When a sysOp posts that they banned a player, what is the purpose? We all play with aliases so banning any one of the ones I use would not affect me using another alias on another server. The only purpose served would appear to be smack talk of a nature.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

he bans the IP also

IP banning probably doesn't have a lot of impact if someone wants to get around it.

[edit] I haven't forgot the suggestion on the script, and I hope to get to it soon[/edit]

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

Changemyip.com (I think thats it)

Let other Sysops know to watch a person, I would not place or post in the forum a ban of a player for language. Duping or just being a total butt trying to disrupt a game just because they can is the only reason I would ban and publicly let people know who and IP.
Most IP's are regional so if I placed a ban it would be 98.100.*.* or 98.*.*.* (examples) for a few days since the person will usually grow tired of trying. I only permanently banned 2 players and I did agree to lift the ban after the player had apologized for their behavior.
They can use a proxy but most always use the same password or something similar so not hard to figure it out, then I just close the game to new players for a couple days. Since most duping or problems happen after 11pm (for some reason) I did write a script that closes all games to new players from 11pm to 7am. Removing a ban from TWGS is a pita since you have to take the server down, easier to do using router but still can disrupt games on reset.
Normally an Alias only works if you don't talk on fed since most always talk the same it might take a few days but you can find them.

Depends on the ISP. Cable ISPs tend to tie IP addresses
to the front-facing mac address. You can change that and
change your IP, but it's a PITA and you still tend to stay in
the same /24.

AT&T's DSL service is different. Every time you reconnect,
it gets you a new IP via the PPPoE signin process. Those
IPs are geographically close, but numerically very distant.
Those are very difficult to ban consistently.

Open proxies are easy to detect and ban. On my server,
for instance, I have a rule against open proxies that aren't
registered. That way I don't have to ask whether the user
is the same as the previously banned on, I can just ban
the proxy IP if I need to.

So basically what I'm hearing is that the posting of the alias really doesn't do any good without posting the IP address of the player. By posting the alias only as being banned for whatever reason, the sysOp basically engaging in smack talk unless he has proof that could not be fabricated. As I stated in my initial post, providing an alias has no valid use. Rather than post in the forums, the sysOp should contact other servers with the IP address that is being banned, but that would eliminate the public flogging (warranted or not) and dirty laundry that some enjoy.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

When I was actively running Black Sun, if I banned someone, I passed that information to other ops I knew and trusted via ICQ.

Perhaps a section should be created for the SysOps only so this information can be exchanged without it being "aired" in the public for flogging? This way all relevant information can be posted, since some don't use ICQ or other chat medium, etc.

so if I get banned from Six Flags.. I should also get banned from Disney World?

Nope but your banned from Cedar Point just for saying the S word...

I suppose that would be up to the discretion of the Op at Disney World, yes? In the old days, some SysOps would notify other Ops of potential issues with players so that they had a "heads-up". What they chose to do is up to them- they could decide to ban the player because of their actions on another server, or they would keep an "eye" on the player to ensure they were not causing issues on their server.

The key here is to somehow provide a way for those SysOps that feel they need to pass on information to other Ops without the public jumping in and all hell breaking loose in the form of derailing comments/smack. I'd rather see a section created than these issues appearing in the general sections we currently have.

Thrawn,

I agree, a sysop only forum makes a certain amount of sense. It would allow us to discuss these kinds of issues, as well as other potential game issues.

I also agree that a closed forum for sysops would be beneficial in preventing smack talk responses in moderated forums.