Originally by: Bob Stuart

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Macro miners, sweatshop miners, they can be seen in a few places. People occasionally suggest things that make legitimate miners activities more difficult, e.g. constant intervention to run mining lasers, NPC corporation members unable to fly barges, things like that. CCP suggest such acts are not possible. CCP suggest petitions - but what of backlog of petitions?

So, what can players really do to help ***** down on them?

I had a thought. Chat channels plus secure containers.

Chat channels have passwords, don't they? So undesirables can be kept out?

Have a chat channel, with a message of the day giving a recognition phrase. Something that makes no sense, like "My hovercraft is full of eels". The response for that phrase should also be something silly like "Only you can prevent forest fires"

Legitimate miners should carry a small secure can, and when in position, lob it out, doesn't need to be anchored, and rename it so other people can see it. The name of the container should also be varied day by day. So say today, the cans are called "Spam Day".

So, if players come across a mining barge with a suspicious name, then they can see if it has a can out called "Spam Day", and if the pilot responds "Only you can prevent forest fires" when asked "My hovercraft is full of eels". If they do, then they are legitimate, if they don't then it's petition/ suicide time.

So, legitimate miners would have to be provided every day with fresh can names, and the recognition phrases. Also, information security - those words must not fall into the wrong hands. Anyone who passes information to one of those operations should be ashamed of themselves, but in any case, could be kicked from the information channel.

This sort of thing should allow more accurate petitioning of suspects, whilst not inconveniencing legitimate players much. And it is something that players can run and do themselves, without the need for CCP to hold their hand. All that is needed is a group of people to organise and run a chat channel, and the miners have to take personal responsibility to follow the system, and check their phrases are up to date. If it has been compromised, then the phrases could be quickly altered, by way of chat channel updates.

Workable idea? Or am I hallucinating again?

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