WowAce

The Problem

By far one of the largest complaints about the security system that was in place up to now was the fact that it required a Guild Leader to be involved at least to set the system's security, and/or a proxy. In theory, after this point, they needn't have been involved. However, as Murphy's Law states, that was not always the case. Errors would occur, people would (for no reason that I've been able to figure out) lose their security settings, etc.

So the new system gets rid of (almost) all of that. Security is now set by maintaining a short string in the Guild Information tab. This is accessible to any rank that has been given that permission, and is accessible from the social screen in game.

Social Screen -> Guild Tab -> Guild Information button

Whatever ranks have the ability to edit this information, as such, have the ability to change security in SKG.

String Format

The string that needs to be present in the Guild Information should be in the following format:

[SKG/R:x/Manual,Auth,List//]

Deciphering:

The R:x portion of the string above defines the ranks that should be allowed to perform Syncing operations in SKG. The Guild Leader is Rank 0. If you do not wish to use Rank Based Authentication at all, just set this to be R:0. Note that this value specifies the rank and above that will be allowed to sync. Specifying R:2 means that ranks 2, 1 and 0 will be allowed to sync.

The Manual,Auth,List portion of the string specifies the manual list of players that you want to be able to sync. It should be a comma separated list of players. Do not put spaces or any other extraneous characters in the list. Do not use any other separators other than a comma. If you do not wish to use Manual List based Authentication, leave this field blank:

[SKG/R:x///]

Security Levels

What this new system means is that there are now only two levels of authentication, namely a User ("U" level), and a Syncer ("S" level). There is no longer an Admin since that is essentially just the person (or people) who have access to the guild information tab. The Guild Leader still always has S permissions.

Limitations and Things to Consider

• Your security level only ever changes on initial login (or reload). If you change the Guild Information tab right now, your user's permission levels will not change until they reload.
• Your security level is only ever set once your guild information is actually accessible. If you find your security does not seem to be correct, open your Guild Roster screen.
• There is no longer a need for, nor is there a Proxy level user. If you wish to grant others permissions to change SKG security levels, simply give them access to the Guild Information tab.
• It is possible (although not thoroughly tested) that players with UTF-8 characters in their names will not be able to be included in the manual auth list. This is a lua limitation, and not really something I can fix or change. Sorry about that.
• It is still true that only someone IN GUILD can be an SKG Syncer. That is not likely to change anytime soon.

A final note

In my testing, I found that there is now a new bit of weirdness that you have to worry about. As it is now far easier for your security settings to change, it is also far easier for a change in your security settings to mess up your lists.

This requires additional caution on the part of people who will be Syncers. When you first login, make a habit of checking to make sure your lists are synced. You may be missing just a single event or player add or something and your lists could be off, just because of the timings of getting switched to a Syncer.