[Banned]

Thanks to everyone for their replies

Originally Posted by VenoX

I dont mean to ask a probably stupid question since u obviously cut bits of logs etc as not to spam but did u actually explain ur idea for #munin fully to a cservice member and ask politely for an exception? Seems to me the whole alliance nick crap was a complete waste of ur time and everyone else involved since it had nothing to do with what u actually wanted anyway.. and seems like no one actually understood what u infact did want, either that or they are all retarded.

I'm afraid I didn't make it entirely explicit to CService myself. I stated that I needed an alliance related channel. I did explain the situation to the #support staffers and presumably they comminucated this to CService when they were discussing this.

Originally Posted by GReaper

Given the need for quite a lot of channels per alliance which sometimes need to be changed every round or so, why is this game stuck with an IRC network which is so inflexible? Every channel is a pain to register as it requires 2 supporters which are impossible to remove and someone from CSC to authorise it. Add in the 3 channels maximum restriction and you're screwed.

There are plenty of ways to get this done. The alliance nick thing will let you register as many per-round channels as you want, with the owner nick hidden. Similarly, every alliance can create as many #alliancename.whatever channels as they need. My problem was that I needed #munin and not #ascendancy.munin.

Originally Posted by Jeekay

There really aren't that many people in the 'people who make NG decisions' group and I'm pretty sure I'm one of them. Given that, it often surprises me how ready people are to complain on public forums about the incredibly bad treatment bad rules bad this bad that, and yet not a single one of them has ever approached us in a constructive fashion to discuss a way forward.

Rules are made by humans; they are not created by God. If rules aren't working, they can be changed. Complaining about them without even attempting to approach a way forward is not helpful for anyone. This is a good life lesson.

Having said the above, I can understand Jester's frustration. I wish he'd bounced things off me first but hey can't win 'em all.

As regards the channel limits, they like so many things are there for a reason. This does not mean that they can't change or that the resource usage cannot be reevaluated, merely that when those rules were made there were good reasons for them. Whether those reasons are still extant is certainly a discussion that can be started.

In terms of registration limits / supporter requirements, these were essentially introduced to keep P's resource requirements down. The structure behind this could certainly be looked at, as could other possible solutions such as a chanfix-style facility.

I complained publicly because I believe in transparency. Almost all the people I spoke to yesterday were very reasonable and understanding. Getting people understand my plight wasn't the problem. There are two reasons I didn't contact you or any CService authority. One was that I really have no idea what the structure of 'people make NG decisions' is. I just know that any CService person I talk to talks like they're the dog's bullocks (understandable, really). The other reason is that I don't really believe that this is a CService problem.

I certainly understand the need to keep P's resource requirements down. What I don't understand is that alliances have a framework within which they can register dozens of pointless channels for a round at a time, or enforce their own draconian channel hierarchies, but for an alliance that uses 2 channels, it's impossible to get a third because the relevant party has it the limit.

All any of this really requires is for people to approach us with an open mind and some constructive criticism.

If you don't mind, we can continue this discussion here. Like I said, I'm a fan of transparency.

Originally Posted by Jonneh

Hi all, and hello Jester.

Having read the above, we appreciate your feedback regarding our channel policy. I'm here to provide support and explain some of background behind our rules and agreements which, hopefully, will lead us towards a better understanding.

Fantastic, I like understanding things

Firstly, a minor point, #cservice has never enforced a no-idling policy. I suppose you could say the reason for this is that we often recruit new members from the more helpful #cservice idlers who actually do help people. It does actually state in the #cservice topic that there is a command you can use to recognise staff members. Any Official cservice member/person/admin/helper or alike will have this 'verify' (/msg P verify nick || <P> [email protected] is a CSC Supervisor and an IRC operator and logged in as Jedi).

Yeah. Webvictim pointed this out to me last night and I've amended the post above to reflect this. If you think I should clarify it further I can. I just misunderstood 'no idle chat' in the topic to mean 'no idling'.

The channel limit has been in place since way back before netgamers was officially formed. Its enforced for a number of reasons, not least of which that we have to have some kind of limit for 'personal' channels.. simply because it makes it slightly easier from an administrative side of things. Say for example you had 8 channels, and your nick was to go idle.. you quit PA/IRC etc. When your 30 days comes up and we come to delete your nick, we now have 8 channels to lock and flag as idle so that any users still in those channels will have the opportunity to reclaim it and prevent its deletion - as you did before. The administrative overhead for cservice tasks like this is already quite high for an internet/IRC system, so limiting a person to 3 channels makes sense from our point of view.

The more general reason for limiting channels is the fact that it prevents hording. Obviously if someone can only own 3 channels, and they want a 4th.. they either have to have someone else register it for them, or they have to remove an old/inactive channel to clear space to own it themselves. Most people go for these options, which is why you were offered the chance to have a channel deleted. You find that most people on the network own a channel which is inactive, and they are more than happy to part with it in order to secure the new active channel which they wish to run. This places the old channels back into the available pool of names which new users can use, and keeps the cycle going.

It makes a lot more sense when you put it that way. Perhaps you should write this down somewhere people in #cservice can copy/paste it to people like me.

Alliance nicks, alliance channels and so forth are a different matter. The system was brought in because we evaluated the needs of PA alliances - specifically the facts that they a) needed to own a lot of channels and b) it would be nice to skip the supporter/application side of registering a channel and just be able to request one directly. It is a good system which has worked well since we brought it in.

The requirements for an alliance nick and channel were defined between us and the PA team. They handle the 'planetarion' side of it, i.e: verifying that you are in fact an in-game alliance, and that you (the person requesting an alliance nick) are listed as a HC inside PA. Cservice have no access to do this, which is why the PAteam get involved at that stage. Once a request is made and sanctioned by them, they simply send us an automated form which requests the channels to be registered/moved to the new alliance nick.

The requirements for channel names are there for simple reasons really. An alliance channel should identify itself in its name. It makes it easier for users, PA reps and cservice because it eliminates any confusion right off the bat. The #alliance.xxx naming convention simplifies the administrative side of things as well, because it protects your alliance standing by preventing others from owning channels which could be used to confuse or trick people into believing they are in an alliance channel, when in fact they are in a channel which has been created as a hoax. It’s neat and tidy, and it allows us to keep track of the channel an alliance owns very simply - which keeps the administrative overhead down when we need to do some work for you.

I agree it's neat and tidy. The problem I have isn't really with CService. I think you guys held up your side of everything pretty ok. However, I'm put at a disadvantage when the PA reps tell me that I can't even rename my alliance for the benefit of registering this channel (yes, we offered to do that). Apparently they have some magic crystal ball which tells them whether or not a rename is real or not. Likewise I couldn't start a new alliance and expect to get treated like an alliance either.

Official channel status is requested and applied through our Partner system, of which PA is a member. The reason your request was flatly turned down simply stems from the fact that such a request would have to come from the Partner representatives of PA. The reasons for this are obvious - official channels have many benefits which we give to our partner games in order help them maintain their game and its presence on NG. Great care and deliberation is taken before accepting a new game as a Partner, and the benefits that Partner status offers you are not available to anyone else.

Oh yeah, I totally got that. Like I explained to Speh, I was just asking hypothetically, not to weasel a way to get an extra channel. I was actually interested in knowing what it entailed and stuff. He answered my questions adequately once he got over telling me that I shouldn't be doing it to get around the limit

Incidentally, PAteam offered to vet the channel for official status donkey's years ago. I turned them down.

If you'd like to speak to myself (Jedi) and/or Jeekay and make your case, we'd be more than happy to listen to what you have to say and see what can be done to accommodate you.

I hope this has been helpful.

Very much so, thank you for your time.

I feel I need to restate this: my problem is not how CService treated me or how you maintain your policies. I find them reasonable and understand why they are in place. My problem is how the PA representatives conduct themselves with respect to the system and what their criteria for acceptance are. The only thing I think CService need to be able to do is be able to make exceptions for the 3 channel limit. I know it's possible (if not desirable!), because I used to have 4 channels. Oh, and perhaps your people could be taught to explain the resource limitations line instead of just saying 'the line has to be drawn somewhere'.