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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby legoboyvdlp » Fri Sep 18, 2015 12:56 am

For those interested, here is the pastebin of my conversation.
Warning: strong language
http://pastebin.com/Q7QB3HWZ

Now, nobody can surely say that I was not polite?
And if you will read my posts, can someone please tell me ANYTHING coming accross as impolite?
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby KL-666 » Fri Sep 18, 2015 1:35 am

Hello Legoboy,

That did not go as bad as you announced, did it? Well you did not get what you wanted...

To me it made clear that i have to look around for another nearby server that does not ban. It is for me unfortunately morally not holdable to deny there is a service offered, and still make use of it.

Kind regards, Vincent
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby legoboyvdlp » Fri Sep 18, 2015 1:39 am

I must say he just came across as absolutely rude.
But I guess he has a reason.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby Thorsten » Fri Sep 18, 2015 6:37 am

Yes. Evilslut did what he did, but what troubles me is that so many people, including moderators, jump readily to his defense instead of condemning it.
And please stop talking about private space. It's meant to be a public access server.



Seems we have a 'shoot the messenger' problem.

I'm trying to tell you people how things are. If you think mpserver12 is a public access server rather than privately owned infrastructure, I suggest you go to the court of your choice and file a complaint about discrimination. Chances are they'll tell you it is a privately owned server and they can't do anything, but at least you won't blame me for the message.

On the other hand, if I am right and it is a privately owned piece of infrastructure, then it all hinges on the owner's goodwill, and neither I nor Curt nor anyone else can make him do what you want. In which case the only sound advice would be to ask nicely rather than to complain.

I prefer to solve the problems in the real world, but you're welcome to solving them in a world where we deal with public infrastructure.

And by the way - I didn't make the setup, I don't defend it, in fact I couldn't care less since I am not interested in MP at all. All I'm trying to do here is to do you a favour by making you understand what can and can not be done.

In your opinion Curtis, as the owner of flightgear.org, could associate http://www.flightgear.org with an IP of a webserver containing offensive content or malware, and you are okay with it because Curtis owns the domain and pays for it?


Yes, Curt could very likely technically do that. It would be illegal of course if the content is illegal.

I didn't ever say I would be okay with it - in the unlikely case that FG ever goes that path, I would join the rest of the core developers in stopping to work for the project. Or perhaps do a fork without Curt. You see the picture why the project really ceases to exist without developers, but not without the domain.

I think you're confused what 'the project' actually is. FG really is a collection of code/data currently hosted on SourceForge. Copyright for that collection is 'owned' by the people who wrote it - which is the core developer group and a few FGData committers (let's leave airplanes which tend to be more modular and more clearly associated to individuals aside for a moment) It is licensed as GPL, and by now nobody owns enough to realistically be able to re-license content. So Curt doesn't own FG as such, neither do I or any other single person.

Some supporting infrastructure however (the domain, this forum, the wiki, MP servers...) is owned and paid for by certain people, who again donate its use to the project - or not. Some are more central for the project (the Wiki, the download pages,...), some less so - and the group of core developers (who collectively owns the project) will take an interest in what is happening there. Likewise with the webpage - if I use my write access to the FG webpage to post something that is controversial, I will be called to order and told that this doesn't represent the position of the FG project.

It is, with any completely volunteer organization, a delicate balance between the rights of the people who own infrastructure and the approval /disapproval of the larger group of copyright holders on the project which establishes what can be done and what can't. The key is to tread carefully and not piss people off - we are all volunteers relying on each other, and the only viable way we can ever get the other to do what we thing is best is by convincing him. (Yes, we also all have the neutron bomb - 'if this doesn't go my way, I'll quit working for FG' - this works best if your contribution happens to be rather important, but as you can imagine, it's a one-shot thing if you're called on it - so it's not among the normal consensus-finding tools).

From this perspective, what this thread has been so far has been highly counter-productive. You won't get a volunteer to reverse his decision by accusing him of 'censorship', issuing demands or else... or condemning him - and in fact, you'll close the door for all opportunities to convince him.

So, your call how you want to continue.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby simbambim » Fri Sep 18, 2015 3:34 pm

Thorsten wrote in Fri Sep 18, 2015 6:37 am:Seems we have a 'shoot the messenger' problem.

Exactly. Shoot lego for bringing evilslut's dirty trick to light.
Now that he has confessed to this himself, I'm out of his server, too. In my world, there is morality.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby Crashpilot » Fri Sep 18, 2015 8:21 pm

Thorsten wrote in Fri Sep 18, 2015 6:37 am:I think you're confused what 'the project' actually is.


Thorsten, I must admit that I don't know if I have some serious misunderstandings regarding this topic or not.

Actually I think your explanation is all true, but not complete.

Groups at some point develop a "collective will", a "spirit of a group", esprit de corps - they become a community. This starts to become manifest in a common goal, common set of rules, an ethical standard, cooperativeness and at some point even the willingness to subordinate (some) of your own interests for the interests of your community. You can see this happen at many opportunities in real life - families, gangs, tribes, police units, fraternities, and so on.

I assume that you agree that this mechanism in general exists, so let us continue with the question how this applies to flightgear.

In my perception (and yes, I know that perception is a matter of subjectivity - this applies to all of us) the community called "flightgear" has evolved to a level where an advanced ethical standard was achieved, which would disallow members of this community to discriminate others without valid reason, especially if they act as an representative of that group.

In my perception (!!) Rob/evilslut acted as an offical representative, and he had no valid reason for his actions. A valid reason would be a violation of some rules (like spamming, disturbing ATC, insulting others at MPserver12) or a complete excommunication of a person by the community (which just had happen a few days ago). A bad mood about a posting in a forum is not a valid reason according to that anticipated ethical standard.

So I have three perceptions or at least impressions:

  1. That there indeed exists such a community called "Flightgear"
  2. that it shares an agreement about not discriminating others without valid reason
  3. that this banning is a violation of this agreement

To make it clear: I am absolutely aware that my impression could be completely wrong. Thats the nature of impressions... But maybe it is vice versa, and you are the one who just don't see that there are quite some people who share the faith that such an ethical standard exists in this group, who knows?

So, what are possible outcomes?

First, my impression, my faith was false. Sad, but fine. I somehow have to adopt to the new situation.

Or, everything I say is true. Then there is, as you correctly mentioned, no way to force an admin to act in a specific way. But IMHO this is not about forcing! It is about convincing that by this ban more harm is done than benefit is gained.

To be honest, the harm is not tremendous: To me, it is just a bad taste on my tongue that remains after I have learnt that a person appearing as an official representative of this community can discriminate someone because he "considers him as part of a group he dislikes". But if you experience this taste too often, you start to vomit... That is why Curtis expelled those two guys not without seeking legitimation by the community and explaining those step to the public - he wanted to avoid this bad taste! Because this bad taste hurts the community in the long term, if tasted by too many too often.
And this, Thorsten, shows me that my impression about this community can't be that wrong, as obviously those who have the most physical power refrain to use it without respecting the faith of the members of this community.

So, in the end, only Rob/evilslut knows whether his reasons for the ban outweighs the damage the message he sends out causes.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby KIWI34 » Sun Sep 20, 2015 12:56 pm

May i say my opinion?

I use mpserver12, its great, i track and see all the countries I've been to. When i hear someone has been blocked or banned, it kinda makes me sad because like many others have said, thats not how a true public service should run.
However, i do not mind because like others have also said, if you pay for it, and they dont like you, and they block you, well that does suck but its their server,their money and their choice.

For me i really appreciate the server, so i believe that even though it does seem unfair or biased to block/ban people, if the owners who pay for the server do so, they have every right to .

Ive read other comments, i know a few people oppose each other at the moment, but for me and others, just enjoy the service they provide , they do an amazing job .
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby Thorsten » Sun Sep 20, 2015 3:24 pm

In my perception (and yes, I know that perception is a matter of subjectivity - this applies to all of us) the community called "flightgear" has evolved to a level where an advanced ethical standard was achieved, which would disallow members of this community to discriminate others without valid reason, especially if they act as an representative of that group.


In my experience there's (at least) two communities, and you confuse them usually at your own risk:

1) Flightgear users (VA organizers, ATC service providers, weekly flight organizers,...)
2) Flightgear developers

This has been said a couple of times, but FG is not a democracy but a meritocracy, i.e. the strategic plan of the project development is almost exclusively made by the second group. On the other hand, the developers are rarely even known in the first group and typically do not at all participate in user-type decision making.

I've previously given you a legal assessment of the situation. You're now asking for a moral assessment now - I can't give you that. I belong to the developer group, I have never in my life used MP servers, I don't know the admins, I can't say whether there are established 'good practices' or standards. Maybe there usually is such a thing as you describe, maybe not - I'm the wrong person to answer that question.

I can say that Rob does not in any official capacity represent the devel group or is acting on behalf of the devel group - he is part of the MP community, and his decision are his own. So you are wrong in at least this particular assumption. I would also ask the question of whether really everyone agrees what 'a valid reason' is.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby Crashpilot » Sun Sep 20, 2015 6:21 pm

Thorsten: First, I appologize for having changed the nature of my points. Thats because my understanding of my position developed during this debate, coming from an "intuitive impression" to an articulated point of view. I hope you can understand this.

My answer to your words I carefully read is as followed:

You introduce two disjunct groups, and therefore "Group Dev" would not become inflicted by the behavior of "Group User" and vice versa.
But still "Group User" is inflicted by it's own actions. So this solves the problem for all "Group Dev only"-Members, but not for the members of the other group.
You could say that you don't care for the image of "Group User", because you are exclusively "Group Dev".
But I think this is shortsighted because those groups might be disjunct by definition, but not by public perception (I make the highly subjective assumption that there is a considerable amount of people having that impression). And there is strong indication to do so. Curtis, as a member of "Group Dev" gives this impression by hosting services of "Group User" beneath his domain. By what criterion the public should distinguish those groups? Wiki or forum is realm of which of those groups? If "Group Dev", how could you know mpserver12 is not, if "Group User", why were those two users then expelled from there by "Group Dev"?
Public will confuse those groups, and therefore the public image of "Group Dev" can become damaged by "Group User", too. Call it collateral damage...

Regarding the matter of the validity of the reason: I think a statement like "For me you are part of the iam-col/jwocky ‘crew’" is very unqualified and childish. Well, I could be banned by now, too, because nobody assures that my posts in this debate here aren't classified as "having more pleasure in posting bitching forum posts than working on fg". Or I am considered to be a member of another group evilslut dislikes, wrong political party and so on, where does it end?

Obviously you are absolutely right that I can't do anything about it, so what I do is pointing at this issue and hoping that people "in charge" share my opinion.

So, finally, to summarize it: Curtis as the owner of the domain gave me the impression that he cares quite a lot about an ethical standard within his domain. I think this issue violates his ethical standard, but I don't know. Maybe he shares my opinion, but doesn't react for some other reasons - I don't know.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby simbambim » Sun Sep 20, 2015 7:29 pm

Thorsten wrote:You're now asking for a moral assessment now - I can't give you that. I belong to the developer group

Because you’re a developer, you no longer know right from wrong?

Crashpilot wrote:A valid reason would be .. a complete excommunication of a person by the community (which just had happen a few days ago).

Please note that Israel’s banning from the mpserver was NOT part of his "excommunication" by the devel team. It was a whim of the server maintainer who made this decision unilaterally several days BEFORE the forum ban while Israel was still a rightful member of the community.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby legoboyvdlp » Sun Sep 20, 2015 9:52 pm

Another point is that the only obvious reason, aside from my supporting IAHM, is because I asked why this happened,
Now, I admit, I used forceful terms and I apologize.
But, why?
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby KL-666 » Mon Sep 21, 2015 2:44 am

Hello Legoboy,

For me the question why seems not the way to solve a problem. If a tree drops a large branch in front of me, i am not going to ask the tree why. Same i do not want to know from evilslut why. Things that happen are given facts, and for me the question is how do *I* deal with it.

In case of the tree, i may decide not to walk in the woods with strong winds. In case of a service i despise, i do not want to use it.

Also i have to evaluate how others deal with it, and take a position towards them. Flightgear condones evelslut's behaviour by lending their name to him via the subdomain mpserver12.flightgear.org. As long as that name is lended, flightgear does the same as evilslut. I have taken my measure with evilslut. If flightgear keeps condoning such behaviour, keeps lending their name to him, i will have to consider to stop using flightgear too.

Kind regards, Vincent.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby Thorsten » Mon Sep 21, 2015 6:19 am

Because you’re a developer, you no longer know right from wrong?


I think I explain the reason in the sentence right after the one you quoted. I said that I can't judge whether the MP community has such established good practices as are claimed or not.

As for knowing right from wrong... I think standards may just differ.

Let me give you a simple example: I see Vincent hold up high moral standards here where his own interests are touched (he's active on MP and hence can potentially be affected the same way). Yet in another thread, I see him play down the importance of correct licensing, and in fact I have never seen him take a stand at all in discussions where copyright violations have been the issue. I note here in passing that copyright does touch his interests, but the other way round - sloppy licensing makes it easier for an end user to acquire planes. So forgive me that I'm not overly impressed by the stand here if he can't even be bothered to take a stand for my copyright when the situation is even legally clear.

In general, I seem to encounter arguments about 'group spirit', 'putting one's own interests behind for the good of the whole' etc. applied precisely when the issue is to get someone else (who usually is a volunteer and contributing a lot) to do more. So, let me simply ask - if FG is the community you describe - what exactly do you do for it? When was the last time you put your own interests behind those of the community?

See, the whole fgmembers thing started when some folks decided to discard two years of discussion, experiment and a final consensus and thought it better to do their own thing. Where were all the notions of esprit de corps then? The appeals of the FG users to respect a consensus for the good of the community rather than divide the community? Where were the ethical standards when developers were, say, accused of intentionally placing bugs into FG to hinder development? The dozens of users reminding fgmembers that licensing is important?

Strangely enough, there was just nothing of that sort. Instead, what I see is consistent with a group (users) arguing for their own interests.

Which, I'm sorry to say, undermines any ethical position you're trying to defend now quite thoroughly.
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby bugman » Mon Sep 21, 2015 8:00 am

Thorsten wrote in Mon Sep 21, 2015 6:19 am:See, the whole fgmembers thing started when some folks decided to discard two years of discussion, experiment and a final consensus and thought it better to do their own thing.


I would like to correct a fact here. The fgdata-old -> fgdata-new + fgaddon split discussions have actually been ongoing for half a decade. Thorsten, you were active in the 2011 threads discussing this split! I researched and wrote a summary of the splitting history in the context of the hostile FGMEMBERS attempt to crush, destroy and replace the official FGData/FGAddon data repositories with Israel's FGDATA+submodules/FGMEMBERS, all based on a strong disliking of the Subversion VC system, at:


This is a corrected copy of my forum post:


Regards,

Edward
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Re: Access to MPserver12

Postby KL-666 » Mon Sep 21, 2015 11:12 am

I wonder what is wrong with Thorsten. If he can not win a honest debate he starts to attack someones integrity in a very dubious manner. Even throwing in some conspiracy about flying on MP.

Thorsten wrote in Mon Sep 21, 2015 6:19 am: I see Vincent hold up high moral standards here where his own interests are touched (he's active on MP and hence can potentially be affected the same way). Yet in another thread, I see him play down the importance of correct licensing, and in fact I have never seen him take a stand at all in discussions where copyright violations have been the issue. I note here in passing that copyright does touch his interests, but the other way round - sloppy licensing makes it easier for an end user to acquire planes. So forgive me that I'm not overly impressed by the stand here if he can't even be bothered to take a stand for my copyright when the situation is even legally clear.


I am not going into all parts Thorsten has scraped together and twisted for his own little scheme. I'll just give you the post that cannot make clearer my position on this copyright discussion.

KL-666 wrote in Sat Sep 19, 2015 11:24 am:
Are we to understand you think licenses don't really matter?

No, we agree fully, how can it be otherwise in this matter?

I say that it is not necessary that flightgear debates such issue at fgmembers, when fgmembers is a separate entity. Then it is not really flightgears business. As long as flightgear sees a problem it simply does not take over anything from fgmembers. Debating such matters when everybody is still very agitated is not helping at all in getting the agitation down.

I would have said: Go ahead guy's make something of it. And i would not have discussed their internal issues, they may or may not solve themselves over time. When the time comes to import planes to fgaddon, and there are still such problems, then it is early enough to talk about it. By that time everybodys agitation is probably already a bit less.

And the final result could very well be that flightgear never takes over anything, and fgmembers ceases to exist. There is no must in which way it goes.


If someone does not understand what i say on topic, i am hapy to explain again and again and again. But what is done here i consider as sheer slander.

It is not the first time that Thorsten has tried this, and it will probably not be the last. Here is another example.

https://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=27397&p=257318&hilit=integrity#p257310

As if condoning evilsluts behavior by lending flightgear's name to him is not enough, condoning Thorstens behaviour makes the bad taste i already have of flightgear even worse. I consider someone that straight calls me names no problem at all, but a structural shrewd character murder i take very serious. The moderators should clearly denounce such behaviour by a 24 hour ban or so.

For the short term solution i have influence on, my measure is not discuss with Thorsten anymore.

Kind regards, Vincent
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