Pornographic griefing with signs

I help run a server and I've gotten reports that users are using signs to create pornographic material. This form of griefing is a major problem as there are minors who play this game. Please remove signs from the game as they are a potential vector for this terrible type of griefing.

Edit: I've also heard that there is a tool to convert arbitrary images to signs, making this form of griefing very accessible.

 

As a moderator on said server, I can support this. I've seen homoerotic pinup posters appear, using the in game customizable signs.

 

I have a son that plays this game, and I do allow him to a certain extent to use mutliplayer. This could be a problem, as I don't want to expose my child to such obscene graphics this early.

 

I'm a member on this server and I've seen this happen first-hand. My son came into the living room shouting about giant *expletive deleted*s on his Starbound game.
Never thought a 2-D pixel game would be so hazardous to a small 7-year-old child.

 

It's great how they go and put some dumb drawable limit on guns and shit to prevent shit sorta shit, but then go and fuckin' make it easier to plaster a server with goatsee anyway. Like, wtf.

 

I too am a member of this server, and I play it with my little sister, but now with all this pornographic content running about, I don't think she should be able on it with me anymore, which is quite the shame. I support Narks with his idea.

 

Proper server management is the solution to this, not removing signs.

I suggest either having active moderators or white listing.

You can draw pixel porn with blocks, it just takes more effort, but the result is the same. They can't possibly "fix" this. You can't bug fix people. This is an inherent risk in all creative games with public servers.

 

Why can't they just remove it? It's just as bad as the issue they fixed with people making porn guns.
There's also the whole issue with people placing them when mods are offline, or noones around, during the dead times.

Wake up, log in, porn everywhere. And no one around to banhammer.

Also, why is it, most of the porn tends to be really ****ing wierd anime.

 

Content should be family friendly, especially if it can be abused in this horrendous way.

 

Because this isn't gradeschool or the military, and you don't punish the majority for the minority's infraction. Guns were never meant to be customized that way, signs are. Signs are a part of the game.

I recommend at least putting forth the effort to moderate your server prior to demanding the removal of a feature.

This thread really belongs in suggestions, not here.

 

[Hard to ban folks if there's no witnesses friend, dick signs are pretty much the best way to grief now.]




by the way do you really promote porn signs in a game marketed as family friendly? With the effortless "lol moderator better lololol" response?

 

Then problem is griefers put signs up when no players are around to catch them in the act. We cannot even do process of elimination as there is no way to tell from logs who is on a planet.

 

The really detailed ones also cause a good deal of lag for players.

 

Is there something we can do to prevent modded content from even loading in? I'm sick of the griefers.

 

Our server is white listed. There is simply no way to catch a griefer who uses signs because they leave no evidence, unlike a player carrying a gun that is a massive phallus.

 

It seems to me like your friends are all here to echo the same opinion in hopes that the joined effort will be enough to get them to remove signs. That's not going to happen. While I do agree that it is hard to catch people doing things they shouldn't be doing, it just isn't reasonable to remove signs from the game entirely because YOUR server is having problems with a single person abusing them. That would be punishing the entire playerbase because of the actions of one single moron. People can use blocks to make phallic shapes, should those too be removed? I've seen my fair share of that in my time as a server admin but that doesn't mean I'm going to forbid people from building.

All you can do is be as diligent as possible until we get a means to log who places what. If we had a 'blocklog' system that told us who placed what and where, you'd be able to deal with them. Until that day comes, you're just going to have to do your best to catch this person. Also, a player cannot carry a modded gun with a custom image unless that modded item exists on your server. The signs are a means to be creative. One person abusing that isn't grounds to delete the feature.

 

If you've got someone making porn signage, look at your server logs. Look for people spending an inordinate amount of time at the outpost (the only place to make signs), and follow them. You're an admin, use admin commands - you have commands that allow you to go straight to the ship, and from there right to the planet, of anyone on the server. Remove porn signs when you find them, and carefully screen people who apply to play on your server. Make sure they're not porn-spamming chumps before they get in.

Don't be passive about your admin duties. Hunt the cretin down, catch him red-handed (there's one of him and several of you most likely, odds are in your favor), use the tools you're given, and then ban him when he's caught as a lesson to others. Make sure other servers know what this chump has done - he'll never get on a whitelist server again if his reputation is shot.

Put in a suggestion to have sign placement echoed to the server window and server log. That way anyone places a sign, you have a running real-time record where, who, and when.

 

I'm 100% against the removal of signs, I use them to make cool aesthetics for my ship like computer monitors or alert signs and all that.

Removing signs would make my ship a little more plain and would feel empty. Other players use the signs to make cool pixel art too, I imagine that the players that want the signs gone are far fewer than the ones that use them properly and want them to stay.

Don't blame the feature, blame the people who misuse it and have a bad moral compass. The other players who actually enjoy the feature would be heavily annoyed for the loss of something that seems so first nature in a sci-fi building sandbox game.

 

It is clear there are a lot of opinions here from people who do not understand the logistics of server administration, how signs work, and what tools there are publicly and readily accessible for Starbound for griefing.

This is one possible scenario we believe might be occuring:
- There is a malicious player who has used the "starbound sign converter" (literally the first entry on Google) to convert an arbitrary shock image into signs, which is then imported through StarCheat or some other save editor program.
- This malicious player goes around to various planets, looking like a completely normal player. When this player sees that nobody is around, they put down these signs and leave.

With these two points alone, it is near impossible to catch this player short of process of elimination (translation: banning players at random) or having moderators on every world at all hours of every day.
You say "moderate your server correctly", but I have yet to hear a plausible explanation as to what that means.

Wow, that's a lot of misinformation.

• Even if StarCheat, spawning mods and /admin did not exist, people can create signs in single player Outpost. It's far more likely that a griefer would just use the sign conversion tool and directly import the signs into their inventory.
• Admin commands do not allow you to teleport to other people's ships. It might have in the nightly, but it's disabled now.
• How do you "carefully screen people"? Politely ask them if they want to spam shock images on our server?
• You can carry around "modded guns" - there are plenty of converters around, just Google for them - and they still work in Upbeat Giraffe despite Chucklefish's poor attempt to censor this fact. At least those aren't "fire and forget" grief tools.

As for all the people who are against removing signs, consider this: drawables are not as bad. With drawables, the griefer has to be holding the offensive image in their hand, making it trivial to catch them.
With signs, the griefer does not even need a special tool to make them, and can place them down when nobody is around to catch them, making them "fire and forget" griefing weapons that expose people to disgusting images.

How in the world did Chucklefish think adding signs - the ability to place arbitrary, permanent images anywhere - was a good idea, after they worked so hard to suppress the ability to create arbitrary images that can only be held in a player's hand?