, say, 1024 binary entries in a privileges-matrix, thought of as a 16 x 64 array, 16 levels of increasing rank able (or not) to do certain things with the 64 groups of blocks and items --- like dig, pick-up, own, craft, use, place-temporary, place-permanent, place-more-than-N, can-jump-Z, can-swim-W etc etc etc whatever whatever for any of the timber, stone, ore-group-A, ore-group-B, tool-group-P, tool-group-Q, bucket, fire, lava, teleporter, machine, etc etc etc.
The 16
groups might be strictly cumulative or else a ''pick'n'mix'' way of adding diversity in abilities and limitations.
Diversity itself would tend to enrich and favour collaborative gameplay, teams of complementary individuals being needed to complete a project. Like chefs need farmers and plumbers and electricians. Or dwarfs need hobbits. Or warriors need medics.
Those 16 groups would be a shorthand way of assigning multiple privileges. And it
needn't be just 16 or 64.
Not all need be used in every world, but
each server-owner could name and delegate them locally in a way which reflects the nature of the world they're trying to create. A novice, a student, an apprentice, a woodworker, a craftsman, a master-craftsman. A hobbit, a dwarf, an elf, a wizard. Private, corporal, sergeant, captain. Labourer, miner, toolmaker, engineer, terra-former ... deity! :D
You get the idea I'm sure.
And instead of just picking textures/skins a new player, or second-promotion novice,
might actually choose a particular character-trajectory in the world with a different mix of permissions-abilities than the next player. Engineer rather than warrior. The experience would differ.
I believe games-designers refer to ''depth'' --- and from what I've experienced personally in these few months of MT, there are times and worlds where you'd definitely want more depth. I think that's one contributory factor why hostile mobs (AI mobiles) seem popular, it introduces unpredictable complexity and an element of mild risk. PvP on the other hand... meh, sometimes just another form of griefing, tedious and wearisome, rewarding whoever happened to have signed up first and got to the best weapons and armour first (like in real life). A number of worlds seem to have ''no PvP at spawn'' rules for obvious reasons.
Sorry. Buzz! ''Deviation!'' Gotten a bit carried away off-topic. :D
Back to *nix-like Permissions and Trust :
Granularity of Control / Staged Loosing of Restrictions
The core idea of expanded enhanced group-permissions privileges could permit
finer-grained admin-control over what the new and untrusted can actually get up to, universally,
not dependent on the presence of explicitly Protected Areas.
Example :
If...
a maze-solving untrusted newcomer, assigned to say ''novice-carpenter'' group, has only group-permissions of :
Code: Select all
shout, dig, pick-up, own, craft, temporary-place (with some sort of block-characteristic:expiry_date:YYMMDDHHMMSS), dig-no-more-than-N, place-no-more-than-P, whatever whatever, etc etc
applicable to only blocks/items of group-types :
Code: Select all
wood/timber, foodstuffs, dirt, sand, stone, coal, steel, chest, furnace, whatever whatever etc etc
and stays in that ''novice'' group until they've earned enough ''Creds'' Approvals-Points from established players and admins to be promoted,
then...
that newcomer
intrinsically cannot grief as much as quickly as they could under the present all-or-nothing system of instant Interact.
I suspect it's essentially the current /privs model but massively widened, .
Your ''/reprimand PLAYER'' and ''/praise PLAYER'' is exactly the sort of thing I meant (just CLI).
These approval-rating ''Creds'' above a certain level after a certain time-period would automatically confer a group-promotion (or choice of promotion), or else penalties for transgressing.
That's broadly what I had in mind when suggesting player-votable ''Karma-Points.''
I do believe actual humans need to do it though, not algorithms.
It's only over sufficient active Time with sufficient meaningful observation and interaction that Temperament and ultimately Trust can even hope to be assessed.
Within that period sensible restrictions/permissions need to be in place throughout.
Maybe I'm being naive again. Maybe the above permissions-model is way beyond the reach of mod-coders and firmly a minetest-devs core programme-design thing.
But I still do think it's a goal worth pursuing.
Sheesh, another tl;dr essay. :D
I'll stop for now.
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@aix
Rather intrigued by your description of the new beefed-up spawn-trial. Might have to go have a sneaky peek. :D
Also, started looking at that ''MinePass'' thing. No idea what's under the bonnet, behind the scenes, nor how it's supposed to be used. But I've signed up anyway. Ever curious. :D
I suppose Bitcoin-esque ''blockchain-technology'' strategies might be able to make Trust gained in one world portable elsewhere ... although of course, there's a big difference between :
a) - certifying that a particular transaction has happened and
b) - certifying that an individual is worthy of Trust.
I believe this latter is still a fundamental problem in encryption-certificate circles and the notion of a Web of Trust, when at it's root, the only person you know you can trust is, well ... You!
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Hope something helps somebody...
jj_
.