Free email supports have spam lists... why not have a list under options of pseudonyms I do not wish to play with?

Passworded games don't accomplish the same thing only because they require more effort. maintgallant wants a brain-dead easy way to leave a game public except deny access to certain players.

That said, this is too easily circumvented to be useful, and there are plenty of other areas of phpdiplomacy that could use improvement instead.

I somehow don't like the thinking behind this idea.

If someone pissed you off a lot you might decide to 'block' him in the moment - but maybe if you had the random chance to play another game with the same person a couple of months later you'll end up with a different experience?

Do we really need more tools to tell each-other to f**k off? :)

well, it wouldn't 100% ensure that you wouldn't ever play with that person again. for instance:

say I am the thrid person to join a game, then the 4th andt 5th person join, and then, someone who I have had a really bad experience with joins as the 6th player. you would still end up playing a game with him, because there is no quit option even during the pre-game. that IMO is a far more important issue, the fact that once you join a game you can't leave it, even if it's still in the pregame.

It would be easy to circumvent, but I'm guessing the majority of meta-gamers would simply not spend the time to do so. They would make their own game and others would come to them or enter a game without restrictions. Multi-accounters are a different issue, but I wonder if the work to create a new account, or taking the time to enter a game where a few of those accounts are blocked would again deter much of it. Also, if a multi-accounter tried to use a secondary account to control a country in CD, not knowing which account would work (if any) might deter them from joining a game they knew had restrictions (I think these restrictions should be hidden until the attempt to log-in is actually denied).

Regrettably, it doesn't seem that anybody knows how much of a problem multi-accounting is. Are there sevaral persons with a lot of accounts or many persons with two accounts? What percentage of all accounts are not the primary (or original) pseudonym.

The easiest to know would be an anonymous online survey, but Kestas, et. al. would have to create it.

Finally, such a restriction list would make me feel more in control over my own gaming experience. Whether it actually has the intended effect may be subsidiary to my gaming experience.

Finally, there are pseudonyms I don't want to play with, regardless of whether they are honest gamers or not.

That last mail was in response to Dunecat.

I'm kinda with Ivo. I've had a game where I brutally backstabbed a player. He was mad. I mean really mad... IRL mad.

A few weeks later, I found myself in a game with him. I took time to explain about how I play each game differently, and to not take my actions in the previous game in account when playing the current game (don't metagame, basically), and he did. We ended up allying in that game, and I think he actually won the second game...

If you have a serious issue (multis, ethnic slurs/harassment), take it up with the mods and get the player banned. No one likes a cheater or a harasser. Other than that, don't metagame ;)

I don't like making accusations over the forum. It has little class, and there's a chance I might accuse an innocent person. Also, I'm guessing the mods have better things to do than track down every complaint they get. My family has two computers and I frequent the local library. While I've never tried, I imagine it's fairly easy to get away with multi-accounting. Metagaming is a cakewalk, should I ever choose to do so.

@ maintgallant - you said " don't like making accusations over the forum. It has little class, and there's a chance I might accuse an innocent person"

yet you want a system that allows you to blacklist the same possibly innocent person? :)

lol... Just as there are people I don't wish to carpool with to work! ;-)

There's a difference between being stabbed, maneavering an ally or opponent with words, and being a total jerk to them.

IT HAPPENS, PEOPLE! GET OVER IT!!! lol

I don't think this is a good idea. It's too negative. If you suspect someone is multi accounting, you let a mod know, you don't blacklist them. If you suspect someone is metagaming you let them know it's against the rules or suggest to the other players that they should be taken out, not blacklist them. If you just don't get along, then you learn to mature and reconcile them or you take them out of the game (satisfying!), this is a part of Diplomacy, you don't blacklist them.

but blacklisting is so much fun!!!!!!!

Thank you all for your comments. I don't think of it as blacklisting as much as creating a personalized experience on the site. One of the phpDiplomacy weaknesses may be a lack of site definition. It's hard to find a "community" or even a sense of it with so much happening all the time and so many different personalities.

Black listing, specifically, I think of as a public name list that persons can add names to, and you're right, black lists have no place here.

I have to say I think there is a strong community here, although I admit that is largely made up of the players who've been here from before the forum got this crowded. Kestas has made a few minor changes to the forum in his dev work (whether he feels they're worth putting in the next version I don't know), so I don't want to do anything about it until we see how/if those work out. However, if nothings done I don't see why the forum couldn't be modified, although as with any change, the various side-effects need to be looked at in depth.

I'd offer to help but have zero programming skills.