I got confirmation that every NEW member who joins the discord has to be verified by AltDenifier. While it does seem like it has been very beneficial in preventing the mass pinging bots and majority of scammers (I've gotten random messages in DMs with advertisers/scammers recently and in the past but not frequently), is it otherwise benefiting?
Obviously I can't push this statement with full force without actual proof but it really does seem like we do not get new members who join the discord like we used to before we used AltDentifier. If someone who has access to the data to make an actual comparison, whether its to counter my point or not, it would help shine light on the condition of the discord with and without this bot. Anyway, Its to no surprise that general chat has been filled with Good Guys (SHOUTOUT GANG except Dom, fuck you), a couple of previous & current staff members, and "randoms" here and there. We can all agree that the servers are dead and you can honestly say that the discord is almost at the same level at this current rate. I presume things are being lined up for when CS2 is released but I hope those ideas are amazing and backed 10000% because otherwise there will be no phoenix (too soon? ) rising out of the ashes.
A couple questions too - When was AltDentifier added? Was the previous method(s) not enough / protection was limited? Did you guys run into issues with it?
To see how easy it was to verify yourself, I tried making an alt and all I can say that it was a pain in the ass to do. Matter of fact, I wasn't even able to verify myself. I tried making a new email and steam account almost right before verifying so there is a good chance that the bot knew how new these verification accounts were (which I'm confused as to how it knew the email one). But if that's not what made the verification not work, I don't understand why it didn't work. Is it fair to assume that's how its recognizing whether its an alt?
Oh, I also don't understand why we are so heavily on focused on cracking down on alts. If someone wants to alt, they are going to do it no matter what is in place. Its clearly happening right now. Adding protection to try and prevent it from happening is obviously okay but making it harder for new members to verify is not a worthy consequence.
TL;DR: Account verification seems too extreme and not worth the time to go through a lengthy process to identify yourself as not an alt/bot.