A Considered Response
Quote:
Originally Posted by Obsi
I don't think anyone has actually yet used a child/spouse's account to make videos. So it's not like lots of other people are doing it and you're left out by not having that ability. All the videos I have seen from our servers (I believe) are done by the person who is actually playing.
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Others have stated in mumble and text chat that they've done exactly this; most notably in the initial conversation on mumble when I broached the topic with Sorontar. There is at least one post above in this thread stating so, and others that acknowledge it. I only point this out to convey that it's a convenience that others have enjoyed already and that they look forward to pursuing in the future.
From my perspective as a newly arrived outsider I can only view such existing ability others have and use with a degree of envy. Though it was not my original intent, I realize now that a verdict on the original question I did intend to raise will also potentially effect how current users are allowed to use their accounts going forward.
The Concerns That Matter Most
Quote:
Originally Posted by Obsi
The thing is, if we're going to be doing any time lapse builds or something that happen to be at night when our children are in bed and/or not playing on the server - there are those Minecraft accounts that already have access to the servers, just sitting there doing nothing.... so using them to record any video we might want to do in the future - would seem to be a good way of getting some of the footage while we're all free to build. Which is different to creating a duplicate account so you personally can have 2 accounts on the server at the same time to film your own constructions
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I find this response very disturbing. It does not address the issue of what is appropriate to fairly facilitate the desired activities of our membership at large, but rather addresses the mechanics of what particularly privileged veteran members are capable of doing for themselves or for their friends by virtue of family-based circumstance and personal relationships. Though perhaps not intended so, it reads as a justification for allowing certain current members to use existing accounts for harmless, desirable activities which it implies others members both are, and should, be excluded from pursuing on the basis of trust. It speaks favorably of what "we might want to do" as a "good way of getting some ... footage", but denigrates what "you personally can have" for "your own constructions".
Are my constructions less valuable than yours? Do they not contribute as much to the community as yours? Is a group project that has the blessing of the forums inherently a "better" or more desirable project worthy of being filmed than any individual's personal project?
We are the community. A community built on a foundation of trust -- a rare and valuable asset that can only be earned and must continually be renewed; and this trust will only persist in an environment that is perceived to be fair. The limits of what we can accomplish together in our community are not bound by mechanics such as how many accounts an individual is allowed or how many members in the same family have accounts. The heights we can achieve, and the diversity of activities we can collectively enjoy, are limited solely by our degree of trust in each other. This is the discussion I choose to pursue here: not one of mechanics, but rather of three issues that truly matter:
- performance,
- fairness, and
- trust.
I largely believe performance is a non-issue because it is easily managed. If we're concerned with the potential of having too many voyeur alts adversely affecting performance, then simply disallow the condition. For example:
- Prohibit such alts when more than 8 mains are on the server.
- Prohibit more than one or two voyeur alts from being on at the same time.
- Set up a forum registration thread to reserve time for voyeur alts to be online and ensure fairness of such participation.
This concern is an issue that both can and should be addressed by mechanics. We can come up with some rules now to address a desire to prevent such a problem from ever occurring. Or we can take a more liberal approach and reserve the right to make such rules in the future should need arise, but agree to assume (as I currently do) that such imagined havoc is unlikely to become a real problem. As a non-aussie-timezone player, it's rare for me to find as many as 4 other players on Frontier during my prime-time presence. It's never surprising to find Aveege online, but even he has to sleep sometimes and I'm often on the server alone. But we certainly need a policy that is fair to all, including those who tend to play when the server load is heavier.
I don't have much more to say on the topic of fairness. I've expressed my opinion before and it has already been echoed by others in this thread, e.g.:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aveege
Currently some players have and do use there childrens accounts for things such as filming and i think its unfair to not allow someone without children this same luxury.
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I have a lot to say on the topic of trust. Trust is at the heart of our very existence:
- It's the reason we require at least 6 months of positive evidential contributions to our larger TOG community, or the recommendation of an already-trusted TOG member who is then held responsible.
- It's the reason we can sleep well at night knowing that our diamonds will still be in whatever chest we left them in when we last logged out.
- It's the reason we feel comfortable allowing junior members to join in on the fun -- an ability likely un-allowed in any other TOG game.
- It's the reason a simple posted request for colored wool donations results in an overflowing chest with no spare room to add melon seeds.
- It's the reason we have no fear of being clobbered with a diamond sword unless we're in the PVP area.
We all enjoy, profit, and commune with each other in a friendly environment because of this trust. So when I made a request to create an alt for a specific purpose I was inherently asking:"Would you trust me, and others members, to make an alt for the sole purpose of making videos and not to abuse it for nefarious purposes?"
We could and may yet continue the discussion of all the egregious exploits one might possibly commit by virtue of having such an alt. But to my mind, all such abuses essentially boil down to either adversely affecting system performance, or violating one of the many well-established rules we already have and that we trust our members to follow every day. I proposed to take on an even higher degree of restrictions for a voyeur alt, such as limiting where and when it could be online. And ultimately, I'm asking for such permission with the knowledge I'll be banned if I abuse this trust or things get out of hand, just as if I violated any other rule on our server.
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Setting Precedent
Quote:
Originally Posted by Obsi
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhof
I agree I'm setting a precedent -- that's the whole point.
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What you're essentially asking though is to allow anyone and everyone to create a duplicate account - risking a huge amount of potential for cheating/playing unfairly, as well as potentially doubling the strain on the server (and filling up server slots with duplicates, potentially blocking access to other players) - just so that you can sometimes film your own creations in timelapse more easily, and contribute to any community timelapse recordings by filming them as you want to, rather than how others may film it. |
I'm not asking for that all. I'm asking for the community to extend our members the same trust as they do now on a daily basis. A level of trust where we already have hands-on access to every gathered resource and crafted masterpiece that players have invested their time to collect and build. I'd like to see that trust extended to now allow the use a new mechanic -- a voyeur alt -- to make time-lapse videos.
Yes, I'm asking "just so [we] can sometimes film [our] own creations", which I see just as beneficial to the community as a whole as is putting up a magnificent building, making a panorama, constructing a map, or putting up a video showing pretty pink unicorns. Our community benefits as a whole when any of our members contributes. I believe that builds, videos, and posts regarding personal projects are just as valuable as those for community projects such as Piedra Roja. The more ways we can find for our members to contribute, and the more activities we can allow them to enjoy, the more our community will grow and foster the attraction and retention of our best creative efforts here on Frontier, rather than discouraging our members who then leave for greener pastures where they can pursue their activities of their interest.
Since we are a community based on a common server we have to make compromises: We can't and don't allow any mod to be added to the server. We proscribe activities such as PVP-anywhere that don't fit into our agreed collective philosophy. But a desire to make a video of one's construction doesn't strike me as being counter to the philosophy behind our current set of rules. To the contrary it seems to me a direct, desirable extension of the many posted snapshots and videos we enjoy every week on the forums. So any arguments of abuses that "could" happen seemingly come down to a matter of trust.
Are we "risking a huge amount of potential for cheating/playing unfairly"? Yes. Are we risking more than we already do every day for each of our members? I'd argue we risk far less. If a voyeur alt restricted by our rules to only making videos nearby builds of an on-line main, and easily recognizable by say a sky-blue-pink-colored name in chat, is either building, mining, crafting, shooting, farming, or likely even dying... then that's potentially an immediately apparent abuse if those are proscribed activities for an alt. By contrast there are vastly more abuses a player main could commit that would not be immediately apparent to an on-looker. But are we really "risking" a greater degree of nefarious abuse by extending activities permissible to a TOG member by virtue of their simply having a second account? I don't think so; and for a very simple reason: we already trust them.
Encouraging a Thriving Community
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Originally Posted by Obsi
I'm sorry, but while I agree with you that you having a second account would be a good thing for you, I have to say that I don't think it's in the best interests of the server/community. Because, as I said, if we allow one player to do it, we can't very well say no to everyone else. And for the very same reason you want to make another account, I am sure others would want to as well. Plus there are also players who would be tempted to use their duplicate accounts to gain advantage in play and policing that would be difficult and time consuming.
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I disagree here as well. I specifically believe that having an ability to make videos -- for which I proposed the mechanic of creating a second account -- would be a good thing for the community at large; for all the same reasons that I believe we find the various content of current forum posts including videos are a positive contribution to the community. They delight and encourage our members to do the same, and to then push the boundaries of creativity and contribution even further.
I am not asking merely for myself in a private side channel but indeed am asking as a matter of policy on a public forum, and therefore for others as well. I would like us to say "yes" to everyone else -- including all of those with access to family accounts -- that this is an activity we want to encourage; and we can do so because we trust the members of our community until they provide us with some reason not to.
Can it get out of hand if we don't have rules? Can we bring the server to an all-time lag high if everyone does it at once? Sure. So lets make some appropriate rules like we do for Piedra Roja, or for allowing new members on our server, so that we've set a good foundation to prevent abuse and server overload. Given a considerable list of restrictions for what activities an alt can perform I think it will be far easier to police than most of our existing rules since anyone who views the on-line players list will know when (and can ask where) alt activity is actually happening in real time.
In short, I urge us as a community to be motivated by our dreams rather than our fears; to find ways to extend our trust in ways that encourage new activities we've not been able to pursue before rather than proscribe them out of hand based on imagined perils that could ultimately occur; to experiment and explore what wondrous acts of creativity are possible rather then limit our horizon for innovation based on a long litany of horrible things that "could" go wrong from implied mistrust of the very folk we engage and otherwise inherently trust every time we play.
Administrative Overhead
In addition to the concerns of performance, fairness, and trust, there is also the "cost of oversight" reality that the admins must deal with. I've yet to read any feedback on the administrative overhead issues of allowing alts, but given that published rules and restrictions for alts become established, I don't really foresee many real concerns.
As Sorontar pointed out on mumble when I first raised this topic, it would mean spending real $ to create a second account; which I just don't see a lot of folk going out of their way to do. Also the difficulty (so far as I'm aware) of running more than one Minecraft account concurrently without the usage of multiple computers or virtual environments will also dissuade a great many. In short, I simply don't see a lot of folk who don't have family account setups looking to venture down this path, and I would very much like to see the activity fairly legitimized so that those who do have family accounts can continue to use them with impunity and contribute some great build videos to our community.
A Desire for Quality and Control
Quote:
Originally Posted by Obsi
You can make time lapse videos of your constructions with your own account - in a fashion, just perhaps not looking the way you want them to. You can get mods that automatically take screenshots for you. You can get a mod that will record on a predefined path you set out (which would surely allow you to record on that same path or in that same spot as many times as you like, so you can maintain the same position for filming). You wouldn't be able to film you building, but you would be able to film the progress of the build.
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Yes that's good list of things I can do. But it's neither a list of activities I really see worth doing, largely for reasons of ending up with a result of dubious quality, nor what I'm requesting. At the core, what I'm asking for is an extension of the community's trust so that I too can participate in a currently pursued activity, but based in an environment with fairness. In terms of a goal, my request remains:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhof
I'd like to request permission for having some means of making time-lapse videos of my constructions, and if permitted and appropriate perhaps some of our community constructions as well, while still being able to participate in those projects. Any suggestions as to how I might go about that?
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