Right now the standard practice for leagues is to have a private server and give out the password by email or in a private forum. Wouldn't it be easier if you could enter some LFS accounts into a whitelist file and set your server to only allow those to connect? LFS usernames have to be verified by the master server to connect so it's already secure, plus there's no risk of leaked passwords. It would save a lot of the effort in playing email tag to distribute or announce passwords, especially in some leagues where they're announced or sent at the last minute to minimize leaks.

Thats a very good idea. I think it should be looked upon. You're right about it saving time and effort on passwords. Plus if someone on that "whitelist" is acting up they can be taken off just as fast as they got put on

Nice idea. And I'd nominate both of you first two posts to be put on the whitelist. Now the little kid above me , eh, I don't know. Well, maybe, I guess he can be on it as well .

hehehe, that was quick. And I thought you were still over here?

Anyways, let's not let this stray off topic. It's quite a fine idea. Kind of the opposite of the "wrecker barrier" from SamH.

Could well be useful for teams/organised events.

But if you wanted to create a semi-public server, the list could get very big...

+1 This idea has merit.

A good idea in principle, but as said if there is a semi-publc server (ie a big multi-server league) that wanted to use this then the list would get awfully big, and as I see it it would have to be added to manually, as well.

Great idea. Passwords have a habit of getting leaked.

Quote :

A good idea in principle, but as said if there is a semi-publc server (ie a big multi-server league) that wanted to use this then the list would get awfully big, and as I see it it would have to be added to manually, as well.

The 4-5 race server leagues with 100+ racers will have it scripted and automated in no time.

Yeah, but the names would (obviously) have to be typed in manually, I can't see a way of automating that.

[EDIT]When people attempt to join a server they are not on a whitelist for, a new list could be created with these names. Any frontend could use that list to transfer them to the whitelist.

Quote from JohnUK89 :

Yeah, but the names would (obviously) have to be typed in manually, I can't see a way of automating that.

[EDIT]When people attempt to join a server they are not on a whitelist for, a new list could be created with these names. Any frontend could use that list to transfer them to the whitelist.

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V?

In addition, it would be nice if you could reserve spots. For instance, there are two or three guys I always race with. It would be nice if I could make my server public, yet reserve a couple of spots for those guys so that there's no danger of the server being full when they try to join.

+1 !

In regards to semi-public servers. Why not have the option to turn the whitelist on or off? If you only want the people in your list coming in, then turn the whitelist on. If you don't care who comes in, then turn it off. If you have so many friends that it's just impossible to add them all to the white list, then either don't be so lazy, or turn the white list off.