@phil - do you want a punch in the face?
You're just jumping on the anti-draug bandwagon you opportunist.
Next thing we know you'll be anti-guns and anti-gay
Draug is the love I've been thinking of, and so has Roxy Music, take that and stick it in your pipe (and smoke it, inhale it or inject it)

@nigee, I promises not to tell anyone about the sexual favors you offered me in that one game, if you promise not to talk anyone I accepted ;-)

It was a gunboat game (pre new rules) and you clicked cancel, pause, uncancel, draw.

Then I clicked draw, undraw, cancel pause to confirm.

Good thing there is no private press to confirm this ... That would be embarrassing for both of us.

@Phil - I must admit that was an unbreakable code, even the combined military intelligence at the Pentagon would have trouble with that, and of course sharing that pot of 35 with 3 others in a 5-way draw made the risks we took so worthwhile; back in the day we lived on the edge ..... pre the new military style clampdown :-)

Ah, yes, I remember freedom!

And bet 5 to win 7, that was a 40% gain. Not bad at all.

As for the legal question, this is part of why I always have a detailed TOS. But, my belief is that in this case, users on webDip expect that mods may read in-game messages and PMs as part of cheating prevention, and that means there's no expectation of privacy. So, I would think it likely that in this case, Kestas could use the messages how he sees fit. I'd recommend, though, a more detailed TOS, as well as some statement making sure you don't run afoul of COPPA or similar things existing in other jurisdictions.

Do users expect that mods read all in-game messages and PMs to root out cheating regardless of suspicion?

Or do users expect that mods will investigate when presented with allegations of cheating and/or when the mods themselves notice behavior by individuals indicative of cheating? This retains a default expectation of privacy.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to read this entire thread, but I'd like to reign in this conversation a bit and say a few things:

1) What exactly is this paper on? How rigorous is the research behind it. Is there a PI who thinks this is publishable, or just some grad student looking to making his work less boring? At the very least, I think we should get am abstract of his research. He wants our data? Then he should write a proposal. If nothing else, it will serve as good practice for when he's looking for grant money.

2) There is certainly a copyright issue, but not the nonsense one y'all are discussing. This game is own by Hasbro and we do not have permission to reproduce it. I would be concerned that this paper could cause undo attention towards our site.

3). There is no ToS, which means you should expect nothing from this site. Kestas was nice enough to ask our opinion, so rather than making all these idle threats, why don't you just give your opinion and shut up.

I can just imagine kestas, sitting there in Australia, with a cool drink in his hand, looking at the forum. He has just posted a real nice request on his own personal site to help out a researcher and he wants to see the fruits of his labor. Helping a student with meaningless garbage from old game records seems so simple. Of course, the guys who he allows to play for free on his site will see how awesome this is and jump at the opportunity to help a student. He takes another sip of his drink, fruity with an umbrella in it I imagine, and sees 129 replies. Wow! The guys love it! This is going to be a great day.

And then he reads the thread. FML.

@abgemacht:

It always amazes me that people think that they have an expectation of privacy regarding things they write on the internet. Since I don't put any personal information on this site, I really didn't pay much attention to the "terms of service," whatsoever they are. But, putting on my Law and Order hat for a little while, I'm pretty sure that everything we write on here in the games is the property of the individual(s) who own the site. If he wants to share it with a grad student for research purposes, so be it. And if Hasbro was going to shut this place down over copyright infringement, they would have done it long ago - it's sites like this and its cousins that keep the game in print and profitable.

@ Semck, this is just hearsay, but it's my understanding that the person who *receives* a letter has control over it's contents, not the person who wrote it. I don't remember where I heard that.... However, this is not the case here. Kestas is asking if there's any problem with the plan to turn over private game messages to someone for graduate work, and yes there is--a number of players on this site would not be happy about it. I see it as a matter of trust rather than of law.

it's = its

It's really not a number of players, Mujus. It is one.

abgemacht, without a ToS, a user can still "expect" the law to be obeyed. It often isn't, but then there is recourse through the courts.

DeltaAjaxNiner, the law considers there to be an expectation of privacy in two-way communications. And Kestas doesn't own your messages, just like Google doesn't own your emails. He can do a *lot* with the content, especially because we copyright holders do not have commercial interests for our press, but legally he can't do everything.

Mujus, the author of an email has the copyright, but the receiver can typically forward it as long as there wasn't an NDA. In Draugnar's example earlier with the code, it was probably fine to forward the email, but when someone tried to use the code from the email in a program, that wasn't fair use because Draugnar still owned the copyright *and* had a potential commercial interest in it.

An opt-out scheme is also legally dubious, but would do so much for good will that in practice it would ensure no one wants to make a legal challenge.

For those tuning in late, I'm not trying to take a side, just trying to explain details of a subject that interests me.

yeah go for it im down.

i love the idea kestas!

Guys
Seriously this is the thin end of the wedge. First our press is released to a 'stranger' (remember you learnt about stranger danger at primary school)
Next thing you know you'll be getting e-mails from international arms dealers trying to sell you surplus military equipment and weapons of torture and domestic public repression.
I think Kestas may have finally bowed to pressure and SOLD OUT a la Mark Zuckerberg. When this site is floated on the NYSE for billions of dollars just remember you heard it here first. What share of the billions will we get, absolutely nothing but if it means pictorial emoticons I'm all for it.
All the regular forum posters will be sponsored by someone, I will seek sponsorship from Crispy Kreme, any suggestions for other forum users.

im already sponsored by krellin corp

I am amazed at the replies in this thread. Kestas got a request from a student to use game data to write a paper and do analysis related to Diplomacy. He decided that instead of just consenting to the idea which is within his rights, since this is his site, to kindly ask people for their opinions. Despite this, people have threatening to sue and have been complaining about the idea.

So what if some people have shared personal information in game press, this study would be analyzing thousands of games of press each with hundreds or thousands of lines of press. It would probably be easier to use a password cracker to get into someones account then it would be to locate private information in completely anonymous press. I've had personal conversations in my press games, and I am completely confident that information will not be abused by this study.

How long have all of you played on this site? Probably for a while. It is an amazing free site, that pretty much everyone who discovers ends up becoming addicted too. In all the time I've been here I can't recall Kestas asking the site members for anything besides a few donations a while back.

"Personally I'd like to see our data used for interesting purposes, especially seeing our website cited in an academic paper"

I'm amazed that anyone would complain about this idea after it was made clear that this data would be as anonymous as possible, with the only risk being a theoretical one of someone making a connection between game moves and press. Kestas made this site on his own free time, and maintains it on his own time, he's taken a lot of time talking to this individual to make sure that this data would not be abused, figured out a way to make all the press anonymous, and took just about every step possible to ensure press will be used to help the site. Additionally the data would not be from games that occurred in the last few years. That would protect a significant number of the people who have been opposed to the idea in this thread. The student will even be signing a legal document to ensure the data is not passed on to anyone else. The only results shared would be the data used in the paper.

You all do realize that Facebook gives your information out to companies all the time right? They make your data anonymous and send it out to companies for profit on a regular basis, have you ever had Zuckerburg send you a message asking if you mind him doing that? Google regularly hands over your emails, your chat records, your entire life on Google over to American authorities. I don't know about all of you but I much prefer being asked, and having the benefits explained to me, then having to check a box to sign away all my rights upon registration.

"Note that this definitely won't happen unless people are comfortable with it. I'm not about to send the data off, I just want to get a feel for what people think about this."

Not only did Kestas ask, but he asked politely and let people know that if you're not comfortable with this idea after fairly considering the benefits to the site and having your press go towards an interesting idea. So please, take a moment to think if this would really be a bad idea, and if you disagree please have the courtesy to reply respectfully.

I'm gonna have to agree with jmo. I think we are are selfish if we can't help out Kestas in this little thing. Who cares about the law? regardless, this isn't really that big of a demand and just because you have the *right* to say no doesn't mean that you should.

New approach.

$100 to the aite if Kestas provides a ToS that guarantees our in game PMs and direct PMs confirm to a reasonable expectation of privafy where only the mods and admins may read it for the purposes of keeping the site free of cheats and that may never share what they happen to read outside the small group that makes up the mods and admins and that he then tells this student "sorry, I can only give you global press".

I'll pledge $105 to the site if kestas creates a new site called

www.alldraugsingamecountrymessages.com/sue_this_bitch/draugnarsposts.html

And posts every game message by draugnar.

I can also try to use money to influence people. And judging by your prior posts in the forum, available for the world to read, regarding your financial position, (talk about sharing private info) I'm pretty sure I have more to spend than you ;-)

@gav

To what law are you referring?

New approach.

I will match anything Draug offers plus $1 to do the exact opposite of what he wants. : )

Not this again lol

@Draug - Congratulations. You have successfully made a mountain out of a mole hill. If you have paid attention, you are the only one who is really arguing against this. Even after you claimed that you were just pulling our legs. Pulling the money card again is just getting old. Please stop it.

Check out abge, making it rain now that he's got a good paying job! Welcome to the engineer club, my friend. It's good to be the king!

Well then the site makes $100 or $101. Either way a plus forbthe site and, as I said previously, I don't actually care. I just want a ToS put in place to avoid these issues in the future.

Philcore, you have an attorney as a close friemd of the family and half a million in the stockmarket? Great for you!

I truly hope no one thinks that having more money than other members should affect the amount of say they have in this issue. If you do actually feel that way please take this as your wake up call.