I'm currently playing a hacker adept in a PnP game, and I decided that he's the system administrator for a data haven that caters to shadowrunning magicians. I wanted to take the data haven as a contact, so that it can have some kind of relevance on my actual character outside of roleplaying, but I'm really not sure what kind of connection and influence ratings would be relevant for something like this.

I mean, it has the potential to be staggeringly useful given the amount of people that might frequent it, but at the same time, it's not nearly as confidential as just attempting to get information from one person.

Really, Connection would essentially represent the signal-to-noise ratio of the board, so it's not out of the question to have it at any of the applicable Connection ratings.

In SR3 data havens were considered a rating 2 contact which was the middle value contacts could have. Equivalently it would be 3/3.

However, in SR4 it certainly seems like you could have data havens et al at different levels than that. I'd think of the ratings this way:

Connection: a rough estimate of membership, the connections of that membership, quality of the information, and the relevance/ease of using that information.

Loyalty: a measure of how involved you are in the data haven. A 1 might indicate membership while a 6 would mean sysop level. Could also reflect what people on the board are willing to do for you.

These ratings could be at any level and could be capped. So if you are starting a new BBS it might begin with Connection 1 and slowly build up to 6. As an admin you'd have rating 5 or 6 loyalty (DS admins can argue how loyal DS posters are). Alternatively, if you are a member of an established BBS you could begin as a regular member (loyalty 1) and slowly role-play your way up to admin (6).

Or, to make things interesting, roll D6 for connection for each subject searched, every search. This variable is caused by conflicting information on the data haven, and is what you believe to be accurate.

Loyalty should be inverse of the connection.

Let's say you have a data haven and you only use it for your team. Barring extraordinary betrayal, the Loyalty rating would be an *, because there's no chance of anything getting out.

Say you expand it and give access to your girlfriend's team? Now it becomes 6; they may not know you in person, but hey, you're their teammate's team. Frag with you is fragging with her.

Now let's say you expand it more, to say, the level of exclusivity that belongs to Fastjack's personal data haven? Loyalty 5; Less personal relationships, though they're still present.

Then go all the way down to rating 0, which is Dumpshock. It's a publicly-accessable, not-exactly-hidden BBS, that anyone can browse without joining. Any fed or slimeball can log on and noodle through the threads, so there's no loyalty. The information is freely available.

i dunno. what if you've got several members of your exclusive data haven who have high-level connections to insider information? that would raise your connection level without decreasing your loyalty.

Quiet you. Don't you know logic has no place here?

Loyalty seems the likelihood to get any decent responses from people helping you out. Connections represent how useful those responses are. Just like with most contacts.

I think the high amount of information that you can get from a data haven is balanced out by the fact that you can't use it for resources (fence my gear, patch me up, loan me gear, get me out of jail, etc.).

I've always allowed organizations as contacts, and my first PC was a conspiracy theorist who relied on using data havens contacts and Computer (Search) to uncover sensitive information without having to resort to hacking. It works alright.

It helps to have a strong theme with your board, of course, but I think you do.

Alternatively, you can spend 7 BP and buy a 'dynamic data haven', re-rolling your Connections and Loyalty scores each day with a d6 roll.

Wouldn't increasing the "loyalty" of a message board be equivalent to lowering the old "grapevine" penalty? (you know - where the more the query gets handed around the more likely that other interested parties (competitors, targets, whatever) notice)

Unarmed:

That would be odd. I mean... how would that work. You request a "favor" from the forum and now you owe the forum a favor sometime?

I would assume most members of the data haven to be strictly dedicated to exchanging data, sharing ideas, and maintaining anonymity. I would not allow one of my players to use their Data Haven (Magical Community) contact to request magical healing, but they might be able to refer him to a decent healer who could suit his needs (friend of a friend?). The Negotiation to get the information from the Data Haven will be completely different than the Negotiation to get magical services from the healer.

Unarmed and Mr. Unpronounceable:

Also, as I don't really like "punishing" players for their BP/Karma choices so, once I've allowed it, I don't feel there's any reason to make the Data Haven more likely to "betray" the runner. (At least no more so than any other contact.)

I tend to think of the havens as having top of the line hardware, exclusive clientelle, strict membership guidelines and rules that promote everyone's anonomity and keep the Data Haven itself a secret. I think it would be anonymous, confidential, and trustworthy, however little that might make sense otherwise.