Is PE useless?
 

Similarly to Shadowrabbit's older (does this count as a spinoff, considering that thread is now dead?) "Is Jazzbusters useless" poll.

MEN, I have to admit that JazzBusters > PE.

Usually I wouldn't vote as voting "No" would be a typical leader thing to do, but as it's the truth, I must.

There have been controversies regarding the usefulness of PE.
Shadowrabbit herself has never made clear what exactly her plans are in forming a group of people who seem to do nothing other people couldn't do on their own.

After spending much time pondering the deeper meaning behind this, I have created an artist's rendering of Shadowrabbit's planned efforts with PE against crashers:


[IMG]http://chaos.foxmage.com/caricature.jpg[/IMG]


( no offense, just caricature ;o )

Nicely drawn but I don't get it...

Fawriel WINS.

Well, the thing is that your intentions might be nice and all, but there is nothing you can actually do, and there's nothing you are promising to be able to do with a group, except promoting the reporting of crashers or something, which everyone who cares should already be able to do on their own.
I advise for your own best that you stop trying to act like something you aren't, especially while you are trying to maintain that you can't be what you are trying to make yourself look like, an adult who takes responsibilites upon herself.

That made no sense.

*patpats Faw* Don't worry, I understood you.

It made perfect sense. Faw is exactly right. It's basically what everyone's been saying, just worded nicely.

I wish I could draw like that. :)

I wish I could draw better than that.
I can draw better than that.

..thanks. ^^'

Why I voted No:

They've increased awareness. More people know that crashers can be stopped by using things like WPE and PeerGuardian.

True, they haven't actually stopped any crashers, but there's little chance of that happening unless you're either willing to a) play whack-a-crasher with IP address or b) ban a class C or B, and take the collatoral damage of blocking everyone on the same ISP.

Whoo-hah! Are you sure? That would be awesome.

Haha awesome.

Stijn: Avoid quoting large images.

Well, since I don't host or play JJ2 online at the moment (due to an uber-firewall of, of, of FIRE!), I've not experienced any crashing myself. But it certainly does seem like more people know about crashers, and how to deal with them. I would guess that PE just by being around is making people more aware. They've apparently had some reports of crashers as well, though whether or not Nimrod and co listened to them is another matter.

People are never going to stop being idiots. So far, all I have seen from the members of PE is Chicken Little behaviour. I do not even know what the point of PE is besides worrying. This just encourages the crashers. On the other hand, folks like Overlord are creating successful, high-quality programs.

Granted, I don't know what PE is supposed to be, but so far I'm unimpressed.

PE tripled how much I could bench. Not bad for a quarter-long class.

Originally, I was all for PE. I would've even paid to host a website for them if I was asked to. However, it came to my attention that as of now, all PE does is make people scared about the "hacking" in JJ2.

Personally, I'll deal with these "hackers" in my own way. I don't need some group to tell me how to punish people.

Wii do not beleive in PE, for they have even failed in doing their only goal wii could find: Adding a middleman in the reporting process.
Plus theres the fact the Listserver team won't accept reports sent through them.
That's pretty useless.

PE is useless.

Whats the point in passing a report to PE which then pass it to us? Its not as if me or Monolith (or even Frank, Trafton, Overlord, or anyone else who has access to the list server forum) is hard...

Pass the reports direct to us, and we can post them. PE have no ability to report to the forum we use for crash reports, so its just wasted time passing reports to them.

BoggyB has a point. It's useful indeed, although in a way SR did not intend or consciously caused I think.

I wonder what would happen if the biggest critics joined PE, and turned it around.

If you think PE sucks, then do something better. Those of you bashing PE aren't even trying.

My opinion actually leans more towards No then Yes, but since I'm unable to justify it even to myself, I have chosen "no opinion".

For some reason, I have the weird feeling that people who disparage PE are subconsciously voicing their dislike towards ShadowRabbit rather than the lack of productivity from PE. I mean, there is no denying that PE has not done anything useful (yet) and may never. But if people are willing to give it a (second) chance, and probably even contribute to PE, it may very well turn out useful. Unlike listserver admins, PE has the specific goal of reporting hackers/crashers, so first-time crash victims will feel more comfortable reporting to PE rather than a higher authority. You could probably take PE one step further and add in a security programmer or two, and make some anti-crash programs. Sure, Jazz2 will never become a utopia, but PE is, as far as I know, the only effort that has been started with the objective of bringing that goal closer.

On the other hand, this does not mean that I don't find PE unproductive. I just think that nothing too signficant has happened yet to gauge whether PE is useless or not.

I had that feeling all along. How can you read minds? And how'd ya know we tried to get jam's help?

Oh yea, but I posted it somewhere XP.

Yes, I think it's quite useless, except for the fact they make people think about the situation some more.

I think alternatives have been presented. I do not think a clan structure is the way to encourage this sort of thing. Why is it necessary to have a tag in one's name? Does that not defeat the many benefits of anonymity, and instead encourage politics?

Besides, I do not see why there needs to be an organization for people to post. I think everyone should be encouraged to report incidents. An organization regulating this and encouraging people to do so is great, but one that seems identical to a clan is a fundamentally bad idea.

I also think that, so far, PE has spent more time fighting a public relations war than actually doing their intended goal.