Anyone have any plans for a plugin like MCBans?

Discussion in 'Plugin Development' started by Sh8kezula, Jul 7, 2011.

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  1. Offline

    bergerkiller

    Well first question then. :p
    Can bans expire using CommunityBans or are bans always permanent?
     
  2. Offline

    Deaygo

    Myself and a few others are working on a ban system that is all local bans, but allows you to subscribe to other servers bans, we also allow for adding notes to users. Right now all of the notes are global, but we have decided to go with local to the server and global notes. Hopefully in the next month or so we will be able to do a public release, the API, and plugin are done, we are just working on finishing up the website. I'll make sure to post here when we get the initial release done.
     
  3. Offline

    Supersam654

    @BergerKiller, its funny you ask because there are 3 answers to your question. When you ban someone, you can make a server ban which will permanently ban them from your server. You can also make a Community Ban which will ban them from your server and add a mark against their record for other servers to see. If a server sets (in the config file) that players with more than 3 bans can't join, then your community ban might prevent that player from joining that server. However, the 3 option is a temporary ban. This will ban someone from just your server for a set amount of time that can be preconfigured based on a default, or can be specified when making the ban.
     
  4. Offline

    bergerkiller

    Okay, thanks. I see different people have different views of what banning means, just like me. :)
     
  5. Offline

    Firestar

    MCBans is not looking for a "takeover", the plugin is simply for banning, making it social is ridiculous and pointless, and yes, proof is needed to backup your bans. The site is constantly undergoing updates and the plugin, 3.0, is being developed, I work and maintain MCBans almost every day, and there is a channel on irc.esper.net/#mcbans where you can quickly get support. To say that the admins on MCBans do not work hard enough is a baseless statement. If your going to make your own project, do so, but do not do so by blasting a site which you view as competition, CommunityBans or whatever it is called is not a continuation of MCBans in the least.

    Reputation does not increase their desire to ban people, it makes them prove their bans if anything. We do not feel that bans made on MCBans are a "Game". If you have any questions about the operations of MCBans or the staff on it, join the IRC channel and ask them.
     
  6. Offline

    Supersam654

    Sorry for the confusion. This thread was originally started with the idea of either taking over/majorly redoing MCBans. However, the MCBans team was not willing to let another group of people take over the project (which is completely understandable) so a new project has been started, call CommunityBans. I will get in touch with the op of this thread and see if he can change the original post in this, or at least the title to better reflect this.
     
  7. Offline

    mbaxter ʇıʞʞnq ɐ sɐɥ ı

    @Supersam654 Why not just support mcbouncer then, which already has support of many servers without having even been released? It's what Deaygo mentioned in the thread already.
     
  8. Offline

    Supersam654

    I actually have never heard of MCBouncer, a link to something about it would be nice though...
     
  9. Offline

    mbaxter ʇıʞʞnq ɐ sɐɥ ı

  10. Offline

    Supersam654

    @mbaxter I already saw the post written by @deaygo, however I still do not have... "proof" of something official/someone just telling me where this plugin stands. Currently, CommunityBans has partially working code, a server, and a domain name. We are currently working on hooking into roughly 13 different plugins, creating a website, and developing client-server communication.

    EDIT: I just read the end of the post where deaygo mentions the status of the plugin :)
     
  11. Offline

    dak393

    I think you should read up on MCBans a little more as that is not how it works. There is rep and you don't get banned on all servers because of one server... Not to mention servers can set up whitelists saying that its ok for people that got banned for flying to join my server as I allow it/ don't think its a big deal.
     
  12. Offline

    buttscicles

    MCBouncer is currently running on the nerd.nu servers, as well as what Deaygo posted.
     
  13. Offline

    Supersam654

    If your global banning solution is only running on a "local" set of servers, isn't that the same as all of the nerd.nu servers sharing the same banning list?
     
  14. Offline

    buttscicles

    Not really. It's only running there because that happens to be the server that the plugin developers administrate, as it hasn't been publicly released yet.
    It's much more than a banlist too, it's more of an information database on undesirable players, and a way for moderators of large servers to communicate easily, after having warned a player for example, without an additional plugin.
     
  15. Offline

    Supersam654

    I will be interested to take a look at when it becomes publicly available.
     
  16. Offline

    Crashdoom

    Can I ask how you draw this conclusion? We take the MCBans service very seriously and do deal with issues that arise as they appear and are brought to our attention, either automatically or manually by members of our staff/the MC community.
    We do take erroneous bans very seriously and deal with them as the issues arise regarding them. However, we can only deal with them as they are brought to our attention, as we are humans, not computers that run 24/7.
    I'm glad you've brought up regarding support and staff, we're currently looking to recruit new dispute team staff in order to speed up dealing with disputes as they get escalated by server staff/players on our system. We are currently updating the website and features on it, as well as on the plugin, however, I'm not going to disclose anything regarding updates at this time. As for the rules, we're in the progress of rewriting the rules for global bans to better suit the service.
    We do branch out for help, we've put the base plugin up on github for people to assist and contribute to the MCBans service, as we are branching our for help via our recruitment for new dispute staff (See here). As we are always looking for suggestions, please do submit them via our support system at http://support.mcbans.com or the forum at http://forums.mcbans.com so we can review and possibly implement them into the system.
     
  17. Offline

    Supersam654

    @Crashdoom although you seem to be extremely open to suggestions, you unfortunately rejected my entire team's suggestion about providing proof for global bans when the ban is administered, rather than after the fact when the ban is appealed by the select few people in the community that actually know how to appeal bans. Because of this, the CommunityBans plugin was started simply because we refused to stand idly by while MCBans did nothing to fix this blatant flaw. As for the 3rd thing you referenced, you are really only stating your response to a problem that this post referenced. This goes back to the first 2 statements which are more or less elaborations of the general, 3rd statement.
     
  18. Offline

    Firestar

    We did not reject, we said making it mandatory was what we were against, by all means the log data will eventually be stored on mcbans when the ban is made, 3.0 already has a logblock implementation started, with bigbrother on the way, and if demand is high any of the others.

    And as said we look for help, not a new "team" to take over, we have a team, and the team works hard. If you want to join the team that is fine, but as said, we are not looking for a team to replace the existing team....
     
  19. Offline

    Cogito

    For what it's worth, I thought I would add my two bobs.

    Competition is of course fine, in that more is variety is generally better - one of the founding ideals of bukkit was to make almost all features plugins, so that there was variety and option.

    That being said, some of the assertions made in this thread seem to be based on conjecture rather than investigation. Certainly there are features that would enhance mcbans, but some of the claims of what it can't do are incorrect (to the best of my knowledge). I will try and address a few of them, please forgive me if I don't source the information well enough. Hopefully others can elaborate on the fuctionality.

    "there is no way of providing proof"
    Global bans are a 'guilty till proven innocent' situation, and as such the trust has been given to server administrators to global ban responsibly. Any system that provides for some sort of ban sharing relies on those making the bans to be accurate in general, and some measure of recourse if they are found lacking. Mcbans uses an appeal system, and through the appeal system there is more then enough avenue for providing evidence.​
    There is room for mcbans to improve by providing easier methods for recording proof at the time of the ban (though I know this was previously being discussed). Having 'proof' publicly visible is an interesting idea, however it has the potential for abuse as well. Would be interesting to see this implemented.​
    [edit for clarity/additions]
    The way that bans are put in place are a guilty until you complain. Once you complain, the banner has 7 days to answer with sufficient proof otherwise the ban is droped. Most people who have griefed won't complain, and so bans are more efficiently dealt with.​
    Imagine the other option in a global system like this, where every ban must be verified before it is added. This could work but would likely increase the load of staff significantly.​
    The other option would be to use either social or community moderation, and these are discussed a bit already in other sections. In social you subscribe to trusted admins, in community everyone votes on bans. Whether these would work well is another question.​

    "subscribe to certain server owners/share bans"
    This is already possible. A group of servers are able to share local bans between themselves, by creating and joining a 'Server Group'. Any player that is locally banned on one server in the group can be banned from all the others in that group as well. Global bans are an extension of this concept. You can think of global bans as being shared with a global group, of which every server is a part. There are obvious limitations in this set up, however more development and feedback would be able to extend these features.​

    "a thresold feature"
    The threshold feature again already exists. By default, the threshold is 0 reputation. A server admin is able to specify a higher threshold, thus making it harder for previously banned people to enter. I am not aware of any shared bans threshold (as in, only ban from me if there are enough bans from my Server Group), however this feature could be incorporated into the system.​

    "Then we could get some kind of an API going for plugin developers."

    "Global bans should be issued based on multiple server owners, not just one."
    This is how it works currently. In general, being banned once does not restrict you from joining other servers. Being banned simply lowers your reputation by some amount. Get a low enough rep, and people block you from their servers. It is possible for some players to be 'perma-banned' in one stroke, if for example they actively target and grief mcbans servers. The exact rules for that I am not aware of, though some description can be found on the website mcbans.com​
    This is done to protect mcbans servers from known troublemakers. Perhaps this would be better as an opt in system for server admins, however at the moment it is opt-out (in so much that you can whitelist certain players so that they always are allowed on your server).​

    "I find this a horrible idea, way to much power for one server admin. People are getting global banned for spamming, I mean, WTF. That's reason for a temporary local ban, not global."
    The mcbans staff agree with you, and in cases like this the offending server admins tend to lose rep. As stated before, some trust needs to be given to those making the bans. Apart from decentralising the entire process, I think a reputation based system works well.​

    "if a 'tagged' player joins your server the admins/mods get a message that the player was banned on an other server."
    I believe that this is a feature request in mcbans. Remember, however, that most people who have only one or two bans will be allowed into your server if your threshold is low enough. If someone joins your server who has bans against them, a notification will be sent to admins informing them.​
    It is possible this feature has already been added.​

    "I personally dislike MCBans because they intervene too much, it's much easier when you control everything and nobody can take away your correct bans, they have multiple times unbanned people that actually griefed."
    Mcbans will never override your local bans. If a global ban hasn't been proved, you can't expect them not to revoke it (globally that is). Ensuring that this process works correctly is an important one, however you can't claim it doesn't exist.​

    "plug-in doesn't have a ban duration setting"
    Temporary, local bans have a duration period in mcbans. If a ban should only be temporary then it should not be global.​

    "Unjustified ban? -point. Caught a real abuser or troll? +point. Just like the like or dislike systems"
    Reputation is very similar to this. In fact, the only thing which it is missing is the openness of allowing anyone to vote on it. Perhaps having it open would be a good thing, perhaps it would be abused.​



    That is probably enough from me, I hope that it clears the air a little about what is and isn't possible with mcbans. Please correct me or add things that I have missed.
     
  20. Offline

    Crashdoom


    The main thing I have wrong with that is the "guilty 'till proven innocent", I frankly find this to be counter-effective to the actual goal of the system, we want to ban the people causing problems, but not effect those who make a positive impact on the community. I, personally, find the ideal of "innocent 'till proven guilty" to be applicable and an asset for anyone applying to be on the MCBans dispute team, as our goal is not to penalize the users of the MC community, but to better their experience by removing those who wish to trouble them and the server owners.
    We try to give time for the servers to work things out with users, this is the appeal stage, where users can talk things out with the server owner/dispute team and reach a conclusion over an issue, or escalate it to the MCBans staff via a dispute, where the resolution is done via evidence, or equally, the lack of it.
    Using the proof being publicly visible may be useful actually, however, just since I've seen it before, it may be wise to automatically watermark any images we make public regarding evidence in order to prevent it being re-used by other server admins trying to get away with revenge bans.
     
  21. Offline

    Sh8kezula

    Obviously the words "take over" was the wrong choice. If the conversation has been followed you will see that "take over" did not mean remove and replace.

    After all this competition started poping up, you guys have apperantly jumped back into action... This is all the community wanted...

    Up untill any of this strated happening. MCbans website had little to no information on it.. It was all jumbled and confusing, and there was little to no support for members. It was not until ppl threatened you guys with competition that things finally started moving on your site.

    So enjoy the competition... It might lead to some better products. I know you only want the best for MCbans, and I think that competing plugins will do just that.
     
  22. Offline

    jeffadkins51

    Bottom line - This is a WIP plugin. It is NOT going to be stopped, we have gotten are website up, I am beginning to get everything hooked up, and basically this plugin is not a continuation of MCBans. It's basically a better banning plugin imo. And for the rest of the team working on CommunityBans. To Actually fix some mistakes(imo) that MCBans has made, while developing there plugin/site whatever it may be. Anyways, this project is started, it is being developed on a CommunityBans should be seen around soon enough.
     
  23. Offline

    Cogito

    As stated, please go ahead and build your competitor. I am not actively involved in mcbans at all at the moment. I spoke up purely because I believed there was misinformation about the plugin begin handed around.
     
  24. Offline

    chaseoes

    Not to sound like a dick, but some of us see obvious flaws in MCBans, and arguing over them is pointless.

    CommunityBans is already in development - and it's not that bad to have another plugin/service that offers something similar to another plugin/service. I doubt we're going to stop it's development anytime soon, and it's not hurting you to have some competition.

    Either way, the development of it is going to continue, and it's not going to stop based on a little argument. LB and BB do the same thing, yet some people prefer one over the other. We're just providing another option or choice as to what people want to use to handle their bans.
     
  25. Offline

    Firestar

    I never once said to stop development, by all means, go develop it.

    All the responses were clearing up what you call "flaws". and responding to the OP's post. Which has nothing to do with community bans.
     
  26. Offline

    Supersam654

    Now that all of us are roughly on the same page, perhaps it would be a good idea to change the title of the thread, and if you can't, I would highly recommend you get a Mod/Admin to do it seeing as the title is no longer fitting for what we are doing.
     
  27. Offline

    Sh8kezula

    I edited the first post to clear up my poor choice of words for the posting title.
     
  28. Offline

    Supersam654

    @Sh8kezula thanks for clearing that up. And if anyone has any questions/concerns/comments regarding the soon-to-be-released CommunityBans plugin, ask away.
     
  29. Offline

    TheLimaBeanman

    I have to agree with this. When you use the ban hammer, always the 'firestar' guy watches and interupts the ban the server is doing. For example, when you ban a person reason saying like because he's being a jerk, we can't even ban that person because it is 'not a good reason'. Also I think other servers bans doesn't really matter to your server because
    that person might be different on your server. Well so I do think MCBans is fir weak server administration.
     
  30. Offline

    Firestar

    Global bans are reversed, we have no say in your local bans, please read above.
     
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