You're right

Hi,

I just look at my PMs and excluding the "direct" requests that I've already deleted, I have in fact discussion with 3 regular peoples and with 3 occasional ones... With these people (which included matrixman that I've informed
that someone was maybe doing suspicious things with his real name) we are not exchanging hints (i.e. I give you 1 hint if you give me 1...) but rather sharing, discussing... about challenges. These are very interesting discussions
because no one give the solution and no one ask for a hint before searching a while... and sometimes one could point out something that others who had already solved the challenge didn't seen before

Now, in my opinion, what are the main problems :
- the hints : there was a previous topic discussing about a system for hints. CommComm (yes another french challenger ) has point out that TBS could do like another french challenge (security-challenge), i.e. for each
challenge you succeed you get points and you can use these points to "buy" hints for other challenge... this could lead to less f*****g PM but unavoidably leads to multiplication of accounts for a same person. Maybe there
could be a solution between this but it will take a lot of time for tbs and Erik : a system of hints where you have to get the first hint to get the next and so one, like in some crypto in two parts where the first part give a hint to the
second. I think to such a system because it happens several times to me when I started a challenge and look quickly to the forum, to not understand the hints some people gave and after doing a sufficient homework starting to
catch a glimpse of light (I remember the great hint "what is softer than a peach... take a couple and call me in the morning" )... Maybe those who have finished the challenge or the full level could make a "team" to write the
hints ?
- the ranking : it's good and bad Good because it's a kind of motivation for people and a sort of emulation for the "life" of the site... Bad, because some users only want to be in the top X (maybe a lack of acknowledgement,
just like script kiddies !!). To stop that, some of you gave, in previous posts/topics, the names of these "challenger kidies" ; this leads to the creation of new accounts + validation of some choosen challenges so to ask another user
to trade "anonymously"... Do we have to make a list of "trusted" persons, so the new challengers have to make their proof before ? Does TBS have to check if someone had multiple accounts with the same IP (difficult for those
who do not have static IP and for myself I can use over 1000 differents one ) ? Don't know, maybe the ranking could be the list of those who have solved over 200 challenges, the list of those with 180-200 and so on (this system
is used in several challenges site). Maybe now with the popularity of tbs, there is no need to have a ranking, even if some users leave TBS but don't make a mistake these guys would have leave it when they have solved all the
challenges ?

This was my dairay of the day I'm not as good as the top guys but I'm OK to give a little of my time so to help tbs and Erik to get things better...

phoenix1204

Hey,

i agree with phoenix1204.
And thanks again for informing me what was going on with my real name
Without your PM i wouldnt have looked at my logs

matrixman