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Affiliates
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What kind of benefits do GameSurge Affiliates have?
Depending on the size of your organization and the special needs you might have, we are able to offer a customized package of additional benefits, on top of the benefits our regular users and channels already have. Benefits are granted on a case-by-case basis, determined to fit the needs of your specific organization.
Naturally benefits are only provided to those organizations that provide significant value and benefit to our network and our users. Our goal is to help unique, established and leading organizations further grow on our network, improving your organization as a whole, and thus directly benefitting our own existing users. As a result we not only attract new users towards our network, but also provide our current users with access to the most professionally organized organizations available.
Although we are always open to suggestions and try to cater any need our affiliates bring to our attention, the most common additional services requested are:
HostServ grouphosts
HelpServ Queue Manager
Global Announcements & Network MOTD
Social Media
Event calendar
Botserver access
Maxlogins increase
Bot flag (+b)
Connection trusts
Guidelines and requirements for additional services;
HostServ grouphosts
HostServ grouphosts are customized fakehosts accessible by users invited by the owner of the grouphost. Upon accepting the invitation to a grouphost the users’ AuthServ account will be automatically updated to reflect the grouphost. They typically have the following format:
- account.staff.organization
- account.admin.organization.
Their main purpose is to help identify official staff members of such organizations and naturally help maintain a professional image.
Grouphosts are awarded on a case-by-case basis and only by the Affiliate Liaison Manager. They are in general reserved for network affiliates, however exceptions are occasionally made for other organizations.
This service is typically available to the following organizations:
- Established and sizable gaming leagues
- Established and sizable gaming communities
- Established game developers / admins
- Non-profit gaming related organizations
- Non-profit IRC service providers
Examples of parties that are not eligible for grouphosts are:
- Single individuals
- Organizations with bad reputations or trackrecords
- Regular clans (exceptions can be made for professional teams)
A more detailed guide of HostServ can be found here. Grouphosts can be requested by contacting the Affiliate Liaison Team.
HelpServ Queue Manager
A HelpServ is a queue manager that works using the First In - First Out (FIFO) principle. It assists the channel staff in help/support channels with managing the user waiting line and keeping track of requests. It will assign an available helper to a request and alert the organizations staff members if requests are waiting and no helper is currently available.
GameSurge offers customized HelpServ bots to large organizations that require the moderation and queue managing of such channel. Typical examples are large established (IRC) services or gaming leagues that (for the major part) rely on IRC support. Such organizations would need a dedicated support channel of (for the majority) non-commercial nature.
A more detailed guide of HelpServ can be found here. A HelpServ can be requested by contacting the Affiliate Liaison Team.
Global Announcements & Network MOTD
GameSurge has the ability to add messages to the Message of the Day (MOTD) which is shown to all users upon connecting. Useful information is displayed such as new services like SpamServ, a link to the network Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP), and warnings regarding phishing scams.
Another tool of communicating to our users is the usage of Community Announcements, or so called Global messages. A Global announcement is a notice being issued directly to all users connected to the network at the time of the notice. Such notices inform our users of for example updates which are about to occur and may result in the temporary unavailability of services like ChanServ, or notices informing our users about instruction sessions about to take place in the official network channel #class.
Selected organizations are able to submit a message to be temporarily included in the MOTD or to be sent once to our users.
The following requirements apply in general. The message:
- is not considered pure advertising for a product or service
- is directly beneficial to our userbase
- is interesting and appealing to our userbase
- typically promotes an event or happening
A MOTD is typically used to announce an event upcoming in time which has no direct occasion at a fixed time in the designated irc channel (for example the opening of a new league/tournament or the introduction of a new service). A Community Announcement typically announces an event which will occur within a very short period of time, and has a direct result at the announced time and place (for example a release party, free giveaway or developer Question & Answer session).
Inquiries regarding Global Announcements and the MOTD can be directed to the Affiliate Liaison Team or through this Event Request Page.
Social Media
The network also has social networking services which can be used to deliver promotional messages for your organization. As this is not only less intrusive but also less congested than a global announcement, we are able to serve more information for your announcement.
Event calendar
On the GameSurge website there is a Calendar of Events. The calendar lists all important upcoming network events. Organizations can also request events to be added to the calendar, which will also show up on the main page of the GameSurge website (“This Month on GameSurge”). The same requirements as for Global Announcements and MOTD’s apply.
If you would like to post an event to the GameSurge Event Calendar, please contact the Affiliate Liaison Team through this Event Request Page.
Botserver access
GameSurge maintains a special server for bots who need non-standard flood and channel limit settings. Access to this server is given to affiliates and other organizations on a case by case, as needed basis. The benefits of using this server is that certain limits and restrictions are removed, allowing bots to target larger audiences and output more quantities of information in a timely manner.
The most important requirements are:
no mIRC bots (no exceptions, ever)
no abusive behavior
bots and admins must abide by the network AUP and TOS at all times
bots must be of benefit to the GameSurge community
The requesting of access to the botserver goes through our Netops Team. Current Affiliates however can request access through the Affiliate Liaison Team Manager.
Maxlogins increase
By default only 4 persons are allowed to simultaneously use an AuthServ account. In certain circumstances a user may request to have this limit increased. Legit examples are for example bot service providers who do not have access to the botserver, and want to load up multiple bots on one account. Contact the Affiliate Liaison Team or Netops Team with such requests directly, or by using this form.
Bot flag (+b)
The AuthServ account flag +b is an account parameter which will list the account as “Bot” in the channels !users list. The flag however does not result in extra privileges or extra benefits. It however does prevent the bot from keeping a channel from expiring. By default all users of access 300+ must be not seen in a channel for 2 weeks for a channel to naturally unregister, so called ‘expiring’. AuthServ accounts listed as “Bot” are excluded from this check, and thus are not able to keep channels alive. Also when ownership of a channel is being requested due to inactivity, GameSurge staff members will skip accounts listed as Bot and move on to the next eligible candidate for ownership.
Because of the high number of botservices that have kept countless channels active (prevented them from naturally expiring because the botservice remained in the channel, although all other users departed the channel for at least 2 weeks), we set the +b account flag on public bot services. If you own a public bot service and wish to help us out by getting a +b flag on your bot’s AuthServ account, please contact our Netops Team or have it passed on through the Affiliate Liaison Team.
Connection trusts
By default only 4 connections are allowed per IP address. In certain circumstances this limit can be raised. Legit reasons for doing so are when a lot of people are forced to use the same IP address, which is for example the case at LAN parties and Internet Café’s. In certain cases bouncers (BNC) are eligible for trusts. A connection limit increase can be requested through this form. Network affiliates are advised to inform the Affiliate Liaison Team when applying for a trust. |
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