Chat logs and Notepad++; a tutorial on log digging

[SirDoom 0]

Those of you who've used and gotten dependant on the LUCIFER'S TORMENT DEVICE OF CRASHES, RAGES AND TEARS called wom, probably have noticed that every day you log into a server, you generate a chat log. Now some of you might delete these, and those of you who do don't deserve your rank, so please report to your nearest expert/gm and announce you aren't cut out for the job.

These chat logs hold all text that you've seen (chat, command info, world join, etc etc, all text you see on screen) during your time on a server. In cases where logs of someone's talking can be used as evidence (bad mouthing, telling about griefing, etc etc) please post them on forum, but still, don't automaticly assume pasted chatlogs are 100% real, as they can be altered fairly easy, so please, for the sake of truth, NEVER ALTER THE CHAT LOG CONTENT! For the biggest cases, take screenshots (chat and grief related cases), they are valid evidence.

Log Digging
Moving onward to main topic. Keep all the chatlogs in same folder. Chat logs generate into your wom folder, which over time can get crowded with screenshots and chatlogs, so I recommend you make a folder for chat logs and move all new generated logs into it every now and then.

Get Notepad++ ( http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ ), it's a text editor much like standard windows notepad, but has alot of added functions, of those we are going to use its ability to search thru multiple text files for desired search strings. Go to Search -> Find in files... or press ctrl + shift + f to open the search dialog:



To "directory:" you will specify your chatlog folder, and to "find what:" you will insert desired string, more on good ones later. NEVER use replace on chatlogs, for your other text files, do as you please.



The search results will be listed on lower section of the program, and double clicking them will open the file into notepad++ and jump straight into the line where the search result is. Like here we searched "about Doomwatcher" so we can find what player Doomwatcher's stat's were at different points in time (provided that you have info'd the player in past). Now you know the basic way to dig.

Couple of useful searches

About *player*
About *player* lets you dig up old player info such as old promotion reasons, hours, pre-wipe stats and etc.

renamed
I use this to hunt down old mains, when someone names a world, it will display message "player renamed worldA to worldB". In case of mains, this can pin point when some main was archived. Lets say that on 2012-04-13 player JohnnyRulz2342 build a house in main, but after few months and couple of new mains, he wants to see it again, but doesn't remember the number of it. You know the date (or approximation) so you can search for renamed and check the list for main renames that are around that time. You probably won't find exact main, but atleast some borders to make pin pointing easier. (note that you must have been online when the main was renamed to have it in your logs, if you weren't, ask a fellow staff member to do same search in hopes that they've read this tutorial too)

*player* was kicked
shows all occasions youve seen when searched player has been kicked, not just the one you'll find in info. Also search with "*" at the end of player's name incase they had freeze/mute/warning at the time of kick (tho I think atleast freeze and warning go away during kick)

*player** was banned (note the "*" at end of player's name)
same as above but with bans

Please recommend good searches to improve this list. Preferably queries with automated messages that server gives.

Note that if player's displayed name has been different at some point, those results won't show if the name is different from the searched one (see? another bad point for too different displaynames).

Closing thoughts
For sake of having better knowledge on what has happened in past, get notepad++ and keep your chatlog files, and tell other staff members to do it too so we can have big collective log on past happenings (no im not asking you to post your whole logs and reveal all what youve done and pm'd, just that you'd be able to search for some instance and possibly give some log info about it giving better idea what happened).

If you go on multiple servers, things can get bit messy but nevermind that, just pay attention when digging.

[Voltzahl 0]

Ok first off, good idea Doom.
Secondly that first sentence I seriously laughed. Which was awkward because in a Ruby Tuesdays with my parents.
thirdly I only delete logs if they are from 6+ months ago and are useless. Also if something happens I create a second log just of that so I can delete very old logs without worry so I probably don't have many old logs.

Edit: The computer I used when I first joined MC might have logs from the start of the year.

[Sheppard250 0]

KingKnightscareXXII wrote:

Ok first off, good idea Doom.
Secondly that first sentence I seriously laughed. Which was awkward because in a Ruby Tuesdays with my parents.
thirdly I only delete logs if they are from 6+ months ago and are useless. Also if something happens I create a second log just of that so I can delete very old logs without worry so I probably don't have many old logs.

Edit: The computer I used when I first joined MC might have logs from the start of the year.

Volt don't delete any