And Modulus, Shut the Hell up you damn Pessimist.

Instead of arguing about this stuff why don't we ask the "Boss man" on his point of view on rips so we can see if any action will be taken. If not the subject dies there. If he does agree then we can start to talk about adding features to filter rips.

So i pose this Question to Tom. "Do you want to get rid of rips?"

-Genjura

I was thinking this through, and considering all games are submitted into Hubs eventually, this idea might actually help prevent rips in an actually intelligent way (I'm posting this here hoping the Byond Administration would see this and consider using it).

As we all know, Colleges and High Schools uses programs to detect plagiarism, basically which search out the whole net, and then compare it to a text file that a student turns in, seeing what the student plagiarized and reporting the exact website and the Sort.

I was thinking what if Byond Had something similar on it's Hub Submission Pages. Update the Hub to have a place to put your Source Files (whatever file it is that contains the actual code that you use to run the game, I think the RSC, although I don't know how right I am there). IN this new spot, you place the Coding Source, and the System Compares the code to other code stored in the Byond Database.

If a Certain percent of the code is similar to another Game (Say 50+%, due to that's Definately rip level work) which belongs to a person not of the same key, then the Byond Server Recognizes the Game as a "Rip" and prevents the Hub from showing any hosted games, thus making the game always appear 'dead', also removing the ability to view the game in the pager (thus resorting it purely to IP, which is an inconvinience to a lot).

Of course, some people want to make games on a new key, and want to use their old code or coding style. In that case there could be a spot where a person can type in another key and it's password, to link the keys together to prove you're the legitimate owner of the other key, so as to use the original code.

For Teams, it would 'register' the keys, so that each member can input their keys and passwords, so it could refer to each other key's info, and ignore their code so it's okay.

It's a bit 'out there' considering that it's a new idea, but it has it's perks. It keeps it so that only people who permit the use of certain code can use it. What this means is say Player A makes a game, and Player B wants permission to use player A's code (or even TRY to rip it).

Player B would need to make an account for Team Projects, give the key and pass to Player A, who would need to log into that hub using their normal Key and password IF they permit. If not the system, upon Player B's trying to input the Rip, would see that PLayer B is using 50+% of Player A's code (changing names and numbers is not enough to hide this) and would flag him as Ripping, thus sealing Player B's hub.

Well Lummox, this idea was spawned up as a 'joke' at first, then became a serious idea when, on Byond Anime, a few people told me the idea was good (this is namely those who are not lazy fools who promote rips by telling people to ignore them, helluva lotta good that does). You can't expect this idea to be flawless yet, but I am sure I could find ways to improve it based on your message here.

If it's something merely hosted on someone's machine, but not available for download, this technique can't even be applied.

This is VERY True, if it is only on someone's machine it won't work, but then again it's a lot better than it being out public with people playing it and getting ranking boosts for it (which is quite annoying).

..., and yet it also has to be able to handle a bait-and-switch on the ripper's part. If a ripper knows about this scheme they can easily upload a basic test world, then sub it out for their rip once they've passed the test.

Actually, this is a smart suggestion on my part, though not perfectly flawless, why not make it so that, in order to access the 'host' command in Dream Maker, one needs to host it through their hub (you could make this part of a later Byond Update).

What I mean by this is remove Dream Daemon from being normally accessable by players, and make normal hosting (Through those icons you normally get unless you make the game down-loadable) only possible by putting the RSC file into your Hub, and clicking "Ok", which will react with your Dream Maker and activate the "Dream Daemon" thus allowing you to host.

Through this, it's a requirement to submit your RSC/RSB (Sorry but this is confusing XD) to Byond, in which it waits a minute or two to do a quick review, and then activates the game making it public. (Again, I'm working on theory here, and what I know is possible, which is ironically quite a bit seeing what you've done with Dream Seeker/Daemon).

The other problem is one you mentioned yourself in another post: There's no way to tell which game is the original. Hub entry date won't work for a lot of reasons, the aforementioned bait-and-switch being one of them. Telling which game is the "original" is not a trivial problem, if indeed it's solvable at all.

I discussed this on Byond Anime myself. Honestly Lummox, I just want to prevent an overdose of Rips. In order to do that, we just need to get a Source as close to the rips as possible. It's fine if a few rips slide through, sadly, as a lot of people who are pessimistic towards Rip removal point out, Rips tend to be the cause for a LOT of Byond's Membership Purchases (I will admit that's why I originally bought one, but NOw I want a membership to Change Byond as much as I humanly can).

If a Rip IS made an 'original' by said system, it WILL produce ONE good side effect: all other rips like it will be slain. In short we keep one rip, we get rid of tens to hundreds of others. Not a bad Trade off, not as bad as what we got now at least, and thus allowing us to 'relax' as to this whole problem.

I know it's impossible to completely eradicate rips, but I am not pessimistic as to think it's completely impossible to stop them either. As a Result, I personally want to eliminate as many rips as possible. This theory, as I planned it, will do just that, effectively eliminating a majority of rips by cutting them by the throat where it hurts most, the ability to actually host them.

I know this is an extremist thing, but honestly everyone's sick of Rips, some have given up and become indirectly supporting of rips (IE: Saying they don't hurt you, saying that and I quote "The best way to beat rips is to ignore them."). They don't like to admit they're supporting rips indirectly, but unless people actually begin beating down on rips, then they'll never stop anyhow.

Latoma wrote:

Well Lummox, this idea was spawned up as a 'joke' at first, then became a serious idea when, on Byond Anime, a few people told me the idea was good (this is namely those who are not lazy fools who promote rips by telling people to ignore them, helluva lotta good that does). You can't expect this idea to be flawless yet, but I am sure I could find ways to improve it based on your message here.

Actually my message pokes some pretty fatal holes in the whole theory. They aren't really solvable problems. One of those key problems is the who's-going-to-do-it issue, because it ain't me. I spoke in theory only. I know it's possible to gauge a level of similarity based on blocks of identical code and identical resources, but that's as far as that technical aspect could ever go, and it's not worth developing. It's certainly not worth burdening the BYOND hub with.

If it's something merely hosted on someone's machine, but not available for download, this technique can't even be applied.

This is VERY True, if it is only on someone's machine it won't work, but then again it's a lot better than it being out public with people playing it and getting ranking boosts for it (which is quite annoying).

A game can be perfectly public and be hosted only on your own machine, not available for download anywhere. So I don't see where you're going with that.

..., and yet it also has to be able to handle a bait-and-switch on the ripper's part. If a ripper knows about this scheme they can easily upload a basic test world, then sub it out for their rip once they've passed the test.

Actually, this is a smart suggestion on my part, though not perfectly flawless, why not make it so that, in order to access the 'host' command in Dream Maker, one needs to host it through their hub (you could make this part of a later Byond Update).

What I mean by this is remove Dream Daemon from being normally accessable by players, and make normal hosting (Through those icons you normally get unless you make the game down-loadable) only possible by putting the RSC file into your Hub, and clicking "Ok", which will react with your Dream Maker and activate the "Dream Daemon" thus allowing you to host.

The .rsc file is only one part of what it would take to detect rips, and I see no benefit at all in forcing games to be downloadable in order to be hostable.

Through this, it's a requirement to submit your RSC/RSB (Sorry but this is confusing XD) to Byond, in which it waits a minute or two to do a quick review, and then activates the game making it public. (Again, I'm working on theory here, and what I know is possible, which is ironically quite a bit seeing what you've done with Dream Seeker/Daemon).

That's a fairly ridiculous constraint to allow hosting or not. Too much stress on the server to too little effect, and it would also prevent people from even testing games that aren't finished.

The other problem is one you mentioned yourself in another post: There's no way to tell which game is the original. Hub entry date won't work for a lot of reasons, the aforementioned bait-and-switch being one of them. Telling which game is the "original" is not a trivial problem, if indeed it's solvable at all.

I discussed this on Byond Anime myself. Honestly Lummox, I just want to prevent an overdose of Rips. In order to do that, we just need to get a Source as close to the rips as possible. It's fine if a few rips slide through, sadly, as a lot of people who are pessimistic towards Rip removal point out, Rips tend to be the cause for a LOT of Byond's Membership Purchases (I will admit that's why I originally bought one, but NOw I want a membership to Change Byond as much as I humanly can).

If a Rip IS made an 'original' by said system, it WILL produce ONE good side effect: all other rips like it will be slain. In short we keep one rip, we get rid of tens to hundreds of others. Not a bad Trade off, not as bad as what we got now at least, and thus allowing us to 'relax' as to this whole problem.

You miss the point. If a rip is labeled original in error, then the actual original game it came from is suddenly shafted.

I know it's impossible to completely eradicate rips, but I am not pessimistic as to think it's completely impossible to stop them either. As a Result, I personally want to eliminate as many rips as possible. This theory, as I planned it, will do just that, effectively eliminating a majority of rips by cutting them by the throat where it hurts most, the ability to actually host them.

Any solution we would ever implement would not prevent people from hosting games, but would merely label a game as a rip. But we won't ever do anything like this. It's a pointless waste of time on our part, time that could be better spent shoring up the software and the site, and attracting more legitimate developers.

One of the near-term goals in BYOND is to get sub-communities like guilds running more robustly, at which point BYOND Anime can be the central nexus of a bazillion related guilds that each have their own policy on rips, where the guild staff can decide whether rips are accepted and which games really are rips.

I know this is an extremist thing, but honestly everyone's sick of Rips, some have given up and become indirectly supporting of rips (IE: Saying they don't hurt you, saying that and I quote "The best way to beat rips is to ignore them."). They don't like to admit they're supporting rips indirectly, but unless people actually begin beating down on rips, then they'll never stop anyhow.

Saying that indifference equals tacit support is pretty shallow, and not at all correct. Clearly not everyone shares the same level of passion about it, and some people are at least as annoyed by the constant tone of "We should do something about this!" as they are the issue itself. The "we" who are expected to do something about it are the BYOND Staff, and that's not gonna happen. I repeat: It's not gonna happen.

How about "you" do something about it instead? How about everyone who complains about rips form guilds or support guilds that only accept original games? How about they disavow the obnoxious attempts of some zealots to use spam against rips, and instead just throw all their support into building up the player base of the originals? That way it doesn't matter if someone else "supports" rips through complete apathy (or at least, an unwillingness to freak about them), because those who actually care about the issue will be doing their part to encourage honest developers. Any solution to the rip problem is not gonna come via some pie-in-the-sky intervention from the BYOND Staff, but from community involvement in making non-rips far more popular than their shoddy counerparts.

Lummox JR