Account Sitting

[Bruceswar]

But using a system where you had to give permission to a sitter and they could use your account perhaps even without your password, is as near to 100% as you're going to get, as any abuse is directly tracable to the sitter.

Um, we already have such a system in place. It's called "giving another person your pw." Plus it's a lot more flexible. If CC is looking to adopt a babysitting system that will enhance flexibility, then that's one thing. But if it's to curb practically non-existent abuse (with the insane amount of negative outcomes that such a system would entail), then they've clearly lost their goddamn minds.

Well put! Also if you do not want to give your password out, change it for your sitter, so they do not have your regular password.

[Georgerx7di]

I like the idea. I for one am a terrible sitter and rarely agree to it. But, if I logged on and there was a little notification saying "Bill only has 2 hours left in his usa game" then that would help me remember to take bill's turn. I don't know why bill plays usa map, I hate that one, but I would still take his turns if I remembered.

[Bruceswar]

I like the idea. I for one am a terrible sitter and rarely agree to it. But, if I logged on and there was a little notification saying "Bill only has 2 hours left in his usa game" then that would help me remember to take bill's turn. I don't know why bill plays usa map, I hate that one, but I would still take his turns if I remembered.

This is not what is being suggested. You would still have to remember to take the turns.

[Ray Rider]

100% concur with fitz and bruce, this is one situation where the ad-hoc method works far better than anything management could come up with. Please leave it be.

[Georgerx7di]

I like the idea. I for one am a terrible sitter and rarely agree to it. But, if I logged on and there was a little notification saying "Bill only has 2 hours left in his usa game" then that would help me remember to take bill's turn. I don't know why bill plays usa map, I hate that one, but I would still take his turns if I remembered.

This is not what is being suggested. You would still have to remember to take the turns.

He didn't say what features it would have. This could be a feature, and if it was, then I would be in favor of this.

[Gold Knight]

Maybe this would be good for players that dont have many friends on them site, or arent associated with clans, but i really dont see a need for this. I think my PW is readily visible to about 50 members of CC (most of which are clan mates), and i have never had anyone even attempt to abuse this system. Bruce said it perfectly, dont fix something that isnt broken.

[mrdexter]

These 2 were not victims... they were guilty of account sitting abuse. Neither were banned for their actions.

SkyT was playing 3 accounts in triples

Maxatstuy was sitting many accounts daily, when he felt like it. (He later got site banned for other stuff on top of this)


So these 2 do not really come into the equation as victims.

Ok, but if you were a victim? Would you still feel the same way if ou had nearly not got your account back?

Um, we already have such a system in place. It's called "giving another person your pw." Plus it's a lot more flexible. If CC is looking to adopt a babysitting system that will enhance flexibility, then that's one thing. But if it's to curb practically non-existent abuse (with the insane amount of negative outcomes that such a system would entail), then they've clearly lost their goddamn minds.

Would you feel the same if you had nearly lost your account?

Also can you elaborate on the insane amount of negative outcomes please, otherwise people will just start posting things like "if they do this my face will fall off."

[Bruceswar]

These 2 were not victims... they were guilty of account sitting abuse. Neither were banned for their actions.

SkyT was playing 3 accounts in triples

Maxatstuy was sitting many accounts daily, when he felt like it. (He later got site banned for other stuff on top of this)


So these 2 do not really come into the equation as victims.

Ok, but if you were a victim? Would you still feel the same way if ou had nearly not got your account back?

Um, we already have such a system in place. It's called "giving another person your pw." Plus it's a lot more flexible. If CC is looking to adopt a babysitting system that will enhance flexibility, then that's one thing. But if it's to curb practically non-existent abuse (with the insane amount of negative outcomes that such a system would entail), then they've clearly lost their goddamn minds.

Would you feel the same if you had nearly lost your account?

Also can you elaborate on the insane amount of negative outcomes please, otherwise people will just start posting things like "if they do this my face will fall off."

Over 300,000 members and 4 years on CC and this has yet to happen to a single member. I think we can write this off as not gonna happen. At the very least not likely to happen. If you ask someone to house sit for you, and you come home robbed, how would you feel? Likely very crappy as you find out it was an inside job. It would be the same on CC, but then you also ask yourself, why would I trust person X to begin with? Choose a sitter wisely.

[Incandenza]

Um, we already have such a system in place. It's called "giving another person your pw." Plus it's a lot more flexible. If CC is looking to adopt a babysitting system that will enhance flexibility, then that's one thing. But if it's to curb practically non-existent abuse (with the insane amount of negative outcomes that such a system would entail), then they've clearly lost their goddamn minds.

Would you feel the same if you had nearly lost your account?

Also can you elaborate on the insane amount of negative outcomes please, otherwise people will just start posting things like "if they do this my face will fall off."

First off, "nearly" losing one's account is meaningless in any sort of long-term context. Max did lose his account IIRC, but he was a hateful little teenage bastard that 100% deserved what happened to him, and I can guarantee you that this is the majority opinion on the subject. Plus it wasn't just because of sitting issues. He had at least one multi, repeatedly spammed games, and generally made such an ass of himself that management wisely decided that the site would be better off without him. So right off the bat you're making a false allegation about the consequences of practically-nonexistent sitter abuse.

Second, you're asking me if I would be willing to trade the convenience of the current system, which practically guarantees that even if I dropped dead this moment that my turns would be covered, for the security of a system that would limit my options and basically require me to activate sitter mode every time I leave the house for more than a few hours ('cause, who knows? My car might break down, my flight might be delayed, the wifi at wherever I'm at might go crap out, etc.), when that security is protecting me against an eventuality so fantastically remote as to have only happened a handful of times in CC history? My answer is an unequivocal no. "It might be abused" has long been a tired cliche here, standing in the way of all sorts of interesting potential updates, and "it might be abused, but only if someone that I trust is absolutely out to get me and is willing to suffer ostracization and potential banning just to f*ck with me", which is pretty much what you're arguing, is preposterous and, quite frankly, idiotic.

Third, if CC took steps to make babysitting more difficult, then there will be a lot more missed turns, for reasons that have been exhaustively recounted by others in this very thread. That right there is a Negative Outcome, and the guarantee that more turns will be missed far far outweighs vague pronouncements of Doom.

In short, you seem perfectly willing to trade my flexibility for your security. I am somewhat less enamored at the prospect.

[mrdexter]

Over 300,000 members and 4 years on CC and this has yet to happen to a single member. I think we can write this off as not gonna happen. At the very least not likely to happen. If you ask someone to house sit for you, and you come home robbed, how would you feel? Likely very crappy as you find out it was an inside job. It would be the same on CC, but then you also ask yourself, why would I trust person X to begin with? Choose a sitter wisely.

Yes it has, and the sitter was on the CC advisory team. How wisely do we need to choose?

First off, "nearly" losing one's account is meaningless in any sort of long-term context. Max did lose his account IIRC, but he was a hateful little teenage bastard that 100% deserved what happened to him, and I can guarantee you that this is the majority opinion on the subject. Plus it wasn't just because of sitting issues. He had at least one multi, repeatedly spammed games, and generally made such an ass of himself that management wisely decided that the site would be better off without him. So right off the bat you're making a false allegation about the consequences of practically-nonexistent sitter abuse.

Not false. An account was suspended because of the actions of a sitter, a sitter who was on the CC team.

Second, you're asking me if I would be willing to trade the convenience of the current system, which practically guarantees that even if I dropped dead this moment that my turns would be covered, for the security of a system that would limit my options and basically require me to activate sitter mode every time I leave the house for more than a few hours ('cause, who knows? My car might break down, my flight might be delayed, the wifi at wherever I'm at might gocrap out, etc.), when that security is protecting me against an eventuality so fantastically remote as to have only happened a handful of times in CC history? My answer is an unequivocal no. "It might be abused" has long been a tired cliche here, standing in the way of all sorts of interesting potential updates, and "it might be abused, but only if someone that I trust is absolutely out to get me and is willing to suffer ostracization and potential banning just to f*ck with me", which is pretty much what you're arguing, is preposterous and, quite frankly, idiotic.

Again I refer you to the fact it HAS happened, and I ask how you would have felt if it had been you?

Third, if CC took steps to make babysitting more difficult, then there will be a lot more missed turns, for reasons that have been exhaustively recounted by others in this very thread. That right there is a Negative Outcome, and the guarantee that more turns will be missed far far outweighs vague pronouncements of Doom.

All of the Negative Outcomes thus far in this thread have been discussed and there are clearly points for both for and against. Your lack of any actual real points spoils your otherwise good argument against.

In short, you seem perfectly willing to trade my flexibility for your security. I am somewhat less enamored at the prospect.

Yes, yes I am. I would be more than happy to make that trade as things stand I will never again trust an account sitter no matter if I have known them for over a year.

Plus, as someone else mentioned for those who do not come into the forums much and participate in the community but might have played against a player a few times and trust them enough to have a limited, traceable, means to take their turns for them.

Anyone who is using account sitting now in the way you describe:

if I dropped dead this moment that my turns would be covered, for the security of a system that would limit my options and basically require me to activate sitter mode every time I leave the house for more than a few hours ('cause, who knows? My car might break down, my flight might be delayed, the wifi at wherever I'm at might go

is clearly such a control freak they will never consider any alternative. Do you really have a sitter on standby using the current system for all of those scenarios?

[clapper011]

No, please do not do this.

Situation 1: I head out for the day with 12 hour left on my turn. Things get busy, I am not sure if I am gonna make my turn. Now I need sitter, but with no access to a PC, so I cannot set anybody as one. - This would fail here. As it stands now many of us have others means other than a computer to ask someone to take a turn for us in those dire times.

Situation 2: You are around your PC, with time left taking turns, some of which have a few hours left. You lose power or internet for any 1 of a million reasons it can go out. Bad weather, etc etc. In this case I would not be able to set anybody as my sitter. Thus this fails again.

Situation 3: You think you will be back in time to take some turns. You end up falling asleep on the couch. No time again to set a sitter before you miss. Obviously you are passed out. Only way someone will know to sit here is if they see you with little time left.

Situation 4: You are in a team game and happen to notice one of your partners has 10 minutes left. Lucky for you, you have his/her password for a just in case moment like this. Obviously there is no time for this person to set a sitter as you do not even know where they are. Rather than risk them missing you "bust in" and take the turn. You also cover any more turns with less than 30 minutes or an hour. This would fail here.


As you can see there are many real life situations where even if you had a sitter who was willing, they would not always be activated. The current system, works really well.

this was what I was trying to say, but not as wise as brucey here is...... he said what I was thinking! lol 100% agree.

[jbrettlip]

I think there should be a place on your profile where you can designate account sitters (up to 3). They would enter their screen name and password into a seperate sign on box (labeled account sitter) and then have access to games in which the people who designate them as sitters are active. They would have NO access to pm's, forums, add games etc. Also whenever they click Begin Turn, it should auto log: jbrettlip for Owenshooter, so it is announced. This seems simple and easy, and eliminates a lot of bad things (although rare) that happened in the past (point dumping, abusive posting, account hijacking, etc).

Now don't discuss it anymore, take my idea as the gold standard and code it already.

[Bruceswar]

I think there should be a place on your profile where you can designate account sitters (up to 3). They would enter their screen name and password into a seperate sign on box (labeled account sitter) and then have access to games in which the people who designate them as sitters are active. They would have NO access to pm's, forums, add games etc. Also whenever they click Begin Turn, it should auto log: jbrettlip for Owenshooter, so it is announced. This seems simple and easy, and eliminates a lot of bad things (although rare) that happened in the past (point dumping, abusive posting, account hijacking, etc).

Now don't discuss it anymore, take my idea as the gold standard and code it already.

Did you read anything anybody put? Sans a rare case like benji's wife going nuts and breaking into wase's / vevle's and other LoW accounts there has not been anything I can remember that would fall into your ideas.

Think about this... Your internet goes out at say 9 am on the weekend. You have turns coming up, so you do what anybody else would do. In your case, you call up owen and ask him to sit. With the system you mention this would not be possible as you did not ask him to sit and did not set him as your account sitter. Looks like you will be missing...


Point to all of this, is the cases of abuse are soo rare, it would not seem it is needed to make drastic changes to a system that already works well as is.


Edited to add.... There would be mo perm sitters allowed. It would be you set a sitter, then it kicks you out. Once you log back in, it kicks your sitter out.

[mrdexter]

Think about this... Your internet goes out at say 9 am on the weekend. You have turns coming up, so you do what anybody else would do. In your case, you call up owen and ask him to sit. With the system you mention this would not be possible as you did not ask him to sit and did not set him as your account sitter. Looks like you will be missing...


Point to all of this, is the cases of abuse are soo rare, it would not seem it is needed to make drastic changes to a system that already works well as is.

OR to put it another way, the times when your internet goes down at 9am and you have to ring someone to take your turn is so rare, it would not seem it is needed to keep it this way....

[Bruceswar]

Think about this... Your internet goes out at say 9 am on the weekend. You have turns coming up, so you do what anybody else would do. In your case, you call up owen and ask him to sit. With the system you mention this would not be possible as you did not ask him to sit and did not set him as your account sitter. Looks like you will be missing...


Point to all of this, is the cases of abuse are soo rare, it would not seem it is needed to make drastic changes to a system that already works well as is.

OR to put it another way, the times when your internet goes down at 9am and you have to ring someone to take your turn is so rare, it would not seem it is needed to keep it this way....

Internet going out over abuse is 1000 times more likely to happen.... Internet goes out here a good bit, and my internet is considered good. Weather happens, outages etc. BTW lots of people on CC use cell phones to txt each other asking to cover. If the person you txt cannot do it, they might be able to find someone who can for you.

[happy2seeyou]

Not sure how this would work in some cases. If I need a sitter last minute, I normally email or FB someone from my cell phone and don't access CC. I wouldn't be able to "set" anyone as the sitter.

[Bruceswar]

Not sure how this would work in some cases. If I need a sitter last minute, I normally email or FB someone from my cell phone and don't access CC. I wouldn't be able to "set" anyone as the sitter.

It would not work in many cases. I would say at least 50%(just a guess) of the account sitting that happens is last minute and really unplanned. So you use any means possible to get the turns taken or someone bust in and takes them.

[mrdexter]

It would not work in many cases. I would say at least 50%(just a guess) of the account sitting that happens is last minute and really unplanned. So you use any means possible to get the turns taken or someone bust in and takes them.

IMHO having a system in place just for people who have an unreliable internet connection or who get stuck in traffic is already an abuse of the system.

I would prefer to have a system where account sitting was for proper vacations when a game was running longer than originally thought and will not be completed before someone goes away. Some of the comments on here make it sound like there are groups of players having each others passwords regularly, I thought that was why you were allowed 24 hours to take your turn, in case you were later to a PC than planned.


I think maybe we are in disagreement about so much more than whether such a feature should be activated or not

[Bruceswar]

It would not work in many cases. I would say at least 50%(just a guess) of the account sitting that happens is last minute and really unplanned. So you use any means possible to get the turns taken or someone bust in and takes them.

IMHO having a system in place just for people who have an unreliable internet connection or who get stuck in traffic is already an abuse of the system.

I would prefer to have a system where account sitting was for proper vacations when a game was running longer than originally thought and will not be completed before someone goes away. Some of the comments on here make it sound like there are groups of players having each others passwords regularly, I thought that was why you were allowed 24 hours to take your turn, in case you were later to a PC than planned.


I think maybe we are in disagreement about so much more than whether such a feature should be activated or not

There is such a thing called real life and in real life, shit happens that is out of our control. The idea behind account sitting is to keep people from missing turns. This is what has been taking place already. No need to fix what is not broken.

Any new system would cause more people to miss turns.

[mrdexter]

[quote="Bruceswar]"There is such a thing called real life and in real life, shit happens that is out of our control. The idea behind account sitting is to keep people from missing turns. This is what has been taking place already. No need to fix what is not broken.

Any new system would cause more people to miss turns.[/quote]

I agree that shit happens IRL and if it does the person should miss their go unless they have set a sitter. Then players who do it regularly will have worse feedback, or ratings as it now is.

A system is broken if several people are scrabbling around on a regular basis to get someone to take their turns.

[Bruceswar]

It would not work in many cases. I would say at least 50%(just a guess) of the account sitting that happens is last minute and really unplanned. So you use any means possible to get the turns taken or someone bust in and takes them.

IMHO having a system in place just for people who have an unreliable internet connection or who get stuck in traffic is already an abuse of the system.

I would prefer to have a system where account sitting was for proper vacations when a game was running longer than originally thought and will not be completed before someone goes away. Some of the comments on here make it sound like there are groups of players having each others passwords regularly, I thought that was why you were allowed 24 hours to take your turn, in case you were later to a PC than planned.


I think maybe we are in disagreement about so much more than whether such a feature should be activated or not

To further add to this think of account sitting as being a good neighbor. You see your neighbor has the garden hose running and water is spilling everywhere, into the street etc. Obviously someone forgot to turn it off. You walk over and turn it off. Later on you tell your neighbor about it and they likely say thanks for shutting it off. They did not "activate" you to shut it off, but you did it, so they would not waste more water and run up a big bill. Same could be said about CC and about to miss a turn. A friend can step in and take it if it is needed. Just being the friendly neighbor.

[mrdexter]

To further add to this think of account sitting as being a good neighbor. You see your neighbor has the garden hose running and water is spilling everywhere, into the street etc. Obviously someone forgot to turn it off. You walk over and turn it off. Later on you tell your neighbor about it and they likely say thanks for shutting it off. They did not "activate" you to shut it off, but you did it, so they would not waste more water and run up a big bill. Same could be said about CC and about to miss a turn. A friend can step in and take it if it is needed. Just being the friendly neighbor.

I really like that analogy but whereas IRL I would be delighted, in CC which is a game, and therefore not to be confused with real life we should each take responsibility for our turns, not need to all have a good neighbour or two.

I think given our views are so far apart we are never going to agree, and unlikely to persuade anyone else who has already made there mind up, and the voting is in favour of not having to activate (although not by as much as you would think from the comments).

And slightly off topic, are all households wherever you live on water meters? They're the exception rather than the rule here.

[mpjh]

Ahhh, then there is the case where the neighbor fell on the walkway up to the water spigot and broke his leg. He sued his neighbor for having an uneven walkway, taking the poor guy watering his grass for all he had. Months later the devastated watering man killed himself on his neighbors porch.

Best stay to your own business.

[AAFitz]

Ahhh, then there is the case where the neighbor fell on the walkway up to the water spigot and broke his leg. He sued his neighbor for having an uneven walkway, taking the poor guy watering his grass for all he had. Months later the devastated watering man killed himself on his neighbors porch.

Best stay to your own business.

Or be a good neighbor, and just not be crazy.

Same can be said for the occasional nurse or doctor that saves someones life, only to be sued for breaking a rib in the process. Sure, there are ungrateful people out there, so self centered they cant see the light of reality, but that doesn't mean everyone should pass by and let everyone else die, simply because there are a few out there, that have the soul of a charcoal briquette.

[AAFitz]

And slightly off topic, are all households wherever you live on water meters? They're the exception rather than the rule here.

Absolutely at private residences...however, when renting many states may make it illegal to charge independently for water...sometimes heat and electricity too.

Personally, I think meters for everything and anyone are the only way to be fair, and reduce waste to its fullest potential.