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[QUOTE=Marshmallow Marshall;876309]There has been talks, both in the community and among staff, about the "Who is Online" function, mainly because of FM: people being called out because they're on the thread without posting while they simply left the tab open, people being suspected for using invisible mode, people using "activity tells", etc. What do you think should be done about this?[/QUOTE]

Hmmm.

[COLOR="#00FFFF"]First Idea:[/COLOR] I think discussion of "Who is Online" activity should be somehow out-ruled.

Firstly, it makes a poor argument or basis for an argument IMO since there's already a tolerance or acceptance in the FM community that people have IRL stuff to deal with and therefore might not post later in a day phase or have to post only early in a day phase. I feel that any argument using "being online" & "viewing this page" activity as a basis conflicts with this tolerance of IRL influences that have nothing to do with the game, such as leaving the tab on.

Also, I feel its an unfair determination that (either intentionally or unintentionally) presents a sort of bias against those who aren't clandestine when they view the forum and those who are. The point being, if you accuse one person based on being "online" and viewing the page; while someone else (that is part of the game) is posing as a guest through (for example) Chrome's Incognito mode and otherwise doing the exact same thing, then you would accuse one person without being aware that you could have or would accused another person of the same if you had knew they were online too.

Secondly, with that information sometimes you can COM hunt in anonymous games by analyzing when certain accounts are online or not at what times over a section of time -- not that matters too much since COM hunting is often (if not always) banned in anonymous games.

I have [COLOR="#00FFFF"]another idea[/COLOR], though I don't know if its feasible or not since I've never developed a website:

Maybe for FM game pages, you de-facto hide all online accounts / remove the "viewing this page" feature. And on the main/home page, hide all anonymous account online statuses (Because if you did only the previous statement, that wouldn't prevent people in Anon games from looking on the main web page to see which Anon accounts are online).


[COLOR="#FFFF00"]EDIT: I was typing this reply before MM put up or added the poll to this thread[/COLOR]

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

There has been talks, both in the community and among staff, about the "Who is Online" function, mainly because of FM: people being called out because they're on the thread without posting while they simply left the tab open, people being suspected for using invisible mode, people using "activity tells", etc. What do you think should be done about this?

Hmmm.

First Idea: I think discussion of "Who is Online" activity should be somehow out-ruled.

Firstly, it makes a poor argument or basis for an argument IMO since there's already a tolerance or acceptance in the FM community that people have IRL stuff to deal with and therefore might not post later in a day phase or have to post only early in a day phase. I feel that any argument using "being online" & "viewing this page" activity as a basis conflicts with this tolerance of IRL influences that have nothing to do with the game, such as leaving the tab on.

Also, I feel its an unfair determination that (either intentionally or unintentionally) presents a sort of bias against those who aren't clandestine when they view the forum and those who are. The point being, if you accuse one person based on being "online" and viewing the page; while someone else (that is part of the game) is posing as a guest through (for example) Chrome's Incognito mode and otherwise doing the exact same thing, then you would accuse one person without being aware that you could have or would accused another person of the same if you had knew they were online too.

Secondly, with that information sometimes you can COM hunt in anonymous games by analyzing when certain accounts are online or not at what times over a section of time -- not that matters too much since COM hunting is often (if not always) banned in anonymous games.

I have another idea, though I don't know if its feasible or not since I've never developed a website:

Maybe for FM game pages, you de-facto hide all online accounts / remove the "viewing this page" feature. And on the main/home page, hide all anonymous account online statuses (Because if you did only the previous statement, that wouldn't prevent people in Anon games from looking on the main web page to see which Anon accounts are online).


EDIT: I was typing this reply before MM put up or added the poll to this thread