Life In 19x19

I didn't say I don't like KGS or the admins, but I said this is a problem to me. I know they can see my ip, accounts, and more, but why specifically look up someone if noone complained? Since the admins do not want to make a statement due to lack of proof for these cases I will ask a few other questions:

1. What is the policy on looking up users, if no complaint has been issued?
I think they do this, and while it does seem questionable, it is expected and no problem.

2. What is the policy of revealing a users ip, IDs, or etc. without permission of the user to non-admin users?

Kirby wrote:No, I don't think that listening to users means making all the changes that they want. But given the amount of change that's happened in, say, the last decade... I think there's evidence that not much listening happens.

Look at any successful, widely used software product, and you'll see the difference.

As a parent, this discussion is familiar.

Parent's perspective:

Stage 1 : I want item X / I want to do activity X
Stage 2 : Suggestion isn't approved
Stage 3 : You don't care about my feelings at all!!
Stage 4 : Outpouring of self-pity
Stage 5 : Son or daughter continues to live at parent's house
Stage 6 : Interval before going to stage 1

Forum viewer's perspective:

Stage 1 : I want feature X
Stage 2 : Suggestion isn't implemented
Stage 3 : You don't care about the feelings of the user community at all!!
Stage 4 : Outpouring of self-righteousness
Stage 5 : Poster continues to play on KGS
Stage 6 : Interval before going to stage 1

After a few dozen episodes, the patterns become familiar enough.

[admin]

I find all the questions of maturity or lack thereof to be irrelevant to the issue at hand, and I suspect that further comments along those lines will eventually descend into a violation of the L19 TOS. I ask all participants to please stick to the issue at hand.

Thanks,
JB

[/admin]

BigDoug wrote:
As a parent, this discussion is familiar.

Parent's perspective:

Stage 1 : I want item X / I want to do activity X
Stage 2 : Suggestion isn't approved
Stage 3 : You don't care about my feelings at all!!
Stage 4 : Outpouring of self-pity
Stage 5 : Son or daughter continues to live at parent's house
Stage 6 : Interval before going to stage 1

Forum viewer's perspective:

Stage 1 : I want feature X
Stage 2 : Suggestion isn't implemented
Stage 3 : You don't care about the feelings of the user community at all!!
Stage 4 : Outpouring of self-righteousness
Stage 5 : Poster continues to play on KGS
Stage 6 : Interval before going to stage 1

After a few dozen episodes, the patterns become familiar enough.

Yes, BigDoug! The role of someone developing software is exactly the same as that of a software developer, isn't it?!?

That's why software companies try to discipline their users, and show them the "right" way to do things. That's why it's not important to listen to the needs of users. And that's why if your users want a certain feature... who cares? You're the disciplinarian, after all!

For clarity, perhaps I should let you know that I am attempting to express sarcasm. However, your analogy does indeed fall in line with the current management of KGS.

And for what it's worth, I could care less about "Stage 5". Yes, I play games on KGS from time to time, but that choice is arbitrary. Feel free to ban me, along with all of the IP addresses that are publicly available to you from my accounts.

I'm glad we had this discussion, Dad! You sure know how to teach me the way things should be!

You walk into a go club somewhere - say a pastry shop in New York or an ice cream parlor in North Carolina - and ask, "Does anyone want a game?"
"How strong are you?" asks the club secretary.
"I'd rather not tell," you say with a smile.
"It would be good to have an evenly matched game," says the secretary.
"Let them find out for themselves if I'm any good," you grin.
The other players look around and edge away.
"It might be easier to get a game if you'd introduce yourself," says the secretary.
"None of their business," you say.
The bald guy in the corner looks up. "Aren't you the fellow who came in last week wearing a beard? And the week before in a turban?"
"Are you people spying on me?" you shout. "I know my Miranda rights! I have the right to remain silent. How dare you stalk me like this?"
You storm out of the room. The other players look at each other and shake their heads.

Charles Alden wrote:You walk into a go club somewhere - say a pastry shop in New York or an ice cream parlor in North Carolina - and ask, "Does anyone want a game?"
"How strong are you?" asks the club secretary.
"I'd rather not tell," you say with a smile.
"It would be good to have an evenly matched game," says the secretary.
"Let them find out for themselves if I'm any good," you grin.
The other players look around and edge away.
"It might be easier to get a game if you'd introduce yourself," says the secretary.
"None of their business," you say.
The bald guy in the corner looks up. "Aren't you the fellow who came in last week wearing a beard? And the week before in a turban?"
"Are you people spying on me?" you shout. "I know my Miranda rights! I have the right to remain silent. How dare you stalk me like this?"
You storm out of the room. The other players look at each other and shake their heads.

I don't want to live in this galaxy anymore. My iq.. I feel it dropping. So many people make bad comparisons. I would say it is more like a college soccer player going to a local park to practice in secret and paparazzi shouting about your identity.

Bad example, but you cannot compare online to IRL. Also bigdoug, since you are useless as usual with comments that don't make sense in context, please let Javanese, mef, and the other quality admins represent kgs. I feel like talking to you about this will end up giving me information about peanut butter or something random, because you always talk about completely unrelated things.

Why use the parent example when I didn't ask for features, but complained about an admin privilege that has been used in questionable situations. I want to know if policy allows admins to say a users private information if noone has complained, no abuse occurred, and the user did not give them permission.

Charles Alden wrote:You walk into a go club somewhere - say a pastry shop in New York or an ice cream parlor in North Carolina - and ask, "Does anyone want a game?"
"How strong are you?" asks the club secretary.
"I'd rather not tell," you say with a smile.
"It would be good to have an evenly matched game," says the secretary.
"Let them find out for themselves if I'm any good," you grin.
The other players look around and edge away.
"It might be easier to get a game if you'd introduce yourself," says the secretary.
"None of their business," you say.
The bald guy in the corner looks up. "Aren't you the fellow who came in last week wearing a beard? And the week before in a turban?"
"Are you people spying on me?" you shout. "I know my Miranda rights! I have the right to remain silent. How dare you stalk me like this?"
You storm out of the room. The other players look at each other and shake their heads.

Okay, does anyone else find it interesting that the guy who posted this only has one post?

NoSkill wrote:Bad example, but you cannot compare online to IRL.

Might I ask why not? Almost everything online is a reflection of some real thing. Like this forum. The concept is based on discussions occurring in open air Roman forums. And online go boards are based on real ones. The KGS even has rooms for real-life clubs so that you can reflect that onto the internet.

moyoaji wrote:
Okay, does anyone else find it interesting that the guy who posted this only has one post?

he wants to hide his identity to insult people, Funny considering by his logic the admins should tell me who he is.

But PLEASE stay on topic people. Is it okay for admins to publicly reveal # of accounts, other Ids, ip, or other private info without consent or abuse

EDIT;

IRL cannot be compared sometimes because online you often do not really know who you are talking to, their gender, age, etc. some Activites online cannot be done IRL

If pushed for a good example of what I was doing it would be this: at go congress I sit at a go board and if someone asks me to play I will, and if they ask for my rank I will either say my rank or say I would rather not say because it is more interesting if we don't know each others ranks. I do not see a problem with that, and if someone really would not play me because of that then someone else would.

moyoaji wrote:Okay, does anyone else find it interesting that the guy who posted this only has one post?

It's called meta-sarcasm, get it? *wink*

Me neither.


Also, my prediction is that this thread is about to be admin-locked for lack of useful discussion and spiraling into personal attacks and name calling.

NoSkill wrote:Is it okay for admins to publicly reveal # of accounts, other Ids, ip, or other private info without consent or abuse

I don't think there are any rules of conduct for admins describing these scenarios. If there were, javaness and the bunch would've given an answer already.

I expect the endresult to be: KGS is private property, you have no rights, admins can basically do what they want, deal with it. (Which is how we started out?)

NoSkill wrote:Is it okay for admins to publicly reveal # of accounts, other Ids, ip, or other private info without consent or abuse?

I would say "no." Admins should never use their privileges to reveal personal user data without good cause or consent.

However, it doesn't sound like the admins did this to you. They gave out no identifying information about you and only said that you were someone that had multiple accounts. That could mean you are anyone. I suppose you could consider the fact that you have multiple accounts alone to be private info, but I don't think I'd agree with that.

For example, if one of the admins on here said that some new user on the forums was actually a second account for some other user then people would know that, but it wouldn't tell them anything about who this new user was.

I know you said you don't like analogies, but that's like giving a vague hint in an scavenger hunt. "There is an object on your list under a tree in that forest over there!" I guess I might not have thought to look in the forest, but if I cared to find the object it wouldn't really make it any easier and I still wouldn't know what I was looking for.

I will agree that your case was likely embarrassing, but you have to understand that the admin was likely curious as to why you were not free about giving your rank and then saw that you had created many accounts from your IP - which looks like you are a sandbagger. Whether or not that is the case, it is like the previous analogy of the cop. You were doing something suspicious that people who do things wrong commonly do - that looks bad. You have to understand that you are not the only person on the KGS. It is the duty of the admins in the teaching ladder to protect newer users, especially considering how prevalent sandbagging and other abuse used to be on the KGS. This information remaining private is not as important as the other users' enjoyment; there are a lot more of them there are of you.

BigDoug wrote:

Kirby wrote:No, I don't think that listening to users means making all the changes that they want. But given the amount of change that's happened in, say, the last decade... I think there's evidence that not much listening happens.

Look at any successful, widely used software product, and you'll see the difference.

As a parent, this discussion is familiar.

Parent's perspective:

Stage 1 : I want item X / I want to do activity X
Stage 2 : Suggestion isn't approved
Stage 3 : You don't care about my feelings at all!!
Stage 4 : Outpouring of self-pity
Stage 5 : Son or daughter continues to live at parent's house
Stage 6 : Interval before going to stage 1

Forum viewer's perspective:

Stage 1 : I want feature X
Stage 2 : Suggestion isn't implemented
Stage 3 : You don't care about the feelings of the user community at all!!
Stage 4 : Outpouring of self-righteousness
Stage 5 : Poster continues to play on KGS
Stage 6 : Interval before going to stage 1

After a few dozen episodes, the patterns become familiar enough.

BigDoug wrote:

Kirby wrote:No, I don't think that listening to users means making all the changes that they want. But given the amount of change that's happened in, say, the last decade... I think there's evidence that not much listening happens.

Look at any successful, widely used software product, and you'll see the difference.

As a parent, this discussion is familiar.

Parent's perspective:

Stage 1 : I want item X / I want to do activity X
Stage 2 : Suggestion isn't approved
Stage 3 : You don't care about my feelings at all!!
Stage 4 : Outpouring of self-pity
Stage 5 : Son or daughter continues to live at parent's house
Stage 6 : Interval before going to stage 1

Forum viewer's perspective:

Stage 1 : I want feature X
Stage 2 : Suggestion isn't implemented
Stage 3 : You don't care about the feelings of the user community at all!!
Stage 4 : Outpouring of self-righteousness
Stage 5 : Poster continues to play on KGS
Stage 6 : Interval before going to stage 1

After a few dozen episodes, the patterns become familiar enough.

By the way, Dad. Your analogy also fails in that it ignores the importance of the users. KGS is a community built on user created content. Without the users, it is nothing. People don't come to KGS for the software, but to play go and chat with the users. There's lots of other go software for other things (eg. multigo).

A better analogy might be a pro sports stadium. The KGS software is like a stadium. People come there to play. But spectators come for the players, and not the stadium.

And the KGS admins? Maybe they are the keepers of the stadium - janitors, perhaps.

Ignore your users, and you've got an empty stadium with nobody playing.

leichtloeslich wrote:I don't think there are any rules of conduct for admins describing these scenarios. If there were, javaness and the bunch would've given an answer already.

Note that despite given numerous opportunities to explain the policy, the KGS admins never once claimed that there are no rules or policies covering the hypothetical situation. Instead, they hid behind saying it depended on the exact context, despite a clear context being given and multiple users asking for a response.

leichtloeslich wrote:I expect the endresult to be: KGS is private property, you have no rights, admins can basically do what they want, deal with it. (Which is how we started out?)

That's a pretty horrible attitude, and I can find earlier posts by WMS himself that he expects admins to follow certain standards. That said, in practice he tends to side with the admins and in general does not want to be bothered with user vs. admin issues.

NoSkill wrote:

moyoaji wrote:
Okay, does anyone else find it interesting that the guy who posted this only has one post?

he wants to hide his identity to insult people, Funny considering by his logic the admins should tell me who he is.

But PLEASE stay on topic people. Is it okay for admins to publicly reveal # of accounts, other Ids, ip, or other private info without consent or abuse

Would it be doubly interesting if this doubles my number of posts? Yes, I cleverly hid my identity by using my own name. The analogy between internet and IRL interactions may be fair if one believes that standards of fair play apply even when one is not in the same room as one's opponent.

But to the topic being spun out of a request to give an estimate of one's strength in a game request: in the original incident starting this thread did anyone have private information, IDs etc. revealed in public? Or has that ever even happened?

The problem is the admins stated in public that I had multiple accounts without permission for no reason. I did not care if people knew that, but they should not have said that. I would not give a rank unless I felt like it, as that is within my rights.. No admin really argued that but maybe the fact I was asking for a free game without a rank upset them and that is why they said the multiple ID thing?

I'm not horribly sympathetic to the people who are razzing the KGS admins, but I want to repeat my question because I feel it's so simple and must have a yes/no answer. So take me, for example - most of my KGS-related activity is pointless, sometimes I look at my opponent's profiles because I want to know why he speaks such strange English or how long he has been playing or how often he plays or whatever else. Sometimes if there's a link in the profile I follow it and like, read his blog or something. Whatever. Simple idle curiosity. Now, if a KGS admin was simply curious and wanted to know someone's IP just because, is that totally okay/totally not okay/a little weird?

Oh, and:

moyoaji wrote: Okay, does anyone else find it interesting that the guy who posted this only has one post?

Dude, you joined the forum two weeks ago!