Hi Bill, I personally don't see how you banning some server can do good to netrek. I am familiar with decision to ban new-be-nice logins on hockey games. I can say that there's reason behind that. I can explain why most of hockey players agree with this decision. I don't know why and for what reason caltech.edu was banned by tamu, but I can assure you that this was done to ban you and nobody else (because as far as I know nobody else plays from caltech.edu for years now). Now when you just do same and disable the client from being able to connect to tamu you do bad job to client users, not to tamu's admin. I also don't see any reason to introduce blocks into client side. Why would somebody want to play with your client if he has to switch to cow when playing hockey ? Now regarding rc file with new-be-nice login. I think Joe's idea was to separate veterans from newbies at the beginning. However from what I can see today everyone (veterans including) use new-be-nice logins to either pretend to be newbie or just because they are ones. Today I would recommend to Joe (I hope he's in the list) to remove this login name from rc file. This way there is much better chance of seeing new logins (these days like 90% of login names are new-be-nice) and getting familiar with people. Recognizing newbie is much easier from watching him play. My 2 sheqels on the issue :) Stas. On Sat, 6 May 2006, William Balcerski wrote: > Date: Sat, 6 May 2006 10:09:46 -0700 (PDT) > From: William Balcerski <williamb at its.caltech.edu> > Reply-To: Netrek Development Mailing List <netrek-dev at us.netrek.org> > To: Netrek Development Mailing List <netrek-dev at us.netrek.org> > Subject: Re: [netrek-dev] *.tamu.edu block on netrekxp > > New-be-nice is the default login that comes with the netrekrc off > playnetrek.org, I noticed that stas's latest release off his website does > not use this, as his version does not come with an rc file, so instead > the program uses your Windows login as your login name. I was planning on > including an rc file, but changing default login to "netrek-player". > However, I imagine this too would be banned by tamu's operator (Michael). > Seeing as how I cannot even connect to his server due to a 3 year+ > siteban, plus he won't speak to me, I really have no desire for my client > to be used on his server. If he were willing to work with me, I could > accept your patch as is, to just stop the default login. Though in that > case I think the -h block wouldn't be needed, as if you are at the level > where you know how to connect manually to a server you aren't that > clueless a player. > Bill > > On Sat, 6 May 2006, James Cameron wrote: > > > On Sat, May 06, 2006 at 05:40:02AM +0000, Bill Balcerski wrote: > > > *.tamu.edu removed from metaserver listing, and direct connect via -h > > > servername also removed. This is due to the policy of blocking all > > > players with the default login that comes with the client. > > > > That's a good idea. It will help to reduce the annoyance felt by > > players who don't yet know of the server policy ... which is quite > > likely if they are new-be-nice. > > > > Please accept the attached patch. It does the following: > > > > - factorises the block to a single point in the code, so that adding new > > blocks will be easier, and removing the block in future will be > > easier, > > > > - skip the block if the user has configured their login correctly, > > > > - emit an explanatory message to console when "-h" is used, > > > > I'm not able to test this, sorry. Lacking in appropriate OS. > > > > I wasn't able to find where "new-be-nice" is initially set. It doesn't > > appear in the source in CVS. Where is it? How can we get it in there? > > > > -- > > James Cameron mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org http://quozl.netrek.org/ > > > > _______________________________________________ > netrek-dev mailing list > netrek-dev at us.netrek.org > http://mailman.us.netrek.org/listinfo/netrek-dev >