Hello. I've got an idea to avoid insane long waiting times for challenges. I have to consider the fact that there are people who sign up their accound and then never visit the page again, so my idea is to create a function (that is run via cronjob) that will look through all open challenges (that means "player a" challenged "player b", "player b" shows no reaction, he/she doesn't accept/decline it) and will delete all open challenges that are in this situation for two weeks. while it get's deleted, the challenged player will also get a penalty point because he/she didn't accept/decline it.

I want you to vote whether you agree to this thing or not. The script would be run once or twice a day because it is not that time-critical when talking about "weeks". If it would get in, I would also include the information to the Rules Page of course. Be aware of the fact that a open challenge info page will show you the date when you were challenged. However, I might include a warning message (or color the match in yellow in the Your Matches Page) once you got only a few days left to accept/decline it.

Beside this I gonna ban all user accounts that have their "last login" date older than 30 days.

It might be a good idea IF we also get email notification of challanges
Yeah people should at least once per week log into the ladder page but it would be nice after all..

It makes sense.. allthough I dont understand why a cornjob is needed This would also need to take "time-outs" into consideration.

Edit:
Timeout was my name for inactivity

I could also include the function to index.php, but then it would run every time the users open the page which is too much load IMO. running it every hour or so should be enough, and that's best done via cronjob

esteel: I will think about it (email notification)

I think two weeks is diefinately to short time. Hey, summer's coming, holidays You know.

If You'd written two MONTHS for the challenges, three Months for the ladder membership, okay. Why u have to hurry like that? It's not that plenty of people that have joined the ladder. I think many of them joined but want to increase their skills furst, and don't have time to exercise every day.

Or do You want to finish the ladder until June??

I don't think I'll overload the "I have too much reallife for playing nexuiz but I sign up anyway because it's cool" people by forcing them to "log in" (and nothing more) at least once a month and to at least accept/decline a challenge within two weeks

arguments like "holidays" are nonsense because of the inactivity button

@esteel: I put email notification to the To-do list

Do You really think ppl join the ladder "because it's cool"????

Maybe yer right, I don't agree exactly w You. Likely because it's really that RL thing You can't believe. It's been a quite long tyme since I've joined the ladder, I had only 2 matches.
Actually it's not only my fault. The last days, having time for a match or two, I couldn't find too many ppl on IRC, and even if theyre online, they don't talk to You. Some other are never seen on IRC. I'm a little pissed of that I have to confess.

Ok maybe I understand You GreEn....

Hehe i really hope this does not affect accepted challanges as i feel really bad the last days. Think i'm on the edge of getting sick. And my open challanges right now are really hard ones so i want to be in a better shape from them
Urmel: Yeah there are much more people in the ladder then i have ever seen on irc. But well the PMs should also work to get together for a match but irc is really much easier and faster. So people join us!!!

Problem is that many people either dont care or dont know what IRC is.
Trust me, I was suprized as well but hey, not everyone is oldschool.
Anywho, the e-mail notification might help here a little bit. (although I suck at checking my mail..as stahl nows )

To me it's a bit strange to see such a long list of people that have joined but have never played or even chalanged someone.
We should have a thing that if you dont have your first match in a certain amount of time, you're out. Might clean up the ladder page a great deal.

Oh almost everyone in the list is at least challanged (the small 'vs XXX' beside the name shows) so its just that people either do not know, do not play or have other problems. Though we did not hear about any problems except ping when playing people in other continents and thats nothing we can change. So maybe the people just did not noticed they have been challanged or have no idea they have to actively get in touch with the challanger/challangee to get the match done. Or they have no idea about the report but there are now enough up so they can almost copy them
So i guess its they do not know about being challenged

I'm not in the ladder yet, so I guess I don't have that much to say but here's an idea anyways

* E-mail notification is very important in this kind of things. People need to know what's happening without checking the ladder page every day. Every day will soon turn into once a week and later on, once a month and finally when they remember it exists... So, good you're working on this.
If possible, provide e-mails with full explanation in them of what the player is supposed to do and how to do it, depending on the situation you're sending the mail for..

* Banning accounts is rather brute, don't you think so? I would suggest an account becomes "inactive" after two months of not logging in. Inactive accounts are not shown on the mainpage (maybe provide a link on it to go to inactive accounts). When accounts are set inactive, none can challenge those players and all the pending matches get declined.
If ones account is set inactive, notify him by e-mail but give him a chance to activate his account again.

omg, soo much work requested in one paragraph ^^

I will soon work start working on the email notification. it will be configurable (on/off) in the edit profile page. however, I'm not sure WHAT and WHEN activate email notification

possible notifications:
- mail to challenged: at a new challenge (telling to visit the "your matches" page and accept/decline the match)
- mail to challenger at the "challenge accepted/declined" event
- mail to the one who didn't write the report: mail that the other player entered the match report
- mail to the one who wrote the report: notification that the match report was accepted/declined and that the match can now be found at show matches page


what do you think which of these emails is important ? all of them ? I'm really not sure, but taking in all of them would really completely inform the user about everything that happens with his account

about banning: it is possible to "hide" a user account without banning it, however I would have to code something again to send the appropiate emails to the user who get's banned and I'm pretty lazy xD
I'm still tending to simply ban the people as they obviosly don't show any interests in the ladder. However I might perhaps code a real "clean-up" function that automatically informs all people who have accounts with login date older than lets say 3 weeks, giving them the chance to login within the last week, if they don't they have been inactive for four weeks and get automatically banned (perhaps with mail notification as well)

GreEn`mArine wrote:omg, soo much work requested in one paragraph ^^

I will soon work start working on the email notification. it will be configurable (on/off) in the edit profile page. however, I'm not sure WHAT and WHEN activate email notification

possible notifications:
- mail to challenged: at a new challenge (telling to visit the "your matches" page and accept/decline the match)
- mail to challenger at the "challenge accepted/declined" event
- mail to the one who didn't write the report: mail that the other player entered the match report
- mail to the one who wrote the report: notification that the match report was accepted/declined and that the match can now be found at show matches page

what do you think which of these emails is important ? all of them ? I'm really not sure, but taking in all of them would really completely inform the user about everything that happens with his account

All the above seems valid as options in the profile imo.

about banning: it is possible to "hide" a user account without banning it, however I would have to code something again to send the appropiate emails to the user who get's banned and I'm pretty lazy xD
I'm still tending to simply ban the people as they obviosly don't show any interests in the ladder. However I might perhaps code a real "clean-up" function that automatically informs all people who have accounts with login date older than lets say 3 weeks, giving them the chance to login within the last week, if they don't they have been inactive for four weeks and get automatically banned (perhaps with mail notification as well)

And another feature request: "Delete me" link. Since i realized that i wont heve time to fiddel with this ladder, specialy if there's a 3-4 weak timeout. I simply dont have time to log onto the ladder page every now and then when im on a big project (time in a 'relivive' way, sure i could take the time to do so; but then ill have to remeber it, and during intense work periods i just wont do that.) I think its mutch more gracefull to be able to remove yer own account insted of wating to be banned .

I think that, if people want to have their account deleted, they should rather ask an admin to ban them instead of providing such an abusable option

All the above seems valid as options in the profile imo.

I don't think that I will make every single email selectable but only a single "Email notification" option that will automatically send all of these mails

tZork wrote:And another feature request: "Delete me" link. Since i realized that i wont heve time to fiddel with this ladder, specialy if there's a 3-4 weak timeout. I simply dont have time to log onto the ladder page every now and then when im on a big project (time in a 'relivive' way, sure i could take the time to do so; but then ill have to remeber it, and during intense work periods i just wont do that.) I think its mutch more gracefull to be able to remove yer own account insted of wating to be banned .

I think it would be better to have the possibility to "hide indefinetly" that works as an inactivity until you turn if off.. Maybe you are going on holiday for mosnth.. or get a big project.. or something.. but you want to get back into the ladder when you're back...

well, I could change the code so that people who are inactive won't become just grey (and unchallengable) but disappear instead, but I would have to setup a vote for that before again

GreEn`mArine wrote:I think that, if people want to have their account deleted, they should rather ask an admin to ban them instead of providing such an abusable option

Just curiose, how would this be abuseable?

All the above seems valid as options in the profile imo.

I don't think that I will make every single email selectable but only a single "Email notification" option that will automatically send all of these mails

Oki. Personaly ide set em as individual options so allow the user to cose what info he wants, but "all or nothing" is better then "nothing or nothing"

tZork wrote:
Just curiose, how would this be abuseable?

Imagine Yer like #1 in teh Ranking and someone's really pissed of Yer skills, hacks himself into Yer account and deletes it. I tink thats what GreEn considers as "abusable", me2 btw

Urmel aus dem Eis wrote:

tZork wrote:
Just curiose, how would this be abuseable?

Imagine Yer like #1 in teh Ranking and someone's really pissed of Yer skills, hacks himself into Yer account and deletes it. I tink thats what GreEn considers as "abusable", me2 btw

Imagine not making a ladder system that allows sql injection and enforcing good passwords. Then imagine how fustrated this hakker ould be. also, if teh system is hakkable other bad things can happen..

tZork wrote:Imagine not making a ladder system that allows sql injection and enforcing good passwords. Then imagine how fustrated this hakker ould be. also, if teh system is hakkable other bad things can happen..

Not vulnerable to SQL injection... are you trying to tell me... that there are OTHER language than PHP?

divVerent wrote:

tZork wrote:Imagine not making a ladder system that allows sql injection and enforcing good passwords. Then imagine how fustrated this hakker ould be. also, if teh system is hakkable other bad things can happen..

Not vulnerable to SQL injection... are you trying to tell me... that there are OTHER language than PHP?

Hehe n1

I just realized a non hakk related abuse with this tho. Since you do start out with 1000 points and can go below this, all one would do to reset that would be to delete and re-register. ofc a person with access to multiple email addys can do this anyways.

First of all, the 1 month period is too short imho. Some people realy commit themselves to actively participate in the ladder, but for others it might just be fun to play a match from time to time. For those people it would could become a burdon if they're forced to do something every month. That's why I suggested the (automatic) inactivate option, so they can reactivate when they feel like.

About e-mail notification:

1) When they join the ladder : e-mail should contain all rules and explain completely what to do and when to do it.
2) When someone is challanged : explain to the challenged one what to do (go to the website and accept/decline) and how to do it. Tell him to contact the challeneger etc.
3) When a match is declined/accepted : notify the challenger the match was declined/accepted
4) mail to the one who didn't write the report: mail that the other player entered the match report
5) mail to the one who wrote the report: notification that the match report was accepted/declined and that the match can now be found at show matches page
6) After a period of 1 month of inactivity, notify the player he hasn't been active for one month. Tell him his account will be inactivated after another month if he doesn't react.
7) After two months of inactivity notify the player his account has been inactivated. Tell him how to activate his account again if he should feel like it.

That's what I can think of for the moment. I wouldn't give people the choice to activate or deactivate e-mail notification. Just send them

Those ideas from Toets seem to be very good. Make them options so you can choose in the profile which ones you really need. At least the PM notification on login in the ladder seems to work fine, but maybe people would also like to get a mail telling them.

I think completely deleting a account is impossible, at least if i would have done the database holding the matches.. it would be

I hvae to think about all this input I get from you guys

I think I gonna introduce two checkboxes for the profile page: one for emailing for matches/challenges (roughly covering all the points that Toets mentioned, there won't be individual options for every single point of toets list, too much work, I'm lazy) and one for "notify on new PMs"

I gonna start doing that at this Weekend or at next week

about deleting an account: accounts cannot be deleted, they get "banned" which means that the one who owns the account cannot login anymore and also can't register a new account with that name or the email he used for that account

well, I started with the email notifications

the little part in edit profile page is already done (2 checkboxes, one for match notification and one for new PMs)

I think I gonna include all points 1-5

for points 5 and 6 there will also be emails, however this part is still unclear


This is the situation here (locally):

- checkboxes in Edit Profile page done
- PM notification done
- Point 1 from Toets list done
- Point 2 from Toets list done
- added notification email when the challenger deleted the (still unacceoted/undeclined) challenge
- Point 3 from Toets list done
- Point 4 from Toets list done
- Point 5 from Toets list done

I will now start coding. All open challenged that have not been accepted for 14 days will be deleted and the one who didn't accept it will get a penalty point

for future matches there will be an extra notification email which the challenged player will get after 10 days, telling him that the match will get deleted after 4 days and that he/she will get an PP

okay, after I spent quite a few hours to do this, here is the first Release Candidate version. I tested it on another ladder installation and it behaved nicely

Here is the source, any PHP coder might look at this and tell me if something is still wrong:
http://pastebin.com/659270

GreEn

PS: I will now start working on a mass-mail option for superadmins of the ladder. I will, once it's finished, immediately use it to send all players an email which says that the cleaner becomes active in one week, so that they have time to login and accept/decline their open matches
PPS: argh, I think I should also include an notification for accounts that have not logged in for xx days (till now they will jsut get disabled and get a email immediately without having a chance to login before)

the "PPS" should be also solved now, here's the new code

http://pastebin.com/659307

of course I will delete the "accountreminder" flag in the cleanups table if a user clicks on the "Reactivate my account" button because otherwise he wouldn't get a reminder email if he used to be inactive, reactivated his accout and becomes inactive again

btw ... what do you think about the timeframes .. are they okay ?

GreEn`mArine wrote:btw ... what do you think about the timeframes .. are they okay ?

Like you already know, I think the timeframe of one month might be too short. I know you think 2 months is too long so I would send a notification after 30 days and inactivate after 45 days...

After reading every post now and reading the last one of greens, I got confused. Is the ability to get inactive in 1-2 months there or will the user get banned?
In any way, banning a user because he/she didn't login for 1-2 months (whatever the time in the end will be) is harsh. Just delete the account not ban it. Why would you want to do that? If it's "easier to make" you will get a lot of complaints about this from many users (if nexuiz ever will expand ). If my account for "ai" would get banned and I couldn't re-register with this nick I wouldn't want to register on the ladder, and I think many people think like me (not being negative, just like this nick very much ).
The inactive thing suggested I think it was by Toets I thought was a great idea, and that you have the ability to activate it again.

I for one have stacks of work all of a sugged (didn't have when I registered) and I cannot find that much time playing (just spent about two months doing harsh schoolwork, and as someone else mentioned I totaly forgot about nexuiz and the ladder). I am also registered on other ladders in other games as well and if I did have time to play I don't wanna feel like I'm obligated to play just this game otherwise I'm banned. Losing points and that I'm not too worried about, but losing the nick I am. I play games to relax and because it's fun, not make it a living.

I know that's a lot of negativity from me, but just my opinion on the ban thing . Just inactivate the accounts.