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Posted by: ReZeNeR
What about the group of members who don’t have linked tags?
Some have linking issues and can’t link their tag. Others casually visit this site and don’t wish to link their tag, some for privacy reasons, and others just because they don’t wish too. How about the members without linked gamertags who play Halo 3 to some degree and know how gametypes work and can give feedback appropriately?
Should we just stomp on them and say, “No, you can’t participate?” Just because a handful of spammers who waste their lives creating ALTs, should we turn the Optimatch forum into a lockdown board where only certain people can join?
I’m sick of you people taking these spammers so seriously that it affects your mood and “fun factor” on B.net. They’re barely noticeable; the Forum Ninjas do a great job keeping the Optimatch forum clean. And if you make Optimatch linked tag only, where will the spam go? Into other forums of course. You’re not fixing the problem; you’re only temporally avoiding it while it spills into other areas of the site.
Again, I don’t see a major problem here. All of these suggested tools to combat spammers are a waste of resources and time while having the current banning system in place. Maybe having the banning system ban mac addresses will effectively reduce spammers but that itself requires a lot of work to combat a problem that’s a minor nuisance. Silver memberships are free. People could easily create another one and link it to an ALT to spam away so that option is out of the question except allowing gold accounts.
B.net should remain an open community on all boards like it always has been. You’re letting a handful of spammers wreck this community and having it wall itself in from the internet. I'll address your points in the order that you made them.
For the tiny handful of users who have "linking issues" and cannot link an XBL gold gamertag to a BNet account, that is not a reason to leave the Optimatch Forum open. That issue can be handled on the back end through helpful posts in this forum or elsewhere. At any rate, it has been a long time since I have seen a post from a user complaining about an inability to link a gamertag that was specific to his or her account (as opposed to XBox Live problems).
For casual visitors to the site, linking a gamertag is a process which only takes a few seconds. In fact, it takes longer to create a Windows Live ID and then create a BNet account than it does to link a gamertag. Such a trivial thing as linking a gamertag to a BNet account would merely be a 30-second cost of time in order to provide Matchmaking feedback in the place that Bungie's Matchmaking gurus are most likely to see it. I do not foresee this as being a problem. Can you imagine a post from a user in this forum saying, "I only visit BNet every once in a while. I don't feel like linking a gamertag, but I want to post in the Optimatch forum."? I certainly cannot. In the time that it would take a user to post feedback in the Optimatch Forum, he or she could have linked a gamertag. It's not a big deal. This is my same answer to users who "do not wish to" link a gamertag. I cannot imagine having a reason for not linking a gamertag that is so valid that the user should be allowed to post in the Optimatch Forum despite their "not feeling like" linking up. That's like saying that users who don't "feel like" creating a Bungie.net account should be allowed to post on the public forums as a "guest."
You also mentioned not wanting to link a gamertag for privacy reasons. This is a valid concern, and is the precise reason why you can choose to hide your gamertag to the public (click on "Profile Information"). Therefore, not having a linked gamertag for privacy reasons is not a valid reason to allow access to the Optimatch Forum.
Therefore, my answer to your question of whether we should "just stomp on [the above categories of users without linked gamertags] and say, 'No, you can’t participate?'" is a resounding "yes." Considering the ease of linking a gamertag in any of those circumstances, none of the reasons above are valid enough to justify keeping the Optimatch Forum open solely because of them.
To respond to your rant about being sick of complaints about spammers and trolls, I wholly disagree. A lack of meaningful discussion is a problem. If it were not a problem, there would not be at least one topic on the front page of this forum at all times with the title "We need more moderators" or something similar. If it were not a problem, then the Web Team would never have bothered to take the time to create a "Report as spam" button. If it were barely noticeable, this thread would never have been created. If it were not a problem, then Achronos would have shot down the idea of restricting the Optimatch Forum rather than saying that it will "probably" happen sometime in the future.
Is it a "major" problem? Hell no. It is no more of a "major" problem than the respawn system in Halo 3 is a "major" problem. I have said many times in the past that there is no such thing as a "forum emergency" except in extremely limited circumstances, such as stolen moderator accounts or a direct hack of BNet itself. But when Bungie employees try to visit the forums, they express wonder at the high spam level so frequently that, surely, you have to realize that it is a problem in a forum specifically designed to provide feedback to Bungie about Matchmaking playlists. Bungie sure does.
Indeed, ReZ, you are one of the few people who has continued to flatly refuse to acknowledge that spam is even an issue at all. Sure, we have great moderators, but the fact remains that, for whatever reason, the spam level remains high. Do not forget that just a few months ago, a moderator resigned citing (in part) apathy about the high spam level. Now, the "Report" button does a great job of reducing bad posts in other forums, but for a forum where Bungie employees are supposed to be getting actual Community feedback rather than Arial-10-point vomit, further measures can only serve to help, rather than hurt this goal.
I'll respond last to your hyperbolic finale, just above where you quoted me. I don't know if you actually think this or were exaggerating for the sake of argument, but it is most certainly not true. In no way is requiring a linked gamertag "wall[ing the community] in from the internet." I don't think I even need to mention the blatantly obvious fact that this idea would only restrict the Optimatch, and no other forum, from anybody who does not have a linked gamertag. Similarly, I don't think I have to mention that the Optimatch Forum would remain open to view to all, just not to post in. Instead, I'll remind you of the facts that you seem to have forgotten: any human being on the planet Earth can obtain an XBL gold account. A person who does not play XBox Live has no business posting in the Optimatch Forum, as this forum is designed solely to discuss Halo 3 XBox Live Optimatch Playlists. In that sense, the Optimatch Forum is already "walled in," as an off-topic post is against the rules of that forum.
I'll take it a step further: in the sense that you seem to be thinking about, the Bungie.net forums are already "walled off" in their entirety. In other words, the forums are open to view, but to participate with your own opinion, you have to (God forbid!) register for a BNet account. So yeah, it's restricted. But it's no big deal -- just register an account. Well, in the Optimatch Forum, the new rule would be that you have to not only have a BNet account, but that you must prove that you can actually discuss the topic for which the forum is designed. If a user cannot prove that they own an XBL Gold Account, then they can view the discussions all they want, but can't just pop in to say "hey guys, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I agree." This idea does not "close" the Optimatch Forum, or make it secret, or close off discussion to only the privileged elite for some arbitrary reason. If this idea is a wall from the rest of the internet, then that wall is only a foot high. In every possible sense that you could have meant the statement, the Optimatch Forum and the Community would remain "open."
So I'm sorry that these discussions about improvement of the forums make you "sick." Sometimes, they annoy me too. But spam is a problem here for a whole lot of people, including Bungie employees who are trying to be actively involved in the Community. Discussions about the reduction of spam, flaming, and trolling on the forums themselves are no less valid than the more substantive discussions that are so often destroyed by those same bad posts.
Therefore, I respectfully disagree with your post in its entirety.
[Edited on 12.29.2007 8:54 PM PST]