[Dixonary] OT (not really): I think this game should not be sounfriendly to new and prospective players

[Daniel B. Widdis]

I had thought there was a discussion some time ago about public availability
of messages, and many people were concerned about their email addresses
being publicly available (which they end up being if the group is public).

I can flip the switch to turn on the game if that's what people like. It
may cause an increase in SPAM. (I don't think it can increase on my account
any more, as I haven't been overly careful with this address and I get
something like 2000 SPAM messages a day.)

--
Dan

[Paul Keating]

Dan,

Isn't it true that even when messages are public, a non-member, or a member
not signed in, will only see email addresses with most of the characters
before the @ replaced by an ellipse? I think the concern arose because
players signed on and saw full addresses in postings, and concluded that
because _they_ could see them, anyone could.

Yahoo does the same thing with ellipses and our messages were public there.
I had a dedicated email address for use in the game there, and published
special-purpose address when dealing a round. I did not get a single spam,
not even one, directed to any of those addresses in the entire 2 years we
were there.

So I think the concern about spam is a bit overdone.

But if anyone has concerns, all they have to do is set up a special email
address for the game that can be discarded if it gets spammed. Email
addresses can be had for free, after all.

--
Paul Keating
The Hague

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel B. Widdis" <widdis (AT) gmail (DOT) com>


>
> I had thought there was a discussion some time ago about public
availability
> of messages, and many people were concerned about their email addresses
> being publicly available (which they end up being if the group is public).
>
> I can flip the switch to turn on the game if that's what people like. It
> may cause an increase in SPAM. (I don't think it can increase on my
account
> any more, as I haven't been overly careful with this address and I get
> something like 2000 SPAM messages a day.)

[Hugo Kornelis]

Hi Paul,

(funny - this message did com through on my email, but the one that started
this thread didn't...)

> Isn't it true that even when messages are public, a non-member, or a
> member
> not signed in, will only see email addresses with most of the characters
> before the @ replaced by an ellipse? I think the concern arose because
> players signed on and saw full addresses in postings, and concluded that
> because _they_ could see them, anyone could.

Members saw full addresses on the old Yahoo site. IIRC, Yahoo allowed
members to see their own address and moderators to see all addresses.

The google groups site obscures ALL addresses, even for members and
moderators.

Best, Hugo

[Hugo Kornelis]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hugo Kornelis" <hugo (AT) perFact (DOT) info>
To: <Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com>
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 10:58 AM
Subject: [Dixonary] Re: OT (not really): I think this game should not be so
unfriendly to new and prospective players


>
> Hi Paul,
>
> (funny - this message did com through on my email, but the one that
> started this thread didn't...)

Even more funny is that this message got through, but my own earlier message
did not (or at least not yet - fingers crossed!)

[Tim B]

> I can flip the switch to turn on the game if that's what people like. It
> may cause an increase in SPAM.

FWIW, this is the only place I've ever used this address, and I have
recently begun to receive spam at it.

Best wishes,
Tim B.

[Guerri Stevens]

If a non-member cannot post messages to the group, there will not be
spam posted within the group itself. If a non-member cannot send Email
via the group to one of the group members, that's not a route for spam.
So the only way I can see spam getting to individual members is by a
spammer grabbing email addresses from the text of our messages. Which a
spammer could do now by reading the messages within tapcis.com.

So the chance of more spam might be smaller than we think. Or am I
missing something?

Now Dan, you gave me a reason for keeping the group out of the Google
directory of its groups. I can't remember what the reason was. But
having the group listed in Google's directory (or whatever it is) may be
a separate thing from just making the group public.

Guerri

Daniel B. Widdis wrote:
> I had thought there was a discussion some time ago about public availability
> of messages, and many people were concerned about their email addresses
> being publicly available (which they end up being if the group is public).
>
> I can flip the switch to turn on the game if that's what people like. It
> may cause an increase in SPAM. (I don't think it can increase on my account
> any more, as I haven't been overly careful with this address and I get
> something like 2000 SPAM messages a day.)
>

[JohnnyB]

Hi

Tim said

> FWIW, this is the only place I've ever used this address, and I have recently begun to receive spam at it.

Ditto- again this address is only used for this game and its OT discussions - so far only a couple a of spam a day

I have other gmail addresses, one of which has been in in use for nearly 3 years now and receives no spam at all and another which
has been in use for 2 years and receives on average 300 spam a day. The difference between them is that the former is family only
but the latter was created to take part in a debate on a denominational website (in USA) and hide my surname (for I have a more
famous brother who teaches in Seminary and I didn't want to embarrass him with my views) The denominational website itself is secure
but I very soon learned that the pastors of that denomination are not "wiser than the children of this generation" and some at least
must have unprotected machines that have been harvested. I do like gmail's ability to empty spam with one click

JohnnyB

[Hugo Kornelis]

Hi Guerri,

> But having the group listed in Google's directory (or whatever it is) may
> be a separate thing from just making the group public.

Indeed. There are basically five settings of relevance here:

* Listing the group in the directory of google discussion groups. This is
currently not done, so even if you know the name dixonary, you won't find it
by searching. You will find the group if you navigate to the exact correct
address (groups.google.com/group/Dixonary).

* Allowing non-members to see the contents of the group. Currently set to
no. So a non-member who navigates to the above address (or finds it from the
directory, if it had been included), will see a message that he/she has to
be a member to join, with a link for requesting membership.

* Who can become a member. Can be set to "everyone", "everyone after
approval", or "by invitation only". Currently set to "everyone after
approval" and I think we need to keep it that way. Otherwise, spammers will
apply for membership and send spam until banned.

* Who can post. Can be set to "moderators only", "all members", or "members
and non-members". Currently set to the latter setting and it must remain
that way for the message exchange between the google group and the
tapcis.com forum to work.

* Moderation of messages. Currently set to "messages from non-members are
moderated, messages from members are unmoderated". This means that messages
originating from tapcis.com and posted by someone not a member here are held
in the moderation queue until a moderator approves them, and that spam
messages from non-members are held in the moderation queue until a moderator
rejects them.

The discussion is, I think, about the first two settings: should Dixonary be
included in Googles directory of groups, and should non-members be allowed
to see the content of the group. As far as I can tell, everyone is fine with
the latter three settings.

Best, Hugo

[Guerri Stevens]

If I understand the item quoted below, non-members could post to the
Google Group. That would mean that anyone who could post to tapcis.com
could, essentially, post to the group by posting to the Dixonary forum
within tapcis.com, and I have no problem with that.

If we allow non-members of the Google group to get to the group directly
(not via tapcis.com), however that might be, said non-members would also
be able to post to the group. Their posted messages would be moderated,
so that should all be OK. That is probably the point I was trying to
remember Dan having once made about having the group listed in the
Google directory of groups - spammers or trouble makers could then visit
the group and post to it and the group's management would have to deal
with their postings. It's hard to know how much of a problem it would be
without trying it, or has it already been tried?

Guerri

Hugo Kornelis wrote:
> * Who can post. Can be set to "moderators only", "all members", or
> "members and non-members". Currently set to the latter setting and it
> must remain that way for the message exchange between the google group
> and the tapcis.com forum to work.

[France International]

Hugo,

>
> * Moderation of messages. Currently set to "messages from non-members are
> moderated, messages from members are unmoderated". This means that
messages
> originating from tapcis.com and posted by someone not a member here are
held
> in the moderation queue until a moderator approves them, and that spam
> messages from non-members are held in the moderation queue until a
moderator
> rejects them.
>

Does this mean that anyone under the sun can post to the group? This seems
worrisome. Aren't there individuals who blast massive numbers of posts at
newgroups and couldn't they do the same thing here? The only reason it
hasn't happened yet is because such individual has discovered the group yet.

--Mike

[Daniel B. Widdis]

GS> Now Dan, you gave me a reason for keeping the group out of the
GS> Google directory of its groups. I can't remember what the reason was.

For the sanity of the moderators. :)

It has been mentioned before that posts are moderated, so users don't see
auto-spam posted to group names harvested from the directory. (i.e.,
spammers don't know group members' addresses but they know
Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com). However, the moderators all will. During the
brief time when the group was publicly listed in the directory (when we
first moved) we got about a dozen attempts to send messages.

I'm happy to flip the switch and list the group in the directory and/or make
the text of messages public. I just want confirmation from folks.

FWIW, my opinion is that we essentially _are_ public in tapcis.com which
makes us public in the same way we used to be in the TAPCIS forum. Our
email distribution list is more of a backup means of reaching players who
prefer not to visit a forum (at least without an awesome OLR.)

--
Dan

[Daniel B. Widdis]

MS> Does this mean that anyone under the sun can post to the group?

Anyone who sends an email to Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com (including anyone who
registers at tapcis.com and posts in the Parlor are athere) will have their
message appear to the moderators here. If it's game-related, moderators
approve it and everyone sees it.

By listing in the directory, it is a virtual certainty that spammers will
begin sending messages to Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com and the moderators will
see a lot more messages to moderate. Non-moderator users won't see anything
because we'll delete them before they make it to the group at large.

--
Dan

[Hugo Kornelis]

Guerri wrote:
> If I understand the item quoted below,
(snip)

Your understanding is correct.

> It's hard to know how much of a problem it would be without trying it, or
> has it already been tried?

As far as I know, it has not been tried on google groups, but the coryphaeus
group on Yahoo, that we played on before moving to google groups, was (and
still is) listed in the Yahoo dictionary. I don't think I've ever had to
reject a message here for spam. Neither on Yahoo when we were still playing
there - but the last two or three months, some spam messages have been
posted to the coryphaeus group on Yahoo. Sometimes a few on a single day,
sometimes a week goes by without a single one - it averages out to less than
one per day. I can't speak for the other moderators, but to me, a similar
amount of spam here would not be a problem.


Mike wrote:
> Does this mean that anyone under the sun can post to the group? This seems
> worrisome. Aren't there individuals who blast massive numbers of posts at
> newgroups and couldn't they do the same thing here? The only reason it
> hasn't happened yet is because such individual has discovered the group
> yet.

That danger does exist (but see above for some reality check). If that
should happen, I'd say we correct our mistake and remove the group once more
from the listing. People still in possession of the mail address would not
be affected by that, however, so this is definitely something to consider.


Dan wrote:
> I'm happy to flip the switch and list the group in the directory and/or
> make
> the text of messages public. I just want confirmation from folks.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd say we give it a try.

That's +1 vote for adding the group to the directory, and +1 vote for
allowing non-members to see the group contents.


Dodi wrote:
> Hugo, according to Lindsey--as I understood her message--anyone can read
> the messages in the Parlor forum at the TAPCIS.COM Website. (I can't test
> that, since I'm a forum member, but I don't THINK it's a members-only
> area.)

True. However, I expect that the odds that someone accidentally stumbles
over the tapcis.com website, and then finds the parlor section, are a lot
less than the odds that someone finds us by browsing the google groups
directory (though in all fairness, I don't excpect thousands of people
finding us there either).

Including the group in the directory increases the potential for people we
want involved to find us. However, it also increases the potential for
people we don't want to find us. The latter will only be noticed by
moderators, though - unless the load of spam increases such that the
moderators can't keep up and have to throw in the towel. Allow me to repeat,
for clarity, that I don't exppect this to happen (my expectation is that
spam will gradually increase, and settle at some five to ten messages per
day - an amount that the moderators should be able to handle).


Dan wrote:
> But put yourself in a SPAMmer's mind. Would you program your automated
> trolling device to target a little-known website like tapcis.com, and
> perhaps harvest a few dozen addresses, or a massive site like
> googlegroups.com, where millions of addresses can be found?

Except that no addresses can be found at all, at least not without prior
registration, and aspiring members have to be accepted by a moderator. As it
currently says on the website if you go there wihtout being logged in: "we
welcome new players - just convince us that you are here to play and not to
sell things".


Best, Hugo