Okay, since you apparently missed the main question in my previous post, excuse my satire.

More simply (even with bolding!):
If the server is not advertised (either via. recommendations or just Tig's idea of not doing it at all), that means less people will see it than previously, when anyone with the client could learn.

I'm asking:

• Is it okay to lose those people?
• Will the people who want to learn always take the initiative to go find that server, or with your method, go find someone to talk to?
• Is this centralized system of learning we have sufficient compared to the decentralized one we had before?

These are the questions we should be asking, not how we should handle stripping out false positives.

I would like to see you guys often go through 800+ wnpcs and 200+ classes looking for code that breaks the rules. Also going through all the localnpc/localitem textfiles in npcs/ to delete npcs taking/clogging up memory/cpu. Sometime ago I had to delete over 100-1000 staff blocks on almost a daily basis (It's much better now though).

So I understand why Tig don't want to advertise it. More people that want to use the testbed as a playground instead of a learning experience for their abusive scripts/era guns, requires more resources on cleaning up etc, which could of been used somewhere else.

If you had to delete abusive scripts on a daily basis for any extended period that really indicates a lack of management, unless of course you're granting access to dozens of people per day (which I'm sure is not the case).

Secondly, people can't proclaim how much they're trying to 'help the community by making the testbed server available' and then out the other side of their mouth saying 'oh but I don't make people aware of it because it's too much of a task to follow through'. It's one or the other. Have proper moderation of the server or simply shut it down until it's possible to do so.

Indicates a lack of management? There are around 300 different account names with RC access on Testbed and we can't be online at all time. The reason was players made staff tools like staff blocks, gave it to dosens of people, where they went crazy placing blocks all around. There's also many people adding 10+ guns themselves using ganises/images from Era on there, then they give out the script to everyone since everyone wants to play around with Era guns.. (most have been deleted though). The whole 'staff block case' is better now though..

Well, finding people willing and skilled enough to moderate on Testbed is an other case.

Glad to hear that it's better now, and I'm sure that was annoying previously. That doesn't really change the fact that ridiculousness like that should've been expected and prepared for from the get-go (sadly it's something that needs pre-prep). I at least hope you guys were quick to remove access from people who upload stolen and/or worthless things.

No argument there, but the lack thereof still points to a lack of preparedness going back to the inception of the testbed server. I suppose as long as the unwanted are/were weeded out things should be more positive in the the long run. Perhaps you'll be lucky and will end up not needing a larger amount of moderation in the future and this can eventually be a non-issue.

How can you really prevent people from adding abusing scripts when the whole purpose of the server is to be able to script what you want?

You can't prevent it as a whole but you can in fact set, monitor, and moderate a collective group of rules. Those who violate said rules by adding things that are otherwise needless should have their access removed. Just because people have the ability to add needless crap doesn't mean that they should do so. Inferring otherwise is shortsighted at best and doesn't serve the greater community interest.

And there are rules... but do you know what sort of moderation effort it takes to maintain such a huge database of scripts and scripters? Managers can hardly manage servers with a very small staff in comparison, with much more limited rights, yet alone a whole server dedicated to giving just about every person nearly unlimited rights...

This post of yours pretty much exemplifies why although well-intentioned, the testbed server probably shouldn't exist as it currently exists. It's like anything else: If you can't take care of it properly, why create it?

Many server managers just opt on a personal level not to manage properly, in many cases even with ample assistance to do so. That's a personal problem and is not justification for not properly moderating testbed (see the misinformed argument: "Everyone else does it this way so we'll just call it a standard even if it's wrong.")

And I really don't see where your theory of unlimited rights comes from. More folder rights than a person would normally get -- yes, without a doubt. Unlimited rights (whereby classifying everyone as an administrator) -- certainly not. If this is how it is currently being done on testbed, then again, that amounts to being managerial inadequacy (no offense intended of course).

Scripting can yield pretty much more rights than most of the rights RC does. Hell, a single person with a level can use scripts to do a lot more than a person with RC can. So while they might not have rights on RC, they certainly have the power to do more than the average GP has the power to do. Everyone also get personal folders for just about every thing(levels, heads, graphics and so on).

And Testbed, from my knowledge is being managed fine. Yes, people abuse it. Yes, people waste space with silly staff scripts. But all of that stuff is moderated as soon as possible. Immediately? No. But what server can do such a thing? Testbed hasn't blown up and it was a huge benefit to me, and I'm sure many scripters.

I don't understand where you get the idea that testbed isn't being taken care of properly, especially if you have never used it? If anything goes wrong, Tig has always been just an IM away(or on GK) and he usually gets on immediately. I haven't used it in a while though, so I'm not sure how many people were put in charge of moderating, however.

Perhaps I need to clarify: Testbed only is not being taken care of properly if the moderation time is unacceptable. There are only so many players on Graal, let alone players who want to learn to develop. As I've said before, so long as the bad eggs are weeded out the need for stringent moderation should decrease, making the job of those who do moderate Testbed easier (and not such a surmounting task as you made it out to be in an earlier post).

On a side note, one does not need to use Testbed to understand what amounts to being commonsense. I've managed, administrated, or consulted for close to half the classic servers at one point or another and I've been around since 2000, so lets not pretend that I'm looking at things from the perspective of some fly-by-nighter.

Hope that helps some. :)

I don't really see how shutting it down is any more productive than leaving it around "without proper moderation." At least while it's here, "without proper moderation," people still have a chance to learn from it.

I do agree with the other people though, stating that there should be more instructors. I can add Mallard when I am able to access RC again, and also maybe a few others, but it's difficult choosing because most are not very active or they just idle.

I just meant that it should be shut down if it was in fact going nowhere, or nobody with administrative rights is able to log on and perform necessary duties (since it would in essence defeat the purpose of having the server at that point).

And yeah, way too many inactives/idlers.

i'm always on, i can be reachable with a pm.
okey, maybe not always always but i can be reached with a pm or massive spam as i often keep my rc windows open.. ( using laptop for rc and PC for client to keep the lag down. )

Is this where we discuss Testbed things? I don't like the current OSL; can you please change it to something else?