No Time Limit games restricted to friends only? Terrible for gaming groups

[King Hrothbeort]

It would be nice if when you tried to create a no time limit game and it says it must be restricted to friends only, it would change that for you automatically instead of having to go back out reset the settings to friends only and then recreate the game.

[Janabis]

Je me demande si les propositions faites ici sont lues ... où faut-il poster pour cela ?
Je pense que depuis que je suis inscrit, je n'ai posté que sur cinq ou six sujets afin de poser des questions ou faire des propositions &, de mémoire, j'ai toujours été ... euh ... enfin, non, je n'ai JAMAIS eu de réponse, pas une seule fois ... :/

[Meeplelowda]

Je me demande si les propositions faites ici sont lues ... où faut-il poster pour cela ?
Je pense que depuis que je suis inscrit, je n'ai posté que sur cinq ou six sujets afin de poser des questions ou faire des propositions &, de mémoire, j'ai toujours été ... euh ... enfin, non, je n'ai JAMAIS eu de réponse, pas une seule fois ... :/

I did a search for ALL topics started by you, and each has received at least one response, except for the one ("Circuits invisibles") you just made today. One was even responded to by site admin Een. I think you are exaggerating a little bit.

[Janabis]

Exagéré ? Vraiment ? Même si c'est digressif, je me suis plié à l'exercice & j'ai relevé sur les 20 messages/sujets où je pose une interrogation ou un problème ceci :

Première question, pas de réponse, sujet verrouillé.
Deuxième question, pas de réponse, sujet verrouillé.
Troisième question, répondu, oui. Mais pas de solution à ma requête. Sujet verrouillé.
Quatrième question, pas de réponse, sujet verrouillé.
Cinquième question, répondu, oui. Mais on me dit qu'il n'y a pas de problème, alors que pour moi le problème est toujours en cours.
Sixième question, pas de réponse, sujet verrouillé.
Septième question, répondu, très bien. Même si le problème est toujours existant, sujet verrouillé.
Huitième question, répondu. Merci, sujet verrouillé.
Neuvième question, pas de réponse, mais problème résolu. Sujet verrouillé.
Dixième question, répondu & résolu. Sujet verrouillé. Merci.
Onzième question, pas de réponse, sujet en cours ...
Douzième question, pas de réponse, sujet en cours ...
Treizième question, pas de réponse, sujet verrouillé.
Quatorzième question, bien répondu, sujet en cours ... merci.
Quinzième question, bien répondu, mais problème insoluble, sujet en cours ...
Seizième question, bien répondu, merci, sujet en cours ...
Dix-septième question, bien répondu, merci, sujet verrouillé.
Dix-huitième question, pas de réponse, sujet verrouillé.
Dix-neuvième question, (ici), pas de réponse, sujet en cours ...
Vingtième question, pas de réponse, sujet en cours ...

Constat : sur 20 messages, j'ai reçu ... 9 réponses. Certes, ce n'est pas "toujours", mais c'est tout de même moins de la moitié & la plupart des réponses que j'ai eu, c'est une fois sur deux par des forumeurs sur des questions "simples".

Après, ce n'est pas grave, je continue ma vie & je pose toujours mes questions, avec ou sans réponse ...

[cigma]

Also, please note that this change was announced. We announce user-facing changes here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 in the "Release summaries" or in a dedicated post for bigger changes. You can subscribe to this forum if you want to follow closely on our work.

I tried to subsribe for the release summaries after Een has posted this. I marked the checkbox at the bottom of these pages (subsribe forum and topic tools - subsribe topic), but didn't get any notification since then. Am I missing something or is this a bug?

[Jellby]

It's also a bit annoying that that kind of announcement doesn't go in the "Official announcements" forum

[Silene]

Also, please note that this change was announced. We announce user-facing changes here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 in the "Release summaries" or in a dedicated post for bigger changes. You can subscribe to this forum if you want to follow closely on our work.

It's ok to be grumpy from time to time, but please reserve part of that grumpiness to the players abusing the system and forcing us to introduce restrictions. It was not especially fun to have to work on that, I would have rather done some more fun things

I wonder whether it might've been enough ro restrict the table to ANY group (not necessarily friends only). That would still work to block the mentioned abuse (you cannot reasonably search for people falling for the trick when you open the table for just one specific group) while helping out groups of people organize games more easily without having to personally add everyone as friends.

[Een]

Also, please note that this change was announced. We announce user-facing changes here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 in the "Release summaries" or in a dedicated post for bigger changes. You can subscribe to this forum if you want to follow closely on our work.

It's ok to be grumpy from time to time, but please reserve part of that grumpiness to the players abusing the system and forcing us to introduce restrictions. It was not especially fun to have to work on that, I would have rather done some more fun things

I wonder whether it might've been enough ro restrict the table to ANY group (not necessarily friends only). That would still work to block the mentioned abuse (you cannot reasonably search for people falling for the trick when you open the table for just one specific group) while helping out groups of people organize games more easily without having to personally add everyone as friends.

A lot of groups are public access. Bad actors would just join the most prominent public groups and apply their abuse tactics from that foothold.
Unfortunately, abusers can force systems to change in ways also restrictive to non-abusers.

[Silene]

I wonder whether it might've been enough ro restrict the table to ANY group (not necessarily friends only). That would still work to block the mentioned abuse (you cannot reasonably search for people falling for the trick when you open the table for just one specific group) while helping out groups of people organize games more easily without having to personally add everyone as friends.

A lot of groups are public access. Bad actors would just join the most prominent public groups and apply their abuse tactics from that foothold.
Unfortunately, abusers can force systems to change in ways also restrictive to non-abusers.

It is still possible but only on such a small scale that I hope it wouldn't turn into a problem.

They would need to restrict the table to one single group. So joining all the big groups isn't cumulative - because you couldn't fill with "any player being in any of the groups I am in" but just with a single selected group. And even if that's a very prominent group, the amount of players that would potentially join the game and fall for their trick would still be VERY small compared to what it was before. idk how many users there are alltogether. But reducing that to maybe a few hundreds (many of which don't even play said game or are inactive alltogether) makes the chance that anyone would even join the table before it gets closed from time-out so small that I cannot imagine anyone might go for that tactic.

I think maybe if it was designed that way, the benefits for gaming groups might outweight the tiny chance of abuse that it might still leave open.

[Een]

A lot of groups are public access. Bad actors would just join the most prominent public groups and apply their abuse tactics from that foothold.
Unfortunately, abusers can force systems to change in ways also restrictive to non-abusers.

It is still possible but only on such a small scale that I hope it wouldn't turn into a problem.

They would need to restrict the table to one single group. So joining all the big groups isn't cumulative - because you couldn't fill with "any player being in any of the groups I am in" but just with a single selected group. And even if that's a very prominent group, the amount of players that would potentially join the game and fall for their trick would still be VERY small compared to what it was before. idk how many users there are alltogether. But reducing that to maybe a few hundreds (many of which don't even play said game or are inactive alltogether) makes the chance that anyone would even join the table before it gets closed from time-out so small that I cannot imagine anyone might go for that tactic.

I think maybe if it was designed that way, the benefits for gaming groups might outweight the tiny chance of abuse that it might still leave open.

I'm afraid after years managing this website I cannot be as optimistic.

Abusers would join all public groups, then create a bunch of no time limit tables for each. Then wait for catches, rinse and repeat. The level of effort needed is not so high, and abusers have a level of motivation that would be admirable if it applied to positive goals. The consequences would be the same as before, players trapped in no time limit games that the abuser ends only if they are winning.

No time limit games (ranked) should really be played only with friends. Training mode (unranked) should be used otherwise.