Ideas to stop griefing (vandalism)

[Jotrx3]

Playing minetest online is a lot of fun. But that fun is completely ruined by griefers.
See also my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ein9jsI8U1w
At this moment, that happens twice a day on Glomie's Server port 30000.

I tried Glomie's Server port 30000 (lots of griefing), Wazu Clan Server (my buildings get damaged), Minetest.org OpenMine (server is not stable), GameBoom (building is never possible, registration doesn't work).

These are my ideas:

• Every user should get his/her own area of 50x50 blocks with full height and full depth. A spawnpoint could be set for every user in the middle of that area. This reduces the freedom a lot, but it will stop griefing.
• The fly mode should not be able to fly through solid blocks (like stones or wood planks).
• It must be impossible to place water or lava in a protected area.
• Water and Lava should not flow. Perhaps flowing water could be enabled for some users, or if the water is at least 10x10 blocks.
• Lava should not be possible above 0.
• Lava and Water should not make cobblestone.
• A voting system could be added to minetest. That voting system should also be able to set the map a few days back.

[xyz]

I tried Glomie's Server port 30000 (lots of griefing), Wazu Clan Server (my buildings get damaged), Minetest.org OpenMine (server is not stable), GameBoom (building is never possible, registration doesn't work).

Try minetest.ru

[PilzAdam]

• Lava should not be possible above 0.

I made a mod for this.

• Lava and Water should not make cobblestone.

They dont do that in default game.

[Sokomine]

There are at least three diffrent approaches to dealing with griefers:
- rollback to undo the griefers actions (on the social level the most efficient way for dealing with griefers)
- area/node protection Can be seen on Redcrabs server in action and works well. Only trouble is that figuring out the coordinates can be difficult, and all those requests of players for protection have to be managed. Subownership is possible. The version on Redcrabs server handels lava attacks as well (you can't empty a bucket on land someone else owns).
- protector mod: A node that protects all nodes within a radius of 5. Easier to handle for players than the area/node protection but usually doesn't allow subownership. Might also disrupt the architecture of buildings to a degree. Can be seen in action on Calinous server.

Setting the map back to an older version depends on the server owner. If he has backups and is willing to use them that can be done.

[jmf]

What do you mean with a voting system?
Something like votekick? So users can write something like:
/votekick <user> <reason>
and anybody on the server can say:
/votekick y
to agree or
/votekick n
to disagree.

That system would be very democratic but if there is a group of several griefers they could votekick everybody.

[Jotrx3]

... rollback to undo the griefers actions...

Well, if griefers destroy things four times a day, a rollback is not very useful.

...protector mod: A node that protects all nodes within a radius of 5...

A protection block (like on Glomie's server) is better than unmoveble blocks (like on Wazu Clan server), because also an area of land can be protected. But it doesn't work against water and lava.

...if there is a group of several griefers they could votekick everybody...

Yes, so the moderater has to deal with who to kick. Perhaps normal users could vote to kick someone for a day, and send a request for someone to be permanently kicked to the moderator.

zyz and Sokomine, I will try minetest.ru and Redcrap and Calinou later.

[Mito551]

- rollback to undo the griefers actions (on the social level the most efficient way for dealing with griefers)

there was a mod for that

[sdzen]

- rollback to undo the griefers actions (on the social level the most efficient way for dealing with griefers)

there was a mod for that

Its now integrated in the minetest default but recording is disabled by default. it can be renabled through the conf

[jmf]

(...)
- protector mod: A node that protects all nodes within a radius of 5. Easier to handle for players than the area/node protection but usually doesn't allow subownership. Might also disrupt the architecture of buildings to a degree. Can be seen in action on Calinous server.
be done.

Zeg9 wrote changed the code so subownership is possible.
See: http://minetest.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2793

Protect blocks disrupt the architecture of buildings, you are right. Solution could be several textures, so crafting
protect block and wood gives you wooden protect.

[Calinou]

Lava should not be possible above 0.

Minetest is about freedom (what Minecraft isn't, exactly) -- you don't prevent griefing by putting random restrictions like this.

Also, if PvP is enabled, just kill the griefer. Or you can trap them in blocks he can't destroy (such as stone if they have no pickaxe).

Every user should get his/her own area of 50x50 blocks with full height and full depth. A spawnpoint could be set for every user in the middle of that area. This reduces the freedom a lot, but it will stop griefing.

There are "protector block" mods available on the forum, these are used on some servers.

Lava and Water should not make cobblestone.

In the default "vanilla" game, they do not.

A voting system could be added to minetest. That voting system should also be able to set the map a few days back.

I guess that's possible with a mod. :)

The fly mode should not be able to fly through solid blocks (like stones or wood planks).

Maybe we could have separated "fly" and "fly_noclip" privileges, but we also need server-side checks so that people can't use cheats to fly through blocks.

[mauvebic]

Protection mods are getting to be too complex. Ultimately the fault lies with the server admin who granted the griefer his priviliedges. Barring that, servers should each have a "trainee zone", with its own seperate interact priv for newbies. Once they've shown they can be trusted, you grant them the normal interact priv for the whole map. Might be less intensive than storing each node's owner in its meta.

Another idea is player stats. Like alot of file exchange apps, a simple dig to place ratio would be enough to tell most admins which players are mostly destroying and which are builders. You could even code auto-kick triggers for certain thresholds.

[Sokomine]

Also, if PvP is enabled, just kill the griefer. Or you can trap them in blocks he can't destroy (such as stone if they have no pickaxe).

That is not a very efficient way of dealing with griefers. Beeing hunted and killed may be the ultimate fun for a griefer - after all someone's playing *attention* to the griefer! Building prison-like traps around other players is rather the behaviour of very young players or griefers themselves. There ought to be better ways.

Protection mods are getting to be too complex. Ultimately the fault lies with the server admin who granted the griefer his priviliedges.

The server admin (or whoever granted the privs) has no way of knowing weather that new player who came on his server will be a great builder or a griefer.

Barring that, servers should each have a "trainee zone", with its own seperate interact priv for newbies. Once they've shown they can be trusted, you grant them the normal interact priv for the whole map. Might be less intensive than storing each node's owner in its meta.

That is no absolute guarantee but a good idea and may already sort out quite a lot of trouble. Maybe new players could start with this sandbox-interact-priv right after joining the server.
The mods I know of don't store the node owner in the node data. They figure out at each dig/placement if that's ok at those coordinates.

Another idea is player stats. Like alot of file exchange apps, a simple dig to place ratio would be enough to tell most admins which players are mostly destroying and which are builders. You could even code auto-kick triggers for certain thresholds.

Such a statistic might be intresting in itshelf for the players. But like all technical solutions to social problems it works only to a limited degree. That griefer might have placed blocks where they don't belong and thus have a good ratio while the player that is still digging up stuff for his large house gets kicked because he hardly placed any nodes yet.

[Calinou]

The server admin (or whoever granted the privs) has no way of knowing weather that new player who came on his server will be a great builder or a griefer.

Ask the new player a few general questions, read their user names. Griefers often have suspicious user names; ask them why do they want to play on your server. That's what I do, I got several griefers this way before they griefed. ;)

[0gb.us]

I also wish flying didn't allow you to phase through solid objects. As far as using water and lava in protected areas, that all depends on which protection you use. My new protection blocks do protect against bucket-based attacks.

http://minetest.net/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=51534

As far as lava not being allowed on the surface, that would kind of suck. Lava is nice, when used properly. I use it to power my lighthouse. (It acts as the beacon).

In addition, the lava-into-stone thing is an extra plugin Globis added. Surprisingly, it is not in the default game.

As far as servers that do not automatically grant interact to new players, when I end up on one of those servers, I leave immediately. It is the server administrator's right to set things up how they choose, but having to figure out who and where to ask for interact is a pain in the rear. In addition, I feel like I'm begging. I won't do it, and I doubt I'm the only one. In the end, I set up my own server, because all the ones I could find had wacky plugins installed, were incompatible with my up-to-date client, or did not grant interact to new accounts.

EDIT: I've only been using this plugin for about a week, so it may still have a hole in it's defences.