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AnonCo. Your Source of Anonymous Accounts

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Jdietz43

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Guys, you're putting the cart before the horse.

When you have a problem, you don't ridicule a potential solution because it might cause problems. At least if the problems are no bigger than the current ones. And especially when it's actually not that big a deal. This is not a matter of life and death. This is not breaking into someone's house.................@dietz.



I'm not asking anyone to do anything. I'm simply providing a means for people who'd like to play anonymously to do so and in a way that can be controlled and monitored. This is essentially the same thing we do with hydra accounts. Mods can allow or disallow AnnonAccounts as much as they can hydras. I'm not going to fight it. I don't care. I'm just giving people a way to play anonymously within forum rules.
I understand lol, but I figured since you were going to take "nothing can be bad" to the extreme I'd illustrate my own point likewise. I understand that this isn't technically being forced on people, but you also have to understand that any game that does accept an anonymous account also has to have a player list that is sold on that, or it's like secondhand smoking; something we may not have room for at this time.



I know it's a touchy subject because known people have already created alternates, sometimes people who don't ever play under their own accounts anymore, and in some cases continue to stay with them. But in the end: I almost prefer that.

Mod IP nonsense and potential advantages aside, I am legitimately worried that the power to make it easy, discardable, and repeatable it will be abused. When people stick with their alts: they retain accountability to the community and to their own play being pro-faction. When you take a new face to try and make a play adjustment that can be a good thing. But when you can take up a purely disposable alt strictly on a one or two game basis I feel like the danger to quality of game becomes much higher. I was just burned on the invite to a player who could have really enjoyed mafia based on the reputation the forum has developed, so I've become pretty mindful that this might be a big pitfall if not done with conscience.


@ #HBC | ZoZo #HBC | ZoZo we mostly already know. Or at least this group does.
 
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Jdietz43

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Sure the identity may not be truly known until much later, but even then it seems like that play experience was received very negatively even though it was a well known player because they felt free to truly let loose on full out attacks on people. These kind of precedents don't make me feel good about the concept of recyclable and disposable *faces* people can don and leave at will. For that to ever be acceptable the general play atmosphere of Dgames would have to take a drastic shift to low to no tolerance for nonsense regardless of person.

My participation in Dgames by no means hinges on the acceptance of accounts like that or anything of the sort etc, but I do fear it already hasn't gone well, and so am going to actively discourage it.
 
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#HBC | ZoZo

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youre basing this on absolutely nothing, wtf? what will make players "truly let loose on full out attacks"? Temporary anonymity? ???? i just dont ****ing get this thought process

if someone is truly that much of a **** to add a ****ton of personal attacks then you will kno who it is eventually regardless and honestly i doubt a player will adopt an anon acc for the sake of flaming people and if they do then, if anything, we know to shun them LOL
 
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#HBC | Ryker

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My boycott has reached four people so far! How many do you think will be truly debilitating?
 
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Jdietz43

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Yes. Unfortunately psychology has proven many many times that even a mild level of anonymity, such as simply only ever talking to someone on the phone can severely change the entire way people handle each other, very very often for the worse, more personally aggressive, and destructive. And I'll be frank: we're bad at handling that sort of thing around Dgames. Very bad. Just changing a name can turn something from just frowny to "Wow what a ****" badtimes based entirely on the fact the personal association is no longer there.

So either we hold the standard immediately and address the player who certain parties felt were noticeably more personally aggressive than normal, or we leave it and it stands as a precedent for people to come in and never truly be held accountable (which is perhaps even a BIGGER problem).

Because either you say "yes" here, or the "he was playing anon it was k" is going to be a problem.

It's a thin line, and I honestly don't think we're in a position where we can handle this sort of thing, so I'm saying no for myself while I have the opportunity.
 

#HBC | ZoZo

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Can we just delete Ryker's posts?

@ Jdietz43 Jdietz43 -> Changing a name is an oddly specific scenario. What are you referring to exactly?
And yes, while that's true, we are also not 4chan, we are a community where everyone pretty much knows everyone. I don't even play mafia anymore and I know Maven joined and what he's been up to just because I check this room regularily. On top of that, this is temporary anonymity, so research is not as applicable as it would be when anonymity is permanent. I also don't see why we can't just hold the standard from the beginning, especially BECAUSE we are a community. If you see someone act out and eventually you discover who it is, ofc they can (and I predict will) be held accountable. I imagine NOBODY in this community (where confrontations are like... extremely common) will go "he was playing anon it was k", and even if that happens, baseless conjecture to decide something like that right now instead of giving it a shot.

I don't think it's a thin line at all. The only one active right now that jumps to mind as someone who would abuse it is Gorf, but then again Gorf gives 0 ****s and probably would've done it on his main acc already if he really felt like it.
 

Jdietz43

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tl;dr

I don't want people saying "I was trying being a different person" to ever be an acceptable excuse for bad behavior. Because I feel like that actually would fly in our community even though it shouldn't. I'm glad you and Zen think really well of us and our ability to handle things, but I just don't see it being properly enforced.
 

#HBC | ZoZo

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tl;dr

I don't want people saying "I was trying being a different person" to ever be an acceptable excuse for bad behavior. Because I feel like that actually would fly in our community even though it shouldn't. I'm glad you and Zen think really well of us and our ability to handle things, but I just don't see it being properly enforced.
Ok I can agree to that much, but I don't think it a reason to take this away from everyone. I also don't judge this community to be one to let that fly, but hey.
 

Circus

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Zen, I love you man.

That's about all I have to say on this subject since I'm kind of not even a mafia player anymore. I'm feeling loose enough to be okay with pretty much anything. If Zen's actually willing to take responsibility for running this, and can find a way for this to actually work within the site's rules, then I don't see a problem with this at least being an option.

It's just not that serious.
 

DtJ S2n

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None of these accounts or any accounts I have reason to believe are alts will be allowed in any game I mod or co-mod and I will not play in any game with an anonymous account in it unless more than half of the playerlist agrees to lynch it on Day 1. In that case, I will vote them and prod dodge until they are dead.
This is all that matters, then. Game Mod most certainly has the right to not allow them, you have the right to not join games w/ them, and you shouldn't play in a game where the Game Mod allows anonymous accounts when the player base agrees to majority lynch them Day 1 anyways. Ultimately if a majority of players don't want anonymous accounts in any given game, then by all means a majority of mods should not host games with them.
 

#HBC | Laundry

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i'm in the middle of an agame but **** it.

Hypotheses are nice, evidence is better. One can hypothesize about the pros and cons of a free market hosting system all they like, but only evidence shows the truth one way or the other. One can hypothesize about the pros and cons of a mafia culture centered around anonymity, but only evidence will show the truth. The amount of bickering in the world about how things will be without any supporting evidence is so cumbersome. Give things a fair trial before knocking it off.
And yet I'm referencing a real, specific game example (aka evidence) while you're talking about a hypothetical fix to the issue of meta. I'd rather have a long specific discussion about meta before proposing individual changes like this because the site needs it.

And no, there was very little time invested into figuring out leviathan's identity in the two games he played. If you think this is the case, please cite so. There wasn't.
Did you ignore the giant ****fit that happened mid D2 when Murderbush outed his thoughts on Levi's true identity? Like Werekill getting so mad he threatened to quit? Or Bardull going all ape**** and being like 'you done ****ed up xonar'? Did you ignore how it carried over for the rest of the game?

The Sleepover game does, however, pose a significant example of the meta dilemma. The meta dilemma has three aspects:

  1. Human's naturally tend to use mental shortcuts. We use a type of mental shortcut, called Schemas, to interpret new information based on preconceived ideas we have about a person or event. In mafia, we refer to mental schemas as meta.
  2. The use of meta is an unreliable method of discerning a player's mafia alignment, especially in the long run. (I think probably everyone agrees on this. If anyone disagrees, I can pull up data and arguments later).
  3. The more games a person plays with another, the more they will apply meta to that person. Because of this, in a tight-knit group of players, the use of meta tends to become more and more prominent and a central focus of games.
This is not just a mafia phenomenon, but a general game dilemma for tight-knit groups. In order to keep it fun, you need either new players, new structure, or a new game. Has mafia not lost a lot of the wonder it had when you first started playing? Have you ever gotten the sense of freshness from playing with other groups in other sections or offsite? I feel like this contributes a lot to why there has been a general decline in interest in mafia over the past several years (coupled with other reasons I've given previously). It just becomes kind of repetitive and boring.
I don't need the scientific description of how meta works.

It really just kind of stalls development. Because so much of the game is grounded on meta; other avenues, strategies, and skills are left unused/put on the back burner/shunned. New players, players from other sites, and retirees have stated various times how unfun it is playing games here because everything is focused on meta. They are unable to discuss and debate because all arguments can be denied on the bases of meta that they can't relate to.
I've noticed this. I've talked about this at length. I've mentioned this time and again about how meta is the problem because we let players get away with it instead of just lynching them over and over until they stop doing it. That's why I don't agree with this:

Our vision here at AnonCo is a renewed Dgames where metagaming is no longer a factor. We seek to create a culture that thrives on debate and innovative scumhunting. Sure there will be some issues-- nothing is perfect. But I believe they will be minute compared to the issues current. And nothing we can't handle or fix.
Because it doesn't fix the problem to me. We're not directly confronting player issues and their own poor habits, which is how we fix the issue. We just give them a place to hide so they can avoid cricticism for their play. I'm not down for that solution in the slightest.

Collapsed since it's inherently personal:
I only made it personal because you did.


As I said, there was very little discussion or care over who Levi was.
I disagree completely because it was a major part of D2 and it carried on throughout the game.


The problem was not Levi, it was Ryker.


Ryker needs control. Anything unbeknownst to him makes him wild. That is a personality flaw, not a design flaw.

You will not find any instance of anyone being concerned with Levi's identity before Ryker/Raz made it the central focus of a game.
This is how it happened but you're ignorant to claim it was just Ryker that perpetuated the distraction. Bardull and Werekill both made strong, memorable reactions and I know they're not the only ones who talked about his identity at length.

Now, as I said, sleepover was a good example of how bad the meta issue has become. For one, Ryker/Raz on Levi. For two, your complete blotch of D1 because your J meta. You tunneled town J into oblivion and even me as well because of your preconceived notion of how you thought we should be playing as town.
No, **** that. You just posted this topic to say "**** meta this is a solution". We just had a giant example of player meta working against him in how marshy/gorf/kevin treated badwolf in Gheb's GS3 XL. They basically made him feel unwanted and Ruy felt obligated to hydra with him just so he'd play the game. That's a giant issue in my eyes and people are right to criticize Badwolf's low level of play, but what bothers me is that J is apparently exempt from criticism. I like the guy, but how he handled that D1 was downright pisspoor. You want meta not to be a problem, don't write passes for **** like what J did.

You claim to know how people who play in this environment, but the truth is, we do not know. You do not know how people will respond when there are more than just a few anonymous players in a game. My hypothesis would be that they will not be focused on discerning their identities. But we really just gotta see.
No, I'm just good at predicting.
 

#HBC | Laundry

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Guys, you're putting the cart before the horse.

When you have a problem, you don't ridicule a potential solution because it might cause problems.
Don't respond to counterpoints with ridicule then. Ryker posted a fair complaint and your response was "you're a dictator lol"

:186:
 

#HBC | BadWolf

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edit: nvm i don't want to argue with you

this doesn't solve problems because people spend games figuring out who you are instead of just evaluating play. half of the roster in sleepover finale spent the game trying to figure out who levi was. i don't think this is a good idea

:186:
I can see the point behind an anon account, imo it would make a mafia game a lot more enjoyable for me because I wouldn't have to deal with people piling on me for past play.
 

#HBC | Laundry

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I've noticed this. I've talked about this at length. I've mentioned this time and again about how meta is the problem because we let players get away with it instead of just lynching them over and over until they stop doing it. That's why I don't agree with this because it doesn't fix the problem to me. We're not directly confronting player issues and their own poor habits, which is how we fix the issue. We just give them a place to hide so they can avoid cricticism for their play. I'm not down for that solution in the slightest.
just wanted to highlight this because it's the point i'm trying to get at. this thread isn't about doing anything truly productive about meta, it's just giving an out so people who are "misread" and are "tired of dealing with bull****" can have a place to run and hide from it all and leave the rest of the game to figure out who these people are. that's not a fix, that's just an escape route for people who get called out on playing like ass.

:186:
 
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#HBC | BadWolf

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just wanted to highlight this because it's the point i'm trying to get at. this thread isn't about doing anything truly productive about meta, it's just giving an out so people who are "misread" and are "tired of dealing with bull****" can have a place to run and hide from it all. that's not fixing the issue in the slightest to me, it's just an escape route for people who get called out on playing like ***.

:186:
Clearly that's the only reason I'd want to have people stop calling me a horse ******.
 

#HBC | Laundry

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Clearly that's the only reason I'd want to have people stop calling me a horse ****er.
this is not at all related to that. you want it for anonymity because people are assholes to you outside of game. that's an issue with those players going over the line and shouldn't have any bearing on this. if it is, we have ****ed up as a community.

:186:
 

#HBC | BadWolf

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this is not at all related to that. you want it for anonymity because people are *******s to you outside of game. that's an issue with those players going over the line and shouldn't have any bearing on this. if it is, we have ****ed up as a community.

:186:
I'll talk to you about this after game end.
 

#HBC | BadWolf

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this is not at all related to that. you want it for anonymity because people are *******s to you outside of game. that's an issue with those players going over the line and shouldn't have any bearing on this. if it is, we have ****ed up as a community.

:186:
And someone calling me horse****er was in game. I've also had various other mlp related nicknames that aren't at all flattering. If you think it's a problem with the community, I would say you're partly correct.
 

#HBC | Laundry

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then develop thicker skin and don't let it get to you. love what you love and disregard the people who tell you off for it. unless you're into cp. then you're a sick **** (but you're not into cp so we're cool).

:186:
 

#HBC | BadWolf

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Oh yeah no.

Tbh, anything else that I choose to look at is my own damn decision and the fact of the matter is, I don't post anything pornographic so I mean really.
 

#HBC | Gorf

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dude mlp is almost child porn level of deranged. adolescent men watching a show directly intended for prepubescent girls. YEA NOTHING OBJECTIVELY WRONG WITH THE THOUGHT OF BEING AN MLP FAN.

but i digress.

anon accounts are cool. fight me if you dont think they are but ultimately... theyre just not ****in worth fighting against. itd be mad lame for someone to up n devote time to deciphering someones identity. the only thing knowing who somebody is does is give a frame of relative reference, if that. anon accounts give someone the ability to try their hands at not being the identity that theyre used to; to do something fresh, and being faulted for that is really ****ing lame and conservative. in fact i bet every opposer is somehow republican (SHOTS FIRED)

but there's another interesting sub issue thats been being brought up: people are allowed to get away with ****ty play and it's awful. the kantrips ruys and rakes of the world objectively deserve to get lynched in every game they play for their abysmal, always-scummy play, but a track record is what makes people stop that. im guilty of it. were all guilty of letting ****ty play slide, and why? because who knows if that mislynch is the mislynch that loses us the game, and if it's something thats familiar than maybe its worth it to just let them keep their thumb up their own asses. THAT STUNTS GROWTH. you know how many mls i had to endure back in the day before i realized what i was doing was wrong? a fine amount, and i didnt have much mercy. rake, for example, hasnt learned that his play doesnt work as town yet. hes still deluded, and therefore brings upon **** like the rake effect. if he was an anonymous account, i bet money hed get his ass handed to him, and maybe thatll be the wake up call tellin em that its not just cuz its him.

ultimately... anon accounts are no ****in biggie. haters should relax.
 

Ashemu

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this idea sucks because the user isnt allowed to pick their name and theres no fun in that

but for real, just having all-anon-account games is a better solution imo. ofc people will try to guess who each anon account is, but that's good because doing so is more fun than actually playing mafia
 

Jdietz43

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This is the part where I say I'm worried people will hide behind anon accounts to call Badwolf a horse ****** lol.
 

Circus

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Retreading what Washed said, but that's an issue with our community, not with this idea.
 

Xivii

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this idea sucks because the user isnt allowed to pick their name and theres no fun in that

but for real, just having all-anon-account games is a better solution imo. ofc people will try to guess who each anon account is, but that's good because doing so is more fun than actually playing mafia
I agree Mayling.
 
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#HBC | BadWolf

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Retreading what Washed said, but that's an issue with our community, not with this idea.
Well, I think that there are some issues that could be addressed fairly well if you actually talk to the community. There's a reason I don't usually participate in the social thread...
 

#HBC | BadWolf

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dude mlp is almost child porn level of deranged. adolescent men watching a show directly intended for prepubescent girls. YEA NOTHING OBJECTIVELY WRONG WITH THE THOUGHT OF BEING AN MLP FAN.
Can I just say that there are like 15-20 things that are just wrong with this statement?

I'm perfectly willing to argue over the fact that I don't think anyone should be telling me what I should/shouldn't be watching and why. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ASSOCIATE AN ILLEGAL AND HIGHLY DISGUSTING ACT WITH WATCHING IT.
 

#HBC | Laundry

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Retreading what Washed said, but that's an issue with our community, not with this idea.
I think it becomes an issue with the idea when they use the extensions of community problems as a justification for the idea. I'm all for anonymity for the fun of it but that's not what this thread is about.

Why am I awake?

:186:
 
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