[SonnyGamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flashhiee Private messages should be private. As others said, if you want to check them, make them leave logs. If you want extra security without breaking the privacy, make a system that checks for advertisers and warn you about them, before the message gets sent. The player should also have the option to report the message, and it would be nice if when they report a PM, you can actually get to see what was in that PM, so that you won't get fake reports. And i think that if you have a unique server, you shouldn't worry so much about advertisers, because the players won't leave unless your server is the same as other 1000.

Hmm you will not impress any player with unique server if you don't pay bunch of money for hosted tabs and DDOS protection and .com website. There are few servers able to do that only.
Other servers have to use securities to protect server from advertisments.
Best way is to allow admins read PM's. So they can easily ban the advertises and /clearchat.
Yeah PM - private chat, and other players can't see it. But private from admins and owners? Nah

[HeLiOn_PrImE]

A lot of issues can take place within private chat, not just advertising. A lot of them can be solved by the staff. If your staff is professional and respects privacy, access to all PM logs should be available.
Hell, you can even add a disclaimer for it when players are registering.
You assure people that what you're doing is for the safety of your server. They can be cool with it and continue with registering ann account, or they can simply exit the game.

[DutchDailySmoker]

Server advertising can be prevented with a detection system. So you don't have to read everything but you'll get warned when someone does.

I remain by my statement, it doens't matter too much like we really speak bout such great shit to each other in servers.

[Sew_Sumi]

It's their server, you agree to the terms by playing there... If you don't like it, then find a new server and move to it.

If it's their 'want' to be snooping on PMs, then that's their issue, as it shows a power complex.

If they were looking at someone who's avoiding their ad protection, then they should be looking at their PMs, and then removing them from the server, along with making changes to pickup which ever way those guys got past the censor/block.


Seriously though, it's nothing for anyone to actually say about, it's their server, and you choose to play there.

Weigh up your concerns against the positives, and choose wisely. By tolerating their actions, you accept it as a normal thing.



Unless you are covered by another countries legal system that says you can't have your PMs read, then there's nothing to be done, and even then because the server's likely not in the resident country, there's likely nothing to be done even then.

[NotSteven]

There has to be a command where admins can listen to whatever the player types in the chat, commands or text.

[SeanDenZYR]

It shouldn't be allowed. If the current script has this scripted, it should be removed immediately and add an anti server advertisement. Like detecting the amount of numbers in what they Private Message to a player or when they detect a colon - " : " in the message, or if they find 2 or more dots in what they say. But it shouldn't be an automatic ban/kick thing, it should be like send a message to an administrator about their pm and to clarify if it really is a server ad or something suspicious.

[Awide]

It is fine just let the players know.

[AmigaBlizzard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SonnyGamer What if somebody advertises in PM's?

I don't know if you know Aion, but it's an MMORPG game where alot of bots are active, which farm the monsters 24/7.
Those bots offer ingame money to players via pm's for real money, which is clearly illegal activity.
Even with the help of the players which have a report command, they aren't able to fight of those bots fast enough.
Ban one and 3 others take it's place, it's a plague.
At some point, there were more bots than normal players.

So for me: YES, admins have the right to read pm's.
Normal chat is logged anyway by samp itself, so why not pm's?
And the normal chat can be seen by the server-owner as well.

If you want to maintain a fun server for everyone to play on, you must be able to read everything that goes on between players.
Your admins aren't there just to catch cheaters, but to protect your server and everyone who plays on it.
If some players make plans via pm's to attack your server for example, wouldn't you like to know about it?

Or some players may advertise their own server via pm's to try to lure others to their own server and steal your players.

[TommyB]

In a perfect world, no you shouldn't be able to read someone's PMs. Let's be real though, there's so many shady and malicious types on SA-MP that you almost need access to everyone's PMs. At least in the RP community.

[Splodyf23]

Well, I think its somewhat ok, if an admin has a cmd like /showpm (id) that shows the outgoing+incoming pms to a specific player, who may be suspected of server advertising, spreading bug exploits etc... In such a situation, its kind of fine, but its absolutely not fine if you have cmd like /showpmall which shows each and every pm from every player.

[GRiMMREAPER]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX8MSZy5I3I

[Sithis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TommyB In a perfect world, no you shouldn't be able to read someone's PMs. Let's be real though, there's so many shady and malicious types on SA-MP that you almost need access to everyone's PMs. At least in the RP community.

This is true. From a security/privacy perspective, you shouldn't access PM's unless you have a reasonable suspicion that something shady is going on, which is what we do on my server.

[darkhunter332]

Trust no one, and yes.. - watch their PMs for the sake of your server.
To know what's behind your work.

[Potassium]

In my opinion they shouldn't be there in the main chat for admins to see while they are in game etc., but they should be logged and accessible through logs by senior staff.

[Robin96]

PM's should not be accessable by admins, unless they have a good reason to believe the player is up to something that may harm the server.

"harming the server" is a broad definition of course, but in the time I was being admin on a RP server I only used this access if I had reasons to believe they were hacking or rulebreaking in a way that just harmed the server. It sometimes helped me catch people too.

I don't like to actually log the PM's for the simple fact that people may discuss very personal things on it. Things that are just none of my business.

[Tromond]

I agree to a certain degree - Security reasons would be yes they should, only to keep the server(s) and players safe. But in the context of privacy and trust with the community then no.

[nl-videomaster]

To be honest, I think pm's are none of an admins concern, if there's an actual issue one of the two will likely report, I hardly see any "harming the server" any person could do from PMing a person other than advertising an IP, hacks or other means; Which players that just abide by the rules will just report, the players that don't abide by the rules would've just found another means to communicate that, or find the hacks and such themselves.

So from my perspective, I would say that you should trust your community and your players, so no means for admins to some kind of /bigears command on those.

However, logging them, I'm not sure if I'm against that. There's limited access to that, and you will only go looking through them if there's a BIG issue a real BIG issue. (Else, from my experience you can't be bothered to go look through 1000's of lines of logs.)

[Ermanhaut]

Write a function to check if the message contains 4 '.' and one ':', if it does, you could make the admin see the message as a possible advertise.

[Gammix]

No, just no.
Its callid PRIVATE messages.

[CodeStyle175]

well you could tell players that you are able to read private messages