Although these would be easy to implement, I should point out that
there have been very few forgeries so far. If anyone forged Oleg the
Loudmouth, for example, I would put in a message explaining that
anyone who seems something inflamatory from me should send me email
before assuming it's real. That would take most of the bite out of the
forgery, at the expense of a little confusing.
The biggest problem with changing the Times policy, as Rich quickly
realized, was that some players have planned on using that 25
gold/turn for something. I would definately support eliminating the
drivel from the Times (some would include Oleg's postings in this
category ;-), but that means Rich has to add the wart of an an
automatic 25 gold/turn for everyone. Anyone who's still motivated to
send in Times articles might show better quality.
This is not to say that I'm opposed to RUMOR/PRESS. If you put all the
signed press in a separate section of the Times, they'd be more likely
to get read. But a player (Oleg?) could provide such a service -- I
used to publish a newsletter in BSE (The Capellan Periphery Monthly,
so named because it actually came out monthly, unlike the GM-sponsored
newsletter, which was also full of obvious lies). And it would be nice
to see feedback on which articles people liked.
So, anyone volunteer to publish a signed press-only newsletter? Or
does Rich have to do EVERYTHING?
-- g