PA giving "official" tools private dumps.

[Sakera]

There have been small discussions going on about the fact that Mit's "official" tools are given a private dump containing GC/Minister positions and Galaxy picture url's, and possibly more.

What is the reason for PA-crew is doing this? Trying to make a competition to make the tools generally better? Why do they have to give these tools extra data to give them an advantage over other tools available?

I can only see bad sides for PA HQ by doing it this way. First of all they claim to try and build up the community in the best possible way, this does exactly the opposite, they actually try to force other community made sites into nothingless by giving the "offical" tools an advantage. Secondly by not giving out this dump we will be forced to draw this data directly out of the "offical" tools witch isnt only possible, but also will create a quite big extra load on their servers.

Up til today i haven't seen any valid points from PA HQ on why they have decided to do it this way. Best so far is donated to you by our hero kloopy:

<@Kloopy> Because the official toolkit is official, and therefore it has extra privelages.

To put this a little bit on the edge:

<Journalist> please explain to the world why you want to go to war against iraq?
<Bush> because!

Well, that was a bit off the point but it still is the same sort of answer as mr. kloopy gave us

Well, what do people generally think? From our view this is a small part of destroying a community, and not a smart move from PA HQ. I have tried taking this discussion directly with PA-crew for a while, but my email to spinner remain un-answered and my irc talks haven't brought me any closer to understanding this.

Kaos
Sakera

www.pilkara.com

[Illogical]

he does have a point



(hi sakera)

[genosse27]

/me agrees

[xtothez]

We've had people who have spent rounds making these tools on their own time in order to benefit the community. Now PA Crew is basically saying to them "We can get someone to do that too, you aren't needed anymore. ta ta". What better way to thank them than to give Mister Creators Friend extra access and render the original product dated?

I'm starting to consider the theory that crucifixes and holy water have the same effect on vampires that the words 'customer relations' has on PA staff.

[SpazMonster]

I really don't see the problem with this.. Everyone still has access to the important information (ie the numbers) so that still spurs competition as far as features and whatnot. If something is 'official' it should, by definition have better communication with HQ or better info from HQ. Kinda like having a preferred client.. You don't give the prices you give to your preferred client to everyone you do business with, you do it because you have a special relationship with them.

I think this official pa tools thing is about taking back some responsibility. This is the sort of thing that should have always been handled by the (trusted) PA Team (or the creators prior to the creation of PA Team). It's not good business to have links on your servers (forums or not) pointed to external sites that could possibly not have the best interests for your company in mind.

Besides, if you had to pick going to an alliance sponsored site, or an official PA (non-biased, no usage stats being sent to HCs of certain alliances, ++paranoia ****) which are you going to choose?

[Paine]

Very good point




Paine

[Sakera]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
I really don't see the problem with this.. Everyone still has access to the important information (ie the numbers) so that still spurs competition as far as features and whatnot. If something is 'official' it should, by definition have better communication with HQ or better info from HQ. Kinda like having a preferred client.. You don't give the prices you give to your preferred client to everyone you do business with, you do it because you have a special relationship with them.

Who is PA-HQ to decide who is the prefered client? It would like PA- HQ favourising one alliance over another.....

[Cochese]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
Besides, if you had to pick going to an alliance sponsored site, or an official PA (non-biased, no usage stats being sent to HCs of certain alliances, ++paranoia ****) which are you going to choose?

I'll still choose Pilkara, thank you very much. Not only is it better quality than the 'offical' PA site, who says we trust PA Team more than alliance people, and why on earth should we?

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by xtothez
We've had people who have spent rounds making these tools on their own time in order to benefit the community. Now PA Crew is basically saying to them "We can get someone to do that too, you aren't needed anymore. ta ta". What better way to thank them than to give Mister Creators Friend extra access and render the original product dated?

I'm starting to consider the theory that crucifixes and holy water have the same effect on vampires that the words 'customer relations' has on PA staff.

Those people spent their own time freely to develop that. No one forced them to. Granted I think it would have been smarter for them to purchase the rights to the code for these other sites and then make everyone use the 'official' one, but given the financial climate their in atm, what can you really expect?

[Shakky]

I agree father good point

i will always choose pilkara as it is much better than any of the others

Whatever Pa Crew will make it will fold anyway,
nothin they have created have lasted more then a half round or so...

Why is it so..

well when somethin is made by ppl who care then it develops,
when it is developed by someone that just do it because they have to it gets old, non updated and ****ty.


Just take alook on the portal and so on..


Ps.

Planetarion wuld be nothin without the alliances,
and by doing this its one more reason to no bother to
develop anything, since its NOT appreciated.


Official tools.. baaah

Kiss my big thooe,
GET PA RUNNING BEFORE TRYING TO DO ANY OTHER THING !!!

[Illogical]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
I really don't see the problem with this.. Everyone still has access to the important information (ie the numbers) so that still spurs competition as far as features and whatnot. If something is 'official' it should, by definition have better communication with HQ or better info from HQ. Kinda like having a preferred client.. You don't give the prices you give to your preferred client to everyone you do business with, you do it because you have a special relationship with them.

I think this official pa tools thing is about taking back some responsibility. This is the sort of thing that should have always been handled by the (trusted) PA Team (or the creators prior to the creation of PA Team). It's not good business to have links on your servers (forums or not) pointed to external sites that could possibly not have the best interests for your company in mind.

Besides, if you had to pick going to an alliance sponsored site, or an official PA (non-biased, no usage stats being sent to HCs of certain alliances, ++paranoia ****) which are you going to choose?

thats the problem i trust none of pa-crew cept prince

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by Sakera
Who is PA-HQ to decide who is the prefered client? It would like PA- HQ favourising one alliance over another.....

I was using an analogy. PA Team is part of the organization and as such should have some type of inherrant advantages. They are a business. They are here to make money. By keeping people on their pages, they can control what the users see, limit liability and make sure their users see what they want them to see.

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by Illogical
thats the problem i trust none of pa-crew cept prince

why is everyone focusing on the unimportant side note I just interjected that as a personal aside, not the meat of my argument :-P

The basis in this post is that the same info should be given to all the sites making tools, not only the "official" one.

[kaos]

Ok, i wanna add some general things about Planetarion and the community here:

Planetarion is a game which has a very active an powerful community, which is doing great things (there have been some quite nice things before pilkara and there will be nice things _after_ pilkara). But this community needs support from the ones who create the game. This support was never granted in the way it could (maybe should) have been (thats my view, btw).

Lets remember back to Sandmans: he had Bandwith / Load problems with his host and said he would be glad if he could make his 'Planetarion Wotsit' official and hereby hosted by Planetarion and all the other stuff.
But the Creators didn't manage to get his tools the official ones (perhaps it was sandmans fault too, but thats something I don't know, so I'll continue my point of view). So it would have been the due for the Creators to get this great tool and
source of knowledge on their side (i strongly believe that sandman would have helped them at other stuff like the portal too). But they didn't manage and let sandmans 'die'.

I agree that you can't cover with all things, but then you have to assign tasks to other ppl (namely: the pa crew).
But this was failed badly since a few rounds now (*cough* p2p *cough*). Planetarion had a great Portal in Round 4 (pnn, etc was really cool ) and look at the Portal now.
I wonder if anyone reads the columns or browses anything else then news on the site which source is first the portal itself (i don't wanna comment the design) which is just not what it used to be once
and the community itself (its a difference between ~ 80k players and ~ 6k ...). But why is the Portal so ****ty then ? Creators don't really care about the content anymore ? It's done by Amateurs and not the 'pros' ?
If you look at the official tools from Round 8. They weren't even worth a laugh (Sorry Mit, but thats just it) and this is whats get called official nowadays ? Planetarion, what happened to you ?

I could continue this to even more stuff, but i wanna come to my point now:
The Creators need to concentrage on the community more or assign the tasks to ppl who _can_ manage this, and do it the right way and not the 'lala' way. And if you provide the community the advanced (/private) dump, then there will be better results then official things could ever create, because there is competition then and ppl can do high quality stuff out there (The r8 graphics were really cool but 'imcompatible' [lol about that btw ... ])

So pls dear Creators go and care about the community of planetarion YOUR community

Thanks

kaos

[SpazMonster]

Yes I agree. It all comes down to people complaining for 'fairness'. The world isn't fair though. Business decisions are not made with reguard to fairness, they are made with the companies interests in mind.

The people who wrote those other utilities lose out on a few features, so what? They still have the bulk of the important information: Coords, roids and scores.

[Bashar]

Just a few points/facts that I think are relevant:

1. PA crew doesn't actually exist :-)
2. The "Official" toolkit was not created by the creators or any "official" entity. It was created by Mit, and became official after havinf been created (afaik)
3. (Again, afaik) Mit created the toolkit because he wanted to, not becuase he had any obligation to (he enjoys coding, like many other people who create such sites) - and as such, suggesting that it was created because it had to be, and as such has no commitment behind it is rubbish.
4. Also (yet again, afaik) It was made official without considering any others, i.e. it was a one-horse race, and was made official because of who coded it.
5. there is no obligation for the creators to provide any such information - though it is information which goes towards community relations in a way, and expands the game. Without it, the game would be missing something

Those are just a few facts that I (think) I know, I could be mistaken, but I strongly doubt it, as all the evidence I have seen points to these being true. You can draw your own conclusions from this, but hopefully they will be more-imformed opinions.

Also, i have tried to make these points unbiased, I have my views on the matter, but tried my best not to let them in (obviously I know lack of bias to be impossible, but I don't think my bias entered any of these).

/me gets out his spoon

[Sakera]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
I was using an analogy. PA Team is part of the organization and as such should have some type of inherrant advantages. They are a business. They are here to make money. By keeping people on their pages, they can control what the users see, limit liability and make sure their users see what they want them to see.

in this discussion, about the dumps, they can control what users see via the dump. Witch makes your argument invalid.

[kaos]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
Yes I agree. It all comes down to people complaining for 'fairness'. The world isn't fair though. Business decisions are not made with reguard to fairness, they are made with the companies interests in mind.

The people who wrote those other utilities lose out on a few features, so what? They still have the bulk of the important information: Coords, roids and scores.

Actually it is not about the info itself. There are, were and will always be ways to get that info, its just a matter of 'comfort'. i remember back in r3 (?!) when such tools where parsing the ingame galaxy view, because there was no dump, so that is not really the point. It is just not fair that you provide some ppl with info others don't get (NO! this is not about money, its about money, or can you see any advert on the portal ? If the'd provide all ppl with the same info and would put links to all tool sites everyone would be happy.
But the current way is just not the right one imho!)

[Sakera]

Originally posted by Bashar
Just a few points/facts that I think are relevant:

1. PA crew doesn't actually exist :-)
2. The "Official" toolkit was not created by the creators or any "official" entity. It was created by Mit, and became official after havinf been created (afaik)
3. (Again, afaik) Mit created the toolkit because he wanted to, not becuase he had any obligation to (he enjoys coding, like many other people who create such sites) - and as such, suggesting that it was created because it had to be, and as such has no commitment behind it is rubbish.
4. Also (yet again, afaik) It was made official without considering any others, i.e. it was a one-horse race, and was made official because of who coded it.

Those are just a few facts that I (think) I know, I could be mistaken, but I strongly doubt it, as all the evidence I have seen points to these being true. You can draw your own conclusions from this, but hopefully they will be more-imformed opinions.

Also, i have tried to make these points unbiased, I have my views on the matter, but tried my best not to let them in (obviously I know lack of bias to be impossible, but I don't think my bias entered any of these).

1) well everyone knows what we mean by that.

2) witch makes this even more valid, why give the person with the worst tools but the biggest friends an advantage over others. Even before it was anywhere near related with PA he got access to the advanced dump (without acknowledge of the HQ at that time) and used it.

3) see 2

4) see 3

[A2]

I don't see anyone moaning about the fact that PBot has been given "extended" dumps and privleges for a couple of rounds now... Is there really a difference?


There are two reasons to having an official toolkit:

1) anti-spying -- Can anyone really be sure that Virus don't have access to their tools, Elysium don't have access to Pilkara and Fury never had access to Sandmans...
The Official PA Toolkit will be, as the rest of PA, neutral to alliances.

2) Is there a problem with PA having their own set of tools? It's just another alternative. I'm sure that people will carry on using Pilkara and VirusTools throughout R9 - they're well known enough to survive after all


The difference between regular (public) dumps and the extended ones are basically the access to the minister details and the URL to the banners.

Essentially - Life isn't fair - deal with it.

[A2]

Originally posted by Bashar
Just a few points/facts that I think are relevant:
2. The "Official" toolkit was not created by the creators or any "official" entity. It was created by Mit, and became official after havinf been created (afaik)

Incidentally it's been recoded for R9

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by Sakera
in this discussion, about the dumps, they can control what users see via the dump. Witch makes your argument invalid.

not at all because I was referring to the pages the parsed dumps are displayed on. When they host the sites, they can control the content: simple as that. I see a few people are having problems grapsing why this is such a big deal.. so I will try to elaborate on it.

When you get someone to visit your site, it's a big deal. You want to keep them at your site and affiliated sites for as long as possible. The longer they stay, the more money they'll generate in the form of direct purchases or exposure to advertising. As soon as something leads them off your side, you are no longer in control of their viewing, and as such that is lost potential revenue. What if these sites were running advertisements for PA clones and taking business away? Ya, that'd be a smart thing to link to.. Or better yet, what if there were advertisements for pornography on those sites? Again, not something you want to happen, and since those pages are not under direct control of Jolt/PA/etc etc there is no way prevent something like that from happening short of not displaying or supporting those sites.

and bashar I thought mit was taken on to pa team after he did PAG.

[kaos]

Originally posted by Bashar
Just a few points/facts that I think are relevant:

[...]
2. The "Official" toolkit was not created by the creators or any "official" entity. It was created by Mit, and became official after havinf been created (afaik)
3. (Again, afaik) Mit created the toolkit because he wanted to, not becuase he had any obligation to (he enjoys coding, like many other people who create such sites) - and as such, suggesting that it was created because it had to be, and as such has no commitment behind it is rubbish.
4. Also (yet again, afaik) It was made official without considering any others, i.e. it was a one-horse race, and was made official because of who coded it.
5. there is no obligation for the creators to provide any such information - though it is information which goes towards community relations in a way, and expands the game. Without it, the game would be missing something

[...]

2. If i remember it correct, he created it as official (?) netgamers tools and he learned php with it, so it was quite official from the beginning
3. Everyone who does something in his free time usually does it for his own fun and not because he is forced to do it
4. see #2
5. Maybe not obligation, but its for the sake of planetarion and the creators should not hesitate to do anything which will help planetarion in any way

Originally posted by SpazMonster
not at all because I was referring to the pages the parsed dumps are displayed on. When they host the sites, they can control the content: simple as that. I see a few people are having problems grapsing why this is such a big deal.. so I will try to elaborate on it.

When you get someone to visit your site, it's a big deal. You want to keep them at your site and affiliated sites for as long as possible. The longer they stay, the more money they'll generate in the form of direct purchases or exposure to advertising. As soon as something leads them off your side, you are no longer in control of their viewing, and as such that is lost potential revenue. What if these sites were running advertisements for PA clones and taking business away? Ya, that'd be a smart thing to link to.. Or better yet, what if there were advertisements for pornography on those sites? Again, not something you want to happen, and since those pages are not under direct control of Jolt/PA/etc etc there is no way prevent something like that from happening short of not displaying or supporting those sites.

and bashar I thought mit was taken on to pa team after he did PAG.

U have found the success formula to kill all of the support from non Pa_team ppl...

HURRY give it to Spinner so he can put it on his
"How to kill PA once again list"

[KaneED]

I don't mean to be cynical, but if the tools are already provided comptently, isn't having your own set of tools just to 'big yourself up'? After all, there's surely no need.

And where does trust enter this at all?

Don't you trust what you read?

[Sakera]

Originally posted by A2
I don't see anyone moaning about the fact that PBot has been given "extended" dumps and privleges for a couple of rounds now... Is there really a difference?


There are two reasons to having an official toolkit:

1) anti-spying -- Can anyone really be sure that Virus don't have access to their tools, Elysium don't have access to Pilkara and Fury never had access to Sandmans...
The Official PA Toolkit will be, as the rest of PA, neutral to alliances.

2) Is there a problem with PA having their own set of tools? It's just another alternative. I'm sure that people will carry on using Pilkara and VirusTools throughout R9 - they're well known enough to survive after all


The difference between regular (public) dumps and the extended ones are basically the access to the minister details and the URL to the banners.

Essentially - Life isn't fair - deal with it.

I don't see me arguing against the existance of "official PA tools" this is more about the fact that they are given a speshal treatment by PA so it gets an advantage over others. Can't they make a portal without speshal credidentials?

Oh yes, lets bring Pbot into the discussion as well. A fe rounds ago PA HQ chose to kill EvilRoid and make PBOT live, by removing Evilroids permission to be in all channels and exeption from the spam limit. Reason for this was that "PA didn't have access on evilroids code and it could contain spyware". Upon that it where discussed if PA crew would reverse their decition if they got access to it's code at the same level as they have access to PBOT's code (do they have this). But no, evilroid was deemed dead. A community created bot. clever pa crew.

So why did pbot get chosen over evilroid?

Same goes for today, think A2!

1) Can't official tools be "spyware free" without it having an advantage?
2) noone said that.

invalid points, come up with something better next time a2

[Bashar]

Originally posted by A2
I don't see anyone moaning about the fact that PBot has been given "extended" dumps and privleges for a couple of rounds now... Is there really a difference?


There are two reasons to having an official toolkit:

1) anti-spying -- Can anyone really be sure that Virus don't have access to their tools, Elysium don't have access to Pilkara and Fury never had access to Sandmans...
The Official PA Toolkit will be, as the rest of PA, neutral to alliances.

2) Is there a problem with PA having their own set of tools? It's just another alternative. I'm sure that people will carry on using Pilkara and VirusTools throughout R9 - they're well known enough to survive after all


The difference between regular (public) dumps and the extended ones are basically the access to the minister details and the URL to the banners.

Essentially - Life isn't fair - deal with it.

I think you missed the point. Alliance bias wasn't the point as I read it, the point was to do with what is available. Alliance bias doesn't come into the matter, it is like a basic market principle, the ability to choose supplier, and to have competition. It is obvious to everyone that competition is the key to quality, it is the way to increase the motivation of the supplier. Free choice exists in the tool usage, if people don't trust Virus/Elysium, they could go to a different site, like the official one, and have it as an option, but should it really be restricted so that others are no competition, that is the issue. If it is for quality purposes, and maintaining competition, the answer here is obvious.

Also, as a side issue - your comment on life being unfair - that is one of the worst justifications I have ever seen. I know you can do better than that. You may as well have said:

"Life isn't fair - and as seen as life isn't, why should we make PA fair?"

And going by this, lets alter the user-agreement to "anything goes" - after all, life isn't fair, so why bother paying for PA, the creators/jolt can cover the costs from their own pockets, why should it be fair? Let's let people run free with bots, as life isn't fair, so people can just tolerate it and make do!

You are right, life isn't fair in many cases, which is exactly why we should strive to make things as fair as we can. We shouldn't justify wrong actions by saying "other actions are wrong". I won't insult your intelligence by giving further examples of what would happen. I will insult it by saying that the world is not anarchist.

Anyway, I am sure your intellect can cope with seeing the point, and progressing it further to work out what this attitude of "life isn't fair - deal with it" would lead to if it were used as a rule of life.

[Sakera]

Originally posted by KaneED
I don't mean to be cynical, but if the tools are already provided comptently, isn't having your own set of tools just to 'big yourself up'? After all, there's surely no need.

And where does trust enter this at all?

Don't you trust what you read?

They claim that alliances abuse scans pasted in scan parsers.

[Norseman]

Originally posted by KaneED
I don't mean to be cynical, but if the tools are already provided comptently, isn't having your own set of tools just to 'big yourself up'? After all, there's surely no need.

exactly

[kaos]

Originally posted by A2
I don't see anyone moaning about the fact that PBot has been given "extended" dumps and privleges for a couple of rounds now... Is there really a difference?

Maybe because ppl are happy with pbot ? and iirc pbot has the dump no more than end of r6

There are two reasons to having an official toolkit:

1) anti-spying -- Can anyone really be sure that Virus don't have access to their tools, Elysium don't have access to Pilkara and Fury never had access to Sandmans...
The Official PA Toolkit will be, as the rest of PA, neutral to alliances.

And what would you spy on that is not scans ? (and most scans are brs and news scans anyways)
And PA Crew members can me members of alliances, so who ensures me, that nobody (with access) is dumping the toolkit database every day and use it for their alliance ?

2) Is there a problem with PA having their own set of tools? It's just another alternative. I'm sure that people will carry on using Pilkara and VirusTools throughout R9 - they're well known enough to survive after all

THere is no problem with that as long as everyone gets treaten the same ...

The difference between regular (public) dumps and the extended ones are basically the access to the minister details and the URL to the banners.

Yeah, so whats the problem releasing that to the public ?
I can grab that info from either ingame or the official toolkit site. if you can live with 15k extra hits per day for each tool site we can do it that way if you want it.

Essentially - Life isn't fair - deal with it.

Well, but this is planetarion and not live my dear

[Bashar]

Originally posted by A2
Incidentally it's been recoded for R9

that just proves my third point

Thankyou for clarifying it.

[KaneED]

Originally posted by Sakera
They claim that alliances abuse scans pasted in scan parsers.

And the official one would do this because...?

[Sakera]

Originally posted by KaneED
And the official one would do this because...?

i dont understand your question here, it doesnt quite fit with my statement.

[KaneED]

Originally posted by Cochese
I'll still choose Pilkara, thank you very much. Not only is it better quality than the 'offical' PA site, who says we trust PA Team more than alliance people, and why on earth should we?

To Sakera ^^^

[Bashar]

Originally posted by kaos
2. If i remember it correct, he created it as official (?) netgamers tools and he learned php with it, so it was quite official from the beginning
3. Everyone who does something in his free time usually does it for his own fun and not because he is forced to do it
4. see #2
5. Maybe not obligation, but its for the sake of planetarion and the creators should not hesitate to do anything which will help planetarion in any way

Netgamers != Planetarion

Official netgamers != Official planetarion, hence your "2." = invalid

3. Depends on the reason for doing it - people could do it for example because they want the status/power that goes with it, or they want some other benefit they will get other than enjoyment at making it (just to make it clear, I am not in anyway saying this applies to Mit, Mit is a great guy, and a friend, and I am sure his reasons were entirely correct, and my comments would apply no matter who had coded it)

4. ermmm, I will go with the cop-out answer and say "see #2"

5. That may be so, but my post was not there to show opinion, it was to lay down some facts, and what I said was a fact.

[Sakera]

Originally posted by KaneED
To Sakera ^^^

I dont see any reason why people should trust the official dumps more than others. But theres not anything special indicating this, but all techies know that data such as this can leak quite easy to good friends etc.

[kaos]

Originally posted by Bashar
Netgamers != Planetarion

Official netgamers != Official planetarion, hence your "2." = invalid

3. Depends on the reason for doing it - people could do it for example because they want the status/power that goes with it, or they want some other benefit they will get other than enjoyment at making it (just to make it clear, I am not in anyway saying this applies to Mit, Mit is a great guy, and a friend, and I am sure his reasons were entirely correct, and my comments would apply no matter who had coded it)

4. ermmm, I will go with the cop-out answer and say "see #2"

5. That may be so, but my post was not there to show opinion, it was to lay down some facts, and what I said was a fact.

2. but you can't deny that netgamers and planetarion are still in a quite close relation to each other. But your quite right actually, but then sakeras point gets valid
3. Everyone doing for 'power' (or whatever) is just stupid. And if we're about facts i know noone who would do something like the toolkits to gain power (my main reason to take over pilkara was to make it something that can cope with sandmans and to contribute the community, so they don't have to do that all theirselves again)
5. yeah well ... facts. Fact is that planetarion is almost dead and if the creators don't do something it will be completely dead sooner or later

[Bashar]

Originally posted by kaos
2. but you can't deny that netgamers and planetarion are still in a quite close relation to each other. But your quite right actually, but then sakeras point gets valid
3. Everyone doing for 'power' (or whatever) is just stupid. And if we're about facts i know noone who would do something like the toolkits to gain power (my main reason to take over pilkara was to make it something that can cope with sandmans and to contribute the community, so they don't have to do that all theirselves again)
5. yeah well ... facts. Fact is that planetarion is almost dead and if the creators don't do something it will be completely dead sooner or later

I was not arguing against Sakeras point though :-)

Read my initial post again, there are just facts, there are no arguments, it is simple stated facts. At no point have I said he is wrong. Some points in my post support his argument, others do not. Also, as for people doing things for power and status - if you know nobody who would do that in PA, then you are either blind or you have had very little interaction with the community. Not trying to offend you btw, but if I was in a controversial mood, I could create a long list of such people. Go to i15, and buy me half a dozen beers, and then I'll give you a list. Hell, I could even give evidence if I could be arsed to spend the time putting it together!

[kaos]

Originally posted by Bashar
I was not arguing against Sakeras point though :-)

Read my initial post again, there are just facts, there are no arguments, it is simple stated facts. At no point have I said he is wrong. Some points in my post support his argument, others do not. Also, as for people doing things for power and status - if you know nobody who would do that in PA, then you are either blind or you have had very little interaction with the community. Not trying to offend you btw, but if I was in a controversial mood, I could create a long list of such people. Go to i15, and buy me half a dozen beers, and then I'll give you a list. Hell, I could even give evidence if I could be arsed to spend the time putting it together!

i never said your initial posts weren't facts
and by knowing guys i meant ppl who would be able to do that and that i know better than just by name. It's clear that there are ppl who would do this for power, but such a thing is a real lot of work and i dunno if someone with the knowledge to do that would do that only for power, but i think i trust to much into the ppl

[A2]

Originally posted by kaos
And what would you spy on that is not scans ? (and most scans are brs and news scans anyways)
And PA Crew members can me members of alliances, so who ensures me, that nobody (with access) is dumping the toolkit database every day and use it for their alliance ?

If you really don't want to trust it then you're clearly never going to trust ANY of the various toolkits so you can either write your own or not parse anything / use the search tools. Incidentally only Mit and the server owner (who doesn't play PA) has access to the DB, and as I understand it the data is only stored in the raw format making it rather hard to find a specific bit.

Originally posted by Bashar
I think you missed the point. Alliance bias wasn't the point as I read it, the point was to do with what is available. Alliance bias doesn't come into the matter, it is like a basic market principle, the ability to choose supplier, and to have competition. It is obvious to everyone that competition is the key to quality, it is the way to increase the motivation of the supplier. Free choice exists in the tool usage, if people don't trust Virus/Elysium, they could go to a different site, like the official one, and have it as an option, but should it really be restricted so that others are no competition, that is the issue. If it is for quality purposes, and maintaining competition, the answer here is obvious.

And the problem with something directly supported by PA having a little something extra to make it stand out is...?

Also the reason certain things are kept away from the possibility of abuse by allainces include:
Ministers -- If alliances could track which galaxies either have no ministers of switch commands frequently then it would be possible to identify which galaxies are more disorganised and therefore get them targetted.
Banners -- Prevents people from being able to search for which banners are hosted where. If you were to find 2 or more banners hosted on the same site then it's more than likely that they're all in the same alliance - or at least know each other.

[Stress]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
I was using an analogy. PA Team is part of the organization and as such should have some type of inherrant advantages. They are a business. They are here to make money. By keeping people on their pages, they can control what the users see, limit liability and make sure their users see what they want them to see.

PA team makes no finanshial gain on the tools, they only generate more bandwith and load on their servers. While some alliances GLADLY support the comunety with Server/bandwith for the prise of 0. And that is bad buisness ?

Not to mention the fact that some alliances, coders are far better then the ones coding the offishial pa tools.

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by Bashar
Also, as a side issue - your comment on life being unfair - that is one of the worst justifications I have ever seen. I know you can do better than that. You may as well have said:

"Life isn't fair - and as seen as life isn't, why should we make PA fair?"

Perhaps I should be more blunt because people can't seem to follow my logic and make connections as I had hoped they would. I was trying to get at the question 'Why would it be fair in the first place'?

[Bashar]

Originally posted by A2
If you really don't want to trust it then you're clearly never going to trust ANY of the various toolkits so you can either write your own

Congratulations, you just hit the jackpot. Now, re-read the thread and then make a post saying what the point of the thread is

Actually, I'll be kind:

The point of the thread is PEOPLE CAN'T MAKE THEIR OWN TOOL TO REPLACE THE OFFICIAL ONE WITHOUT THE SAME DB DUMP.

If you are going to argue against what is being said on the thread, at least make sure your argument doesn't prove the point behind the thread

[Mit]

Right, to put u in the picture.

When i started, i was making a toolkit COS I WANTED TO. There was NO Connections AT ALL to ANYONE.

I showed a few ppl in #planetarion my 'sample' as it was at the time, Mong saw this and came up with the idea of 'Offical Netgamers Tools' due to Woody doing the official Planetarion ones at the time.

Due to woody having problems with the server, the 'official toolkit' of the time never got going. As the round went on, i added to mine, fixed problems etc. Because of this, someone on the portal changed the link to point to my tools, i didn't actually realise this till looking at the webstats and the host refers. (only check occasionally just to see what bandwidth usage is like and what search engines are indexing the site)

The round stoped and no-one knew what was going on, then when Sim-Tech/Jolt bought PA and hired the creators again, i knew it would be worth adding to it again. Zeus himself came to me and asked about me making the official tools, due to Woody's problems and seeming lack of interest at the time. Which i am now doing.

I am doing this because i WANT to, Zeus did ask me this, he didn't want me doing it if i didn't want to. Also, him coming to me shows he wanted me to do it and not that i forced it on PA using my 'position' or anything, mainly because i've only got the position on PA Team AFTER having done a lot of work on the tools - thats only the past few weeks. Out of anything i have done for PA/NG - i have done NOTHING for 'power' - i have the 'power' because people have asked me to because i have proved i'm worth it, not just cos i want a position.

As for 'trust' - there are only TWO people with access to the server, my files and the database with the dumps - one of those is me, and the other is the server owner - he doesn't even Play PA and it means NOTHING to him.

I know my tools might not be 'the best' thats not why i'm making them, i'm making them because i want to. Because i enjoy coding, and cos i want to give something back to the community, having been here since Round 3.

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by Stress
PA team makes no finanshial gain on the tools, they only generate more bandwith and load on their servers. While some alliances GLADLY support the comunety with Server/bandwith for the prise of 0. And that is bad buisness ?

Not to mention the fact that some alliances, coders are far better then the ones coding the offishial pa tools.

I never said PA Team would gain financially from this, I said PA as a whole would because of their control over the situation and ability to guide users' browsing.

I also said earlier that ideally (in a PR role) PA should have paid the other responsible parties for the rights to their code.

Can people please atleast try to start connecting the points a little better? I think some of you are destined for upper management. Perhaps charts and graphs would make more sense.

[A2]

Originally posted by Stress
Not to mention the fact that some alliances, coders are far better then the ones coding the offishial pa tools.

Please explain what prevents you using your own choice of toolkit simply because there's another one available.

Also you make a point about the bandwidth -- Someone pointed out earlier that Sandmans died because of problems paying for the bandwidth usage. The more toolkits that are available the more spread out the bandwidth usage will be hopefully allowing all of them to survive.


One more thing - Why has this suddenly become such an issue this round? The official dumps have been around for a couple of rounds, and were used on the NetGamers version last round.

Actually this thread was made to point out that only the "official" gets the best dump with the most info.

And to improve the tool site even more .

A2, get a life u are pathetic

[Mit]

Originally posted by A2

One more thing - Why has this suddenly become such an issue this round? The official dumps have been around for a couple of rounds, and were used on the NetGamers version last round.

They were only briefly used on that, once the creators / pa team gave me access to the dumps - thus they must have thought it was worth it.

At that time i WASN'T part of PA Team at all.