FC Blacklists

[GilbertLapine]

Hi All,

I'd like to see an FC blacklist feature added to the game, but before posting this in the "Suggestions" forum, I just wanted to float the idea in general discussion to see if there's any community support for it. Before you read on, I need to clarify that this 'Blacklist' would be different from the player-by-player 'Blacklist' were all familiar with, so I'm not outright asking that FC's be able to stipulate who their members can and can't talk to.

Basically, the feature would be an additional tab for the FC menu where players can be blacklisted to be barred from joining (locking out the option to invite that player until blacklist ban is lifted). It would be interested to have an option for players to 'add FC blacklist' to their own personal blacklist to block /tell, but that is possibly a different discussion.

My main concern is that I've dealt with issues where FC members are being harassed by non-FC people, and regardless if the GMs take action (and theres a temporary ban or whatever), I'd like to have the option to prevent them from ever being invited to the FC by an officer that simply didn't know the situation.

I'm planning on starting a blacklist in our officer forum, but that will require the officers to check the list every time they recruit someone. Ideally it wont be a long list, but anticipating our FC will be around for the length of service, I imagine we could rack up a few names over the next decade or so.

Sounds like it's too much effort for them to consider in the near future TBH, but in time when the game is doing well (here's hoping) they'll have enough "free" time to get around to something like this.

Indeed. I just should hope that adding a tab using an existing template (lets say the FC member's page), and a few extra lines of code to pop an error when inviting a flagged player, wouldn't be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming for them. It seems like the kind of afterthought feature that could easily be tacked on to a weekly maintenance update, not something needing to be part of a major patch. The most difficult part, I should think, would be deciding where the list would be stored, which should only be a 20-30 minute exercise for a skilled programmer that knows the systems. Maybe longer if there's some kind of dependency issue, but if the feature were implemented solely as a way to block invites, it should only need a cozy place to store the player IDs that wont affect anything else, and some kind of function to check it and throw an error if it returns true when an invite is attempted.

Honestly your officers should be communicating with other officers before just randomly inviting someone. Sounds like you came up with a solution yourself. If your officers can't check your list before they invite someone then they don't need that position.

I understand what you're saying, but there's a limit to where simple word of mouth, or even a forum post, will be effective, especially once you pass the 40-or-so member mark. Furthermore, time is an issue -- what you suggest either requires that every entry-level officer with invite rights be briefed on the blacklist and required to check it every time an application comes along (which human error dictates will not always happen), or that inviting be restricted to higher ups. A smaller FC wouldn't have a problem with this, but any FC with aspirations to grow past 100 members is going to start to have issues, even assuming only 1 in 4 members are granted invite rights.

I fail to see the point of such a feature. It should be up to an individual to blacklist someone, not for an officer in a free company to decide for everyone.

You have a kick feature. Use it. If someone is inviting them back in, take their power away or kick them too. There is no problem here that isn't addressible with existing functionality.

I agree about /tell, but like I said I'd be interested to see an option for players to import the FC blacklist into their own /tell blacklist. However, the primary purpose of an FC blacklist, and the reason I proposed it, is to prevent members with invite rights from unwittingly (or, indeed, maliciously) inviting someone who's been placed on it. While I get what you're saying about just kicking them out, that premise is making several generous assumptions about the right people being on at the right time. By the time someone with the correct authorization is on and able to do something about the situation, the significant damage may already have been done.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's a feature that would need to be implemented right away, but personally I think it has merit. While I see how existing functionality can, clumsily, handle the set of scenarios in which an FC blacklist would be useful, the feature would be far more efficient and useful to FCs in avoiding problems.

That said, I'm not entirely sold myself, and can see the opposite argument that it simply may not be worth the resources, but I think you're a bit overzealous in writing it off so quickly.

[Pinworms]

Honestly your officers should be communicating with other officers before just randomly inviting someone. Sounds like you came up with a solution yourself. If your officers can't check your list before they invite someone then they don't need that position.

[Siegtaru]

I can see how this would have been much easier to manage without the feature being necessary in, say, a game with a much tighter-knit community due to lack of population based on what server you were on (for a long time, at least). I don't know if this feature is absolutely necessary, but I can see how keeping track of peoples names (Especially first and last) can become more troublesome as the population continues to grow. It could be somewhat helpful, as I'd hate to have to manage some sort of list in a subforum of my FC's forums and know who's pissed off who in our FC, in case these people, for some reason, like to try and trick officers who don't know any better. Sounds like it's too much effort for them to consider in the near future TBH, but in time when the game is doing well (here's hoping) they'll have enough "free" time to get around to something like this.

[Alhanelem]

I fail to see the point of such a feature. It should be up to an individual to blacklist someone, not for an officer in a free company to decide for everyone.

You have a kick feature. Use it. If someone is inviting them back in, take their power away or kick them too. There is no problem here that isn't addressible with existing functionality.

[GilbertLapine]

Thanks for the comments and perspectives thus far, be great to see if anyone else cares about this!