Obviously Staff aren't and shouldn't purposely go through archives, ban offenders for mass messages you sent days ago. If they do, well then they have problems with their Staff and need to work that out amongst themselves.

If they do release Mass Message Logging, it should be enabled by request of Server Management for local staff, and accessible to Global Staff regardless of it being enabled on the server or not.

As for PMs, a method to determine the validity of a PM would be a great alternative to complete text logging.

Stolen passwords are usually taken care of regardless. If I've stolen a password, I'm going to send it to someone over MSN if I don't want to be caught. If I want to boast that I've stolen the password (like many people do) then it's going to be obvious that it's from me anyway, private messages or not.

This can be done through the word filter.

Absolutely no 'real game' does this, they just provide a means of educating and warning their playerbase of such dangers which Graal does not.

...
There's an ignore feature for that.

Sounds a bit Orwellian to me lol.

I agree, as PM's to a smaller count of people can be quite private.

As someone who actually moderates the game, I would have to say that harassment is an issue, whether it is or not for you is not the problem being presented. Perhaps some of the harassment is brought onto themselves but that doesn't we should turn a blind eye to the situation.

They would be called private messages because it's a way to privately message someone on the game and is not publicly seen, like mass messages. That does not mean they should be completely private from the administrators who run the game, and should not be taken so literally.

Exactly. We are not trying to moderate what you talk about in your life, just keep the trash off of Graal. People can chat on Graal no problem while still being moderated, providing that they are not talking about illegal things. I fail to see the problem.

It is a lot harder to go around asking everyone for their MSN than it is to just mass message it or PM it to people, because a lot of people are reluctant to disclose their MSN to other people upon informal request. Maybe it would be obvious to you, since you're the one boasting, but to us actually doing the job, it's not always so obvious, and obviousness is not proof, we need solid evidence.

Not exactly, everyone can still just say "go to ww\w.we\b\site\.com just remove the \!" How do you propose such things are handled? Magical word filtering that automatically understands what the person is conveying? No, it requires human intelligence. A word filter can only help, but is not entirely sufficient.

Every single game I have played, which includes several high-end MMOs are able to sift through your private messages in order to see security-related problems.


Obviously there are special cases, and the ignore feature is not always completely sufficient. Some people have several accounts, and some people illegally change their PCIDs to log into new guest accounts and continue harassment after being ignored. Every single harassment case isn't just "black and white," there are always new and special ways people are finding to harass other people.

As someone that actually plays the game and actually sees what goes on, as opposed to just reading tickets of those that are brazen enough to complain after local staff refuse to deal with them, I say you're blowing things way out of proportion. Harassment isn't a major problem, hell, just log on a server and ask one of their GPs?

So unless someone is suspected of doing anything illegal, the chat logs shouldn't be applied to everyone but rather suspected individuals only. And no, I'm pretty sure it's not acceptable to deem every Graal user as a suspect.

Players don't like it when everything they say is being logged, watched, or both. Then again as a moderator I wouldn't expect you to understand.

And p.s, sup

I dont feel like quoting everything, but I completely agree with what Tig has said in this thread.

Yea because it aligns with your totalitarian ideology. You don't even play anymore, I think you're a bit out of touch with the game and its players.

Also Tig, it wasn't so long ago you were promoting free speech and language and condemning unnecessary censorship but since you became PWA or whatever you've gone and abandoned all your principles to impress the higher-ups, gtfo.

What you and Crono seem to be misunderstanding is that censorship and logging messages are two different things. I am not asking for messages to be censored, I am asking for it to be logged for security-related issues.

I believe mass messages should be logged because they are in no way "private", but PMs should not be logged at all.

I can use AIM to talk privately with someone from Graal, but how will I give them my screen name without it ending up on a Graal server somewhere? Total invasion of privacy.

I know that the foul language and harassment has gotten worse over the years, and know from experience how hard it is to prove and how easy it is to fake. I still play enough (not a lot currently because of a slow computer) to see these things happening a lot, and have seen horrid masses.
It's about time someone wants to do something about it.
Harrassment IS a big problem on Graal.

That's not exactly what it necessarily means, it says GraalOnline can use tools to monitor the chat, meaning that it's already logged, and we, the GraalOnline staff, can use that tool to monitor what was said. Try to remember that monitor has a past-tense meaning as well.

Absolutely not.
This is a silly reason, I can't see this being used hardly at all. Why not just change the password? I wouldn't be so much opposed if you could search through PMs and see a list of accounts who have said the phrase, as long as you can't see full-text messages. Obviously, the full text would have to be stored somewhere, but it should only be accessible Stefan.

Mass message logging is great.
It's not worth the loss of privacy.

I agree with others, if they are really being harassed, I think it'd be possible for us to tell in at least some way. They can always use the ignore list, and if that fails, they can send in screenshots of PMs, etc. I wouldn't be opposed to a log saying when PMs where sent (and who the recipient was) so you could see if the players are actually talking. Also, as someone else said, a way to validate PMs would be great (e.g. some kind of hash).

It's just not worth the loss of privacy, and I know there would be cases of PWAs and other globals "snooping" on others.

That's not what I said at all. If a player PMs us saying someone else has been massing about them, and we've received no masses, how are we supposed to check it?

So, you're essentially saying that if someone gets shot in the street, why not just put the person in the hospital and forget about the shooter?

I have yet to see a good reason why, you have plenty of privacy in e-mails, AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc. You could easily say "well, let's take it into AIM" before the conversation becomes too personal.

I thought you of anyone would know how easily screenshots can be altered, but just in case you didn't, let me demonstrate.

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/883...ngclean.th.png

Keep in mind, now, that I have no photoshop on this computer and just using Microsoft Paint right now.

Well, for one, globals shouldn't be doing that, and I doubt they would without a reason, we all do have lives and don't spend our time sitting around thinking of how we can invade your privacy. In the event that something like that did occur, you should have taken private matters into MSN/AIM to begin with. I definitely agree, it would be scary to give many people access to such content (PMs) but I also think it's necessary to give someone access to such things.

I laughed so hard at the altered image, Tig!

How is monitoring what players PM any better than censorship? If security was that big of a problem (only a problem once every year or two when either a hacker group releases some trainer that idiots download and use or register to some dodgy forum) then keywords would trigger the log to be saved. If I was trying to screw Graal over I sure as hell wouldn't do it over Graal PM's to begin with, I'd use e-mail, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc.

Yes that is exactly what it means. It says that players can be monitored, sure, but it goes into detail and makes it pretty clear that it's only in the case where a player is suspected of doing something illegal or abusive.

I wouldn't mind if Graal was a professional game but it's not. I dont want the possibility of local staff to go through my private logs, I by no means trust them a single bit. Even if the tool was restricted to globals I would still no longer trust PM's anymore (as I do now) and be very uncomfortable pming private information to my friends. There is only one global I can absolutely trust which says a lot. If I'm not doing anything wrong I don't want to be logged and monitored, it's as simple as that.

For over 10 years Graal has been a game where you could privately send friends messages, where you don't feel like you're being watched around every corner. There was no censorship unless it was bad harassing, but then a GP usually stepped in if it was serious. The beauty of Graal is that you don't need to use a seperate client to message your friends, you have PM's, guild messages, mass messages, etc. Sure people used AIM and such but that was mostly for sending files and contacting them when they weren't online. If such a log system were to be implemented you'd simply be killing yet another aspect of Graal which I guess would be quite handy for cyberjoueurs as they've been on a killing spree lately!

I have already discussed this with Stefan, he does not approve of the logging of personal messages unless there is a specific reason. In those cases its been to confirm whether someone is participating in an illegal activity or is a threat to Graal security. Its rare and targeted. Staff pm's are also logged on occasion while on tag to determine if they are abusing chat commands. This is something they are usually fully aware of though.

I'm fairly certain that on the larger games where history is recorded the staff that can access it have to sign a confidentiality agreement. I believe some of the former global staff also had to sign an agreement. To my knowledge that hasn't been done since Ibonic though. IF such loggings were to ever be put in place again, I would hope that is something that would be required for anyone having access to the information.

Quite often people exchange more personal information such as addresses or phone numbers through private message and I would prefer that not be something given freely to the public by someone that couldn't be held accountable for their actions.

In the end, I am only stating my opinion, and my opinion for wanting to add logging is just as valid as Crono's opinion opposing it, just two entirely different points of view. Either way, our opinions are seldom heard completely by the people we would like to have listening anyways.

I agree with this post wholeheartedly. I definitely think anyone who had access to such things should have to sign a legal agreement not to disclose any sort of that kind of data. I would just like people to understand that the reason I support such actions is not to pry on their private lives, but rather to make our jobs easier and better protect the community.

then you should of reworded your post because you specifically said "and player's don't report them" which made it seem like you would just look through the logs even if nobody reported anything.

Is anyone getting shot? You're blowing it way out of proportion.
Because PMs are private, and always have been. I'm glad to hear that Stefan wants to keep it this way as well, because I would hate to have to stop using PMs. You're only looking at this from the view of a staff member, but the people who matter are the players. Logging PMs provides minimal benefit to players.
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/9564/tiggy.png

I agree.

It was worded fine. You drew assumptions.

I agree with globals having access to logs in game. Definitely NOT server staff, though.

It would just be a disaster! This is what would happen:

Staff make fun of people over RC based on logs -> Staff that leak RC to their friends leak RC to their friends -> Their friends harass the player.

UN GPs would like to have a word with you. I can think of at least ten occasions within the past year where I've seen someone get jailed over fake screenshots used as sole evidence against the player, even one of these cases happened a few days ago.

Which logs? Masses? Yeah, we could send the masses that everyone already received to others.

That's UN's problem, not other servers. Obviously if they have leak issues then they need to fire their moles.

But this is about accessing the logs of mass messages, which are sent to everyone and would definitely come in handy when prosecuting for people who are repeat offenders of spamming, harassment, flaming, and so on.

Whole thing's a bit tricky though. What if you just send a mass message to your buddy list? It would be considered one, but should it be logged? If not, how to decide if the messages are logged when a certain amount of people are left out of the mass message?

I don't think it's a big problem, because as far as I know, no one sends masses like that (please correct me if I'm wrong).

You could also use some arbitrary number or percent (e.g. 50percent of the server must receive it), but there's probably a better way.

If it's sent as a mass message, log it. If server's have problems with people snooping through these logs for no reason, deny access and/or fire them.

Low ranked staff (GP, PRs) don't need these logs readily available to them at all times, use the Admin of their section as the mediator by either giving them the section of the log they need or access to the file.

If the server can't trust their Admins (GP Admin, PR Admin) to use these logs appropriately, then they definitely have a problem.

I don't think Zodiac or any other server is immune to the RC leaking issue, though...?

I send masses to a few people sometimes (such as my buddy list)

e: but I wouldn't mind if those were logged. If I wanted to send private messages to my buddies, I would send them all private messages ;)

We haven't had any problems with it lately, and we don't exactly have everything out in the open for prying eyes either.

regarding the discussion of logging private messages, I want to bring up another question. do you think it's right to log player chat? I know Era has a system where they can log what you say on player. should it be allowed? player chat isn't always public. sometimes you could be in a level alone with a friend and decide to talk in-game instead of through PM.

I don't think logging chat should be allowed, or at least not a "blanket" one that records everything a player says. I wouldn't be so opposed to one that looks for certain keywords, though.

I tried to get the entire chat logger removed during Deo's management, and again during Sales', but to no avail.

Why try, just do it :p

We only log chat of staff and certain players who are either under investigation or have a history of being naughty. It has been quite useful.

It's not my decision to make, it's his --v

Some people respect the chain of command, as they should.

Guess who usually doesn't :D

Logging level chat is quite common. Its easily visible for any GP sitting in a viewing level and considered to be no different than mass messaging. Prior to gmaps the GP's would just sit in the black and watch but that really isn't an option anymore for mapped levels. I'm quite sure you've done it yourself Frankie :p

Staff should be allowed to log a player's chat when:

- when a player is on staff level (this includes events, jails, quests, etc.)

- when a player is on a gmap

- when a player has made a non-toguild (or server equivalent) message to more than 1 other person

If a staff member is logging chat at any times other than one of those listed above, the practice should be discontinued immediately (I personally would reprimand or terminate somebody for this). I don't see too many exceptions to this being the rule, and, any exceptions to the rule should be available only to PWA or server staff whom possess the rights necessary to hire and fire (for liability purposes).

Even if the stuff is logged, most people assume its already logged, because at one time era did log PM's if I remember correctly. If a person doesn't want to get in trouble for something bad all they are going to do is talk over vent, or instant messangers

what makes player chat on a gmap any different than an inside level?

Era never logged PM chat before because I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do so.