What's your opinion on restricted access?

[Laban]

I've been thinking about restricting access to users on my server. It would be to increase the traffic to both RPGamers.net, and my own website. I havn't checked the posibilities to do this yet, but I'm currently toying around a bit with the new G6 server and it looks promising.

The solution would be some sort of activation and/or personal, temporary accounts. What do you think about it?

[Kilu]

Well, it would definately reduce the pure leechers. I would think that leechers who don't give anything back (to community) are annoying (in torrent world leechers are as annoying). I'm almost certain that you would get some flame mail (wat u doin, i want music 2 downlod. man u suxx) if you decide to do so. If I ever were to put up a FTP (I just might when I have the time) this is the exact way I would do it.

[Kyari]

I would say if there's any way to do it, get people to register for a temporary, 1-time-use login. After disconnecting once, it would become invalid. Also, you could have accounts for regular users - but they would not be for everyone; they would be a privledge.

Just my take on it . . . :D

[Locke Cole]

One-time use accounts will get tedious, disconnects can happen for so many reasons. Lag, ISP hickups, computer lockups... you'd be flooded with account requests.

[Laban]

Locke is right about the one-timers.

I'm thinking about just an activation page that the user just visits. When doing so, the IP is added to the allow-list, together with a timestamp. So that entry is valid for saaay, 48 hours to be generous. The account is there for anyone, but everyone is banned by default and only the ones in the exclude-list is allowed in.

[Zedie9]

:D If you're curious about how it might work and go over, try it out for a week or a month. There's nothing preventing you from switching back to your old system if the new one doesn't work out. :bouncy:

[Locke Cole]

If you do this, make sure you mention in your ban message why they are banned, or you're simply going to get piles of emails asking why they are banned. Also, depending how well it goes, I'm not sure 48 hours will be enough. I know there have been times where I can't get on some of the mirrors for like a week, would suck to activate and then get a server full notice. People with rotating IPs (dsl, dialup) may also run into trouble if their connection hickups and their client tries to auto reconnect/resume, but on a new IP. I know sympatico randomly rotates IPs on the local DSL service to avoid people running servers, but thats not very often and shouldnt lead to too many problems.

If a user becomes problematic, you could even write the activation script to show them a large notice, something like "You are not currently welcome on this server. Reason: bleh bleh. Please contact laban@0wnsj00.com if you wish to resolve this." How do you plan to make this work? You're going to need a custom program or something to update your client constantly.

[Zeugma 440]

I'm thinking about just an activation page that the user just visits. When doing so, the IP is added to the allow-list, together with a timestamp. So that entry is valid for saaay, 48 hours to be generous. The account is there for anyone, but everyone is banned by default and only the ones in the exclude-list is allowed in. So, if I understand correctly, you will have some sort of CGI page that stores the IPs of people who visit it on some sort of waiting list. The first n IPs on that list are then allowed to go on your FTP for 48 hours, is that right ?

I see a problem here (apart from that IP rotating issue) : as you know, people are constantly flooding your FTP. What could prevent them from flooding that page ? You'll end up with 400 IPs per day on the waiting list XD
-> Do you have criterions about people who can access this registering page ?

edit : concerning the IP issue, why don't you give your users an account with a random name/password (e.g. LKL846MLP:564OSNB) ? Each account would be configured to last 48 hours once the user has registered and would be as personal as an IP (unless the user decides to share his account *shrugs* you could immediately delete that account if if it is visited by too distant IPs --see the first numbers--).

Now is that possible with the new G6 server ? :D

[Locke Cole]

Thats still a lot of work, especially for users who are new to using an FTP software. Why not just rotate your public password every 48 hours, that would force them to return to the page to get the new one.