[msleeper]

Your SteamID is not private information, there are a hundred ways of finding it out. If you think your SteamID is hidden, put it in Google and see how many results come up for it. As for being labeled a cheater or a hacker, my list is not authoritive.

There's not much I can do about people editing the plugin to make it hidden. AlliedModders requires my source code be publicly posted, which I have no problems with, but that does mean anyone who is smart enough to do so can change whatever they see fit and run it. I have submitted this plugin following all of AM's guidelines, including a public announcement cvar which would allow this to be searched for, found and tracked, but I haven't seen fit to add any custom tags to it nor am I required to.

[vvg125]

Originally Posted by msleeper Your SteamID is not private information, there are a hundred ways of finding it out. If you think your SteamID is hidden, put it in Google and see how many results come up for it. As for being labeled a cheater or a hacker, my list is not authoritive.

While this is true, it's an effective comparison to putting someone's real name online. Your name isn't private, but it is a way of identifying you publicly. It draws attention, and often in a bad way. It's generally looked down upon, and questions moral code.

As for the editing of CVARs to hide plugins, VALVe's concern is definitely understandable, and they're right in being hesitant to support server side modifications. But at the same time, any plugin can be hidden, even MetaMod itself could be if someone feels compelled to rewrite a bit of the code and compile it themselves. In such cases, we have plugin approvers to decide whether the morality and practicality of the plugin is within acceptable bounds, as well as other points such as clean coding, active author, etc.

At this point, it's really up to the plugin approvers to decide which side has more merit.

[msleeper]

I wasn't as clear as I should have been about the SteamID thing. Your SteamID gets collected in a lot of ways, either by big sites like Game-Monitor or Gametracker, or game communities which often use them for stats and player rankings. I'd easily say 95% of people have been on a game server which collect SteamIDs in one form or another and has them available online.

As far as approval goes, I've followed all of the guidelines to the best of my knowledge and if I haven't I'd be more than happy to change whatever is necessary. Ban lists are made public all across the internet, but if one of the plugin approvers or admins here asks me to remove the link to mine, I have no problem doing so.

[StarWolf]

I understand WHY this has been posted, but I hope it never gets approved. Like many I find this quite stupid.

TBH you can have a lot of teamwork happen and even meet new people through a farming server. Although recently that does not seem to be the case, and that is besides the point.

I think this plugin would be better if only certain achievements will get you banned in a given amount of time.

The only way one can get ahead in this danm world is to sometimes bend the rules, but using programs to get you unlocks is very much IMHO A CHEAT AND SHOULD BE BANNED.

[msleeper]

I heavily edited the first post to get rid of most/all of the opinionated, heated verbage.

Originally Posted by StarWolf I think this plugin would be better if only certain achievements will get you banned in a given amount of time. The only way one can get ahead in this danm world is to sometimes bend the rules, but using programs to get you unlocks is very much IMHO A CHEAT AND SHOULD BE BANNED.

If that is a legitimate request, I can modify the plugin to only ban on certain Achievements. I would need a list of each of the Scout achievement IDs though.

As far as I am aware, and according to the Valve TF2 blog post, people who used the external unlocker program (not farmers, this is something totally different) have had their achievements and unlockables removed. I've heard varying reports as to whether or not that actually happened, but it's what they said will happen which I do totally agree with. It is one thing to farm in a farming server, but I would like to think that everyone can agree that using an external program to get your achievements without even opening the game is beyond lame.

Originally Posted by iggythepop One more thing you have this plugin listed under Fun stuff

Whoops, I meant to label it as "Server Management" but "Fun Stuff" was right below it so I must have misclicked. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Nightbox]

aprove this plugin faster

[Dustin]

Originally Posted by vvg125 While this is true, it's an effective comparison to putting someone's real name online. Your name isn't private, but it is a way of identifying you publicly. It draws attention, and often in a bad way. It's generally looked down upon, and questions moral code.

SteamID is public information over internet. It is used to identify certain user of certain account by Valve and by other 3rd parties. Owner of the ID can make his/her profile private if they want to to protect their more "important" data from 3rd party or they can choose not to share any information by quitting use of Steam and deleting their profile information completely. There is nothing wrong posting SteamID's or profiles over sites. SteamID can be converted to profile address and other ways around. Its up the owner to protect and see what data they share over their profile.

I dont understand all this bashing. If you dont like the plugin, dont use it. I dont like fakeclients, stupid modded fast respawning servers and such but i still see them. However, i just choose not to play on them or not go into achievement whoring maps. Its all users choice and if you get banned for it by this plugin and someone else is using the plugin to ban people like you, then just go to another server.

[your-name-here]

Originally Posted by Dustin There is nothing wrong posting SteamID's or profiles over sites.

But said "site" in question is portraying those steam ID's and profiles to be hackers / cheaters. It is still frowned upon :/. Plus he linked to it on a public forum which allows even more public visibility. If I put your steamid up on a site, wrote "BAN LIST" accross the top, posted the link on a very traffic heavy site, you wouldn't be too happy when someone comes out and says "lol, I heard u were banned from <server name> for achievement whoring lolol".

Sites like GameTracker don't portray a player's SteamId in the way that msleeper is doing so here.

Originally Posted by Dustin Its all users choice and if you get banned for it by this plugin and someone else is using the plugin to ban people like you, then just go to another server.

You don't understand. The user has no choice if the public convar is edited out. How can a player avoid a server with no way of identifying whether or not it's a "honeypot"? I guarantee anyone who uses this plugin will edit out the public cvar. In fact, I've heard that msleeper himself did this (and it's quite understandable). This plugin is pointless if it could be identified and avoided.

Sadly, there is nothing that can be done about this either

[Dustin]

Its players choice to enter a server or not. If it is a honeypot and your id shows up on some random list over internet, then boohoo. Plugin served its purpose anyway. If my ID would be on that site, i could not care less as the site is nonexistant to me anyway. There are sites that post cheat id's just like vacbanned.com or steambans.com and there are server sites that post their bans lists online and i see nothing wrong in that. This is just 1 website that adds to that list.

[kaffaljidhma]

I've never seen a plugin unapproved for anything other than technical reasons.