The Misuse of /alts - A Solution

Note: This thread is not leaking any staff-sensitive information whatsoever as this has already been discussed multiple times between players and current staff members.


Overview
/alts is a command that can be used by all staff to determine the alternate accounts a player has logged on Brawl with, where the depth of the command is based on the staff member's rank (JMOD gets the lowest depth). Currently, JMOD/MODs can use the command to see which accounts those players are linked to, and their ban status (unbanned, permbanned etc.)

There is obviously an issue with that. If a player wants to remain anonymous to fellow players, they should be allowed to. I will go over some of the reasons for that later. The reason I bring up this idea is because staff have been misusing the command from its original, intended use. This thread solves that.


The Problem
Situation: player12345 wants to anonymously alt on WarZ (for many possible reasons). staffmember123 is team with other non-staff players. staffmember123 grows suspicious of player12345 considering he is "new" and is good at the game. staffmember123 is also in a Discord call with his team; performs /alts on the player, "don't worry guys I know who it is". staffmember123 is also a JMOD, potentially even a MOD, who has not yet deserved to garner the level of trust needed for such a command. Now, they can leak who the player is against their wishes.

Why Alt?
- A player may have a banned account and they want to start on a clean slate.
- A player may have been bullied on their previous account and would want to escape that.
- A player may want to have fun anonymously without any social bias.
- A player may want to start on a fresh account to see how well their stats can get.

It is not valid to argue against this idea that players don't have to alt. The same effectiveness in /alts can be achieved with an entire rework of the command.


The Solution
To maintain a player's privacy (since Brawl is very keen on the protection of one's privacy), a rework of the command is required.

- The command is only available to JMOD+ (those who have not passed trial stage do not receive access)

- For JMOD/MODs, upon issuing a /alts [player], we have 2 conditionals:

1.) If the [player] has 3+ banned accounts linked (or) [player] has 1+ permbanned account linked, then
send a flag to a staff Discord channel that only SMOD+ have access to, since only SMOD+ can even act given the current protocol on permbanning someone (which is the only ultimate goal of the command anyway)
2.) If [player] does not fulfill the above requirements (or) [player] has already been /alt'ed in the past 12 hours, no flag is sent to the Discord channel and a reminder message is sent to the staff member that the command has already been called on that player
​

- Optionally, the command may return the number of unbanned/temp-banned/banned/permbanned accounts linked to [player] but not any other information.

- For SMOD+, the function of /alts remains the exact same

Why this is Better than the Current System
Currently, staff have to execute /alts on a player and manually report it to a Discord server. This is slow and obsolete. The staff member also has currently the choice to report the issue which is not efficient in case they were meaning to and forgot, or they had an ulterior motive

This system allows for more automation and organization (since many staff do not follow the correct format in the channels anyway) as well as provide the necessary information to SMOD+ to take action. To paraphrase, it performs the same task that's more encapsulated and efficient than the current system.

A final point would be that less staff members have the ability to abuse this perm which makes enforcing staff abuse easier. Ideally, many of these commands should be foolproof but that's for another time.

 

Yeah if I remember correctly, the staff usually don't check PMs but rather staff-commands issued. So you could get away with doing a genuine /alts check but also sneakily telling your close friend the details. Rokes definitely right on his clarification on my comments about the staff team. I do think this idea would help in that department however.

 

Thanks for the clarification. Since it's impossible to track who told who, it makes sense to prevent this altogether rather than attempt to find the abusers.

 

Definitely. Also, I see that you voted 'with tweaks' in the poll, are there any things you'd like to suggest that would add to or change this idea?