For the very very few that want to use the information for breaking rules it is available to them and they will go the extra yard to get it. So using that as a reason to not show it on the server page is vilifying the whole community on account of the very very few.
Actually, I think this may be a matter of perspective, and you are certainly welcome to yours so don't think I am telling you are out right incorrect here. However, as a previous GM yourself, however, you are doubtlessly aware of the amount of our collective time goes into policing. In fact it has been cited in the past as one of the reason not as many quests are going on, which has been true for some time. I believe darkstorme's just-as-valid perspective is not an attempt to vilify the whole community, it's stating a fact (by his measure) that there are
-enough- of those kinds of people out there that it will impact the ability of the current and active team to do their job with any accuracy and allow them to get back to the stuff they are supposed to be doing more of (questing). It would place the team at a disadvantage and jeopardize the community as a whole for the price of folks being able to ask a GM to run something for them the moment a GM is noticed on the server status page. The vast majority of the server populace is completely innocent for such necessary concerns but unfortunately there are a fair number of players who
do cause a significant amount of work for the team by pushing the rules or outright breaking them. Plopping our presence on the server status, regardless of it's update delay,
would make it that much easier for "them" to circumvent detection/witnessing and make the community that much more susceptible to crimes/injury. It's really not an issue of what "those people" already do to go that extra mile to avoid detection, it's about making it just that much easier for them and as a result, hurting the rest of you guys who are perfectly innocent and undeserving of having to deal with the more serious of consequences such as lost opportunities and goods. It would be a shame for a pretty pure intended feature
(gods, did I just say Pseudo had a pure intent?) to be perverted
(oh that's better) into a tool for "those guys" to use to hurt the rest of us.
Back to the topic matter at hand.... For my personal opinion of having GMs be made apparent to all via Server Status... With the amount of tells I get from players when I log in as a
player with GM related things that are non-emergencies (and also excluding the very nice, very polite 'hey, howarya?'s) I would never, ever, ever be comfortable with a feature that
forces me to reveal my presence. 90% of the time I am on the server it is because I already have something going (set up, policing, assistance non-quest, etc, etc, etc) and am already in process. It is absolutely fantastic that people want GM attention but like Dezza says, I'm already strapped for time, so much so that I don't get to log in as a player more than about once or twice a month if I'm lucky. Hopefully no offense is taken by this but I don't want someone to stalk my presence and then ask me to pay them attention jus' cause. I appreciate and can absolutely relate to the desire! I really do. It's just a simple fact that I already have so much on my plate for Layonara that gets squished in between when RL allows. The last thing I want to have to add to my list of Layo duties is to constantly disappoint any number of someones on the server that "Sorry no, I can't because I'm doing X,Y,Z already," to my duty list.
If there are GMs out there who would like the option to reveal themselves then that's great and I fully support those guys. For one thing each GM has a particular style and maybe a life of impromptus is how they best run their events. An optional clicky to reveal is fine so long as no one expects/forces
me to use it. That
would be a preferable way then say letting go a shout to say "Hey GM on board, let me know if you want anything!" as it tends to break immersion for RPers.
On another side of this idea that some of the others have touched on lightly... I still have this vision of Layo being all about RP before
anything else. Sometimes (actually a great many times) just I want to log in and reward people sticking to that. This means the other 10% of my time is me trying to log in all stealthy like and just whack people for some exp for doing the stuff they were doing without any need for me to interfere, jump start, goad or force with my presence. To me -that- is where the magic is. I know there's a dwindling populace issue and it makes it harder to find that amongst (y)ourselves, much less having it happen in my 10% time margin. RP begets more RP as they say and I hope we can all work together to find great ways to be-getting more. I just don't think putting GMs on the constant spotlight (where the only refuge is to not be logged in) is a good way to do this. Letting GMs put themselves out there when they are ready is fine, but forcing them to be on the spot is quite possibly counter-productive for the intent of this feature.
~row