Online list and privacy [split from: TMW promotion]

[mistergrey]

EDIT2:
As of personal requests I will not upload the data.

It makes no difference whether *you* upload them or not, anybody could write a script to watch the online list themselves. (I had one myself a while back)

Either post the detailed logs, or make a request to remove the online list from the webserver.

Personally, I don't think it's an either-or kind of matter. Anyone is free to make such a script, but there's a large difference between a script someone used for curiosity, and information made easily available to everyone by the actual site. Most people won't bother making that script, because they aren't knowledgeable enough to do so, but make it, gift wrap it, and make it easy to find, and every vindictive stalker type in the game will have great fun with it.

I can't imagine anybody having an issue if you used such a script to gain more general statistics, such as "average amount of users online in a day/week", "average hours spent in game by the typical user", etc, but specifics such as "Player x was online between 11am to 6pm" could get a bit invasive for some. There's clearly no way to stop someone from finding this out themselves, as the online list is available to anyone, but then that's been possible for a long time and it hasn't been a problem so far. I would be more in favor of posting the "findings" of such a script, rather than all the specific info about players .

[Chicka-Maria]

EDIT2:
As of personal requests I will not upload the data.

Please don't post detailed logs. It's bad enough that some people "follow me around the game" using the online list. This would be a wonderful tool for certain stalker types.

I would honestly consider leaving the game if I thought that other people could track my game play as closely as you have.

It makes no difference whether *you* upload them or not, anybody could write a script to watch the online list themselves. (I had one myself a while back)

Either post the detailed logs, or make a request to remove the online list from the webserver.

When people make scripts like this they usually keep it to themselves, I dont really agree on the matter of it being publicly released, it would encourage harassment on players which would drive people away from the game.

[Nard]

first:
I really do not see how publishing past online lists could help a stalker to annoy someone more than he/she can do it now. There is a little possibility that these data could be used to make cross correlation between chars presence online and retrieve some information about role play, but this is very unlikely to happen considering the statistics skills of most players and developers and the tricky tools that must be used to extract data from the random noise. Is the time and work required to mine these data worth the poor info you retrieve from it?
I don't think so.

second:
On the opposite, they could be useful to know how the number of players (chars) evolves with time, to get information about when players leave the game, to evaluate the consequences of past strategic decisions. Of course this could be done, as Crush said, with server data, but server data cannot be public "as is" because they are much more sensitive, and may not have been recorded over such a long time period.
A partial solution to the problem could be to publish data with encoded char names (and account numbers when server data).

third:
Argul has proved by the heavy work he did (maps, scripts, manamarket...) that his intentions were to be helpful to the community, saying he tracked players is not very kind to him. His results are very interesting but have to be improved with deeper mining: For example the large proportion of short connections can be the consequence of newbies leaving without a real trial but can also result from experienced players switching alts for various reasons.

Nard

[Frost]

I suggest that players be informed that such detailed information about their playing habits will be retained and made available in this fashion. Certainly if I had known this before, I would have made rather different decisions.

I've been targeted in the past using GM logs and in-game conversations. I have little confidence this gold mine of information will not be used in the future. Please do not even attempt to assure me that my wishes or concerns are stupid.

I wish to "opt out" in whatever manner is possible.

[gagolthegreat]

I wish to "opt out" in whatever manner is possible.

I am already spammed occasionally with players whispering to me looking for free items.... please consider an opt out option.

[mistergrey]

Nard, with all due respect, there were a few possibilities that you did not consider. Players can already learn a lot about each others' playing habits, including the usual times they spend playing online. This can be learned through some observation of the online list, and through in-game interaction. Still, if a player has a conflict with another player (as an example), one of them can choose to play at a different time and not be bothered by the other. With detailed logs, you can learn exactly when a player is online or not, including times you did not know about. This knowledge could easily be used to harass another player.

This brings me to my other point. GMs, devs, admins, have their commands logged already. A lot of players keep a watchful eye on these logs, so the idea of directly giving everybody's online times as well is a bit unsettling. I know anybody else could find out that information, I just don't feel like it should be made available to everyone so easily.

That said, I do approve of taking stats, and of course argul's intentions are good . I still think that those online logs would need to be more generalized stats about the players as a group, like total players online a day, how many spent longer than an hour online, etc. Or even fun novelty stats, like "longest time a player has been online" (kept nameless unless the person is happy about that, maybe ), "number of collective hours spent by all players, in a day".

[Chicka-Maria]

I just dont see the point of everyone seeing everybodys online playing stats. I mean if you wanted to see your own that would be great (if that's possible). But theres no reason for everyones to be public, I also had a harassment case in the past i will not discuss here.

Regards,

[Frost]

TMW might receive email from a company lawyer which explains they have reason to believe an employee was playing The Mana World game during company time, and requesting information about whether any of 15 specific characters might be identified as either <person name> or originating from <network address>.

As an admin, I would feel obligated to reply. If the situation seemed genuine, I would feel obligated to provide the relevant data.

If this sounds improbable or if you think TMW can easily ignore such requests, then you haven't managed log servers or Authentication/Authorization/Accounting servers, or worked at an ISP or online service.

All that's required is a jealous ex or a disgruntled former coworker.

[Crush]

Any responsible admin would never disclose personal information about their users, unless there is an official court order (from a judge, not just a lawayer). In many jurisdictions it is even against privacy laws to disclose personal information without being authorized by the person the information is about.

[gagolthegreat]

This comment belonged to original thread.,,

[Chicka-Maria]

Any responsible admin would never disclose personal information about their users, unless there is an official court order (from a judge, not just a lawayer). In many jurisdictions it is even against privacy laws to disclose personal information without being authorized by the person the information is about.

+1

Everyone should have a right to privacy and if others privacy is being given out publicly then something's very wrong.

[Crush]

Split from http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 12&t=15837

[Nard]

Nard, with all due respect, there were a few possibilities that you did not consider. Players can already learn a lot about each others' playing habits, including the usual times they spend playing online. This can be learned through some observation of the online list, and through in-game interaction. Still, if a player has a conflict with another player (as an example), one of them can choose to play at a different time and not be bothered by the other. With detailed logs, you can learn exactly when a player is online or not, including times you did not know about. This knowledge could easily be used to harass another player.

mrgrey, with all due respect, there were a few lines that you did not read. or perhaps I was not clear enough (If so I apologize):
I, and many other players already used this online list to track, for example, some terranite cave killer habits, and avoid or kill them. Some other players actually track my presence online with this list and connect as soon as I do, for various purposes, including not really friendly one. there is no need of long range stats for that, just a few days of wise observation.
I am then perfectly aware of the use that can be done of this list. I suggested then that these lists could include encoded names instead of real ones which could solve easily the problem. Statistics that I and TMW would be interested in have nothing to do with player names.
The opinion you express in your last paragraph is mine; I wanted to point out the interest of short, medium and long term statistical analysis of player's behaviour to improve our knowledge of players behaviour and interest to TMW. This is also what I wanted to point out in the topic about the last purges, apart from personal bad feelings when I see players accounts disappear.

I just dont see the point of everyone seeing everybodys online playing stats.

Dear Mom, if you want conclusions you draw from statistical data to be trustable, you must give the data with them or at least give "some access". You and me and many of us have heard some leaders of our very democratic countries quoting weird data (I am very kind today) which are pointless when separated from data and context.

I doubt seriously that there is half a dozen players that could extract harmful information information from this collection: because these files are separated from account data first, and because it would require higher statistical skills too. Is it worth the work? I don't think so. Now, I repeat, Names could be encoded before publishing.
To get everyone's agreement, I wish that raw data is given to TMW administration, who can decide then who can access these data, and what has to be done with them. I don't think administrators took care of collecting such a large data collection, because they had a lot of other interesting things to do and for sure hadn't time enough to focus on that point (Thanks to them: bugs are solved one after the other, and content evolves in a nice way).

TMW might receive email from a company lawyer which explains they have reason to believe an employee was playing The Mana World game during company time, and requesting information about whether any of 15 specific characters might be identified as either <person name> or originating from <network address>.

As an admin, I would feel obligated to reply. If the situation seemed genuine, I would feel obligated to provide the relevant data.

If you did so in EEC, without the express player agreement or without a Justice requirement, you could be subject to a lawsuit, even as an EEC foreigner. In France TMW can even be considered as a non profit informal organization with collective responsibilities.

Finally I want to say I am a bit surprised by negative reactions to statistical analysis, in this post as in the Removed 23155/51557 accounts :/ thread, because I think they would be as useful to TMW as the personal opinions that were given in this thread and a lot of other ones.

Statistical regards

Nard

edit: typo

[Chicka-Maria]

I don't see how it would be useful to everyone to see everyone's online habits. I think it would encourage harassment to be honest, and trolls. Should the statistics be viewed by the public? definitely not in my opinion. As i said in my other post everybody deserves privacy and should have that right to it. Is there a way everybody can see their own stats without seeing everybody elses? I think this would be much better than everyone's statistics being public. considering it would be their option to show it to everyone by their hand, not anybody elses.

Regards,

[argul]

I am glad a discussion has started here about whether the online list should be freely available.
It seems to me, that there are people in favor of storing that data and there are people strongly against such a process.

You can analyse the data in whatever means. Originally I started collecting the data to estimate times, when I can play in the terra cave without being harmed by mages.
After the terra cave became idle the data was still there, so I decided to use it for when bots could be run.
I did not have the time nor the motivation to setup a proper botting program which would follow a schedule computed by these data.
So the data kept lying around until a few days ago, when my interest was if the new tutorial (which already is on the production server for a few monthes now) is better than the old tutorial. I started to write some scripts to have a beginning and I hope that somebody continues on these data to finally answer the question on the impact of the tutorial.

Everyone should have a right to privacy and if others privacy is being given out publicly then something's very wrong.

That's correct.
Privacy is very valuable, but when does it start to get impacted? Of course you can have a gut feeling when somebody is online and when s/he is is not.
The data just back you up there. But apparently you seem to have a different feeling if the online list is just there, or if it is recorded and the logs are kept, which I cannot understand.

So you all are arguing about that logging is the bad thing? I claim providing the data is the problem as it is the very source, where the problem originates.
I don't know how old anyone of you is, but I grew up with the knowledge that *everything* which is is recordable, will be recorded and datamined. You need to keep the sources closed. Do not try to make rules about how data should be used, once they are there! Make sure they won't be there in the first place!

TL;DR:
Don't blame me, but the online list being there. If you don't feel well with recording the logs, remove the online list.