I recently played a live game against MrLuka and JAK198. Instead of settling for a 3-way draw, they kept the game going for 2 more hours so that MrLuka could help JAK win the game. Not my favorite people either!

Let's add three (maybe more I don't know)--

Panduras and all his multis :P

anyone want play now???join to the game lets play diplomacy

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=41385

@Maniac - Whats wrong with AgentK?
I was agree that some of his earlier actions were 'a little questionable', but those were dealt with at the time.
I investigated him on his actions since April and found nothing wrong.

It's Maniac's right to choose who he wishes to play with or not, Figle.

And my own research into Agent K makes me question the veracity of the pre-April judgement. There was clearly collusion going on and he should have been banned for life back then. Once a cheat, always a cheat. He got shitloads of points in his metagaming prior to April as well as a serious GR boost. You may not see anything wrong since, but you could have revisited his prior actions and deemed them to have tainted the credibility of the site and at least taken the points away he got from his metagaming back then.

I'm sure I'll get threatened with a ban if I don't stop, but plenty of evidence of his cheating prior to April was provided and ignored. I have since felt the mods on this site are complicit in his earlier cheating and should be ashamed of themselves for not taking action back then. The integrity of this site is next to nill as a result of this blatant lack of punishment to the new account of this two time cheat just because he appears to be "reformed."

now tell us how you REALLY feel, Draug :)

FYI, I'm definitely in favor of "two strikes and out for life"....

"It's Maniac's right to choose who he wishes to play with or not, Figle."
I know, I am merely questioning the fact I think he's being unfair there.

"And my own research into Agent K makes me question the veracity of the pre-April judgement" - I'm not sure either, but hey. I am happy he hasn't cheated since then.

"Once a cheat, always a cheat" - Oh come on. I think this is the crux of the matter, and is where many of the older members forget a key fact.
Lots of the people found to be cheating are young and naive. We change a lot (often in a short space of time) at that sort of age, and everyone makes mistakes. If he were your age Draug I'd be inclined to agree with you that he shouldn't be trusted, but come on!

I agree with figle. If he hasn't been found guilty of cheating since April, there's no use talking about penalizing him. He hasn't done something wrong in over half a year, so we should just lay off him

up to what age is cheating no longer allowed?This news could greatly boost my GR!
But on a serious note I do agree that when people first start playing they may not be aware/ think that metagaming and such is cheating.

Draugnar, if we were to follow your policy it would make moderating far more difficult. In his case it was not perfectly clear whether he was ignorant, malicious, or just the beneficiary of some friends who didn't 'get it'. It made for a much less strenuous workload (remembering I was about to take exams in the summer and doing the majority of the mod work at the time) to warn him about the rules. So doing proved successful, as he hasn't broken the rules since. Moderating is about making sure that games played are clean and so can be fun for everyone, and in the case of Agent K, that has been achieved.

@ghost - I'm not having a go at the moderators, I respect the work you do to keep the site going. I just think that if people state why they don't want to play with others, then perhaps those others will stop engaging in questionable antics and the mods would have less work to do.

With regards to AgentK - don't you think his GR rating and points has been improved by his friends who didn't 'get it' and this undermines any rating system?

Perhaps, Ghost, but it sounds like you are setting a precedent that people are allowed to take part in questionable behavior and benefit from questionable behavior from "a friend" and not even get a slap on the wrist if they eventually come around. It takes a while to even figure out a person is cheating, so at the time it is discovered, if they are not punished sufficiently, MANY noobs will decide it is beneficial to cheat. I believe the punishment should be much worse than the crime, because if the punishment fits the crime and people aren't always caught, then in the long run your expected outcome is better if you cheat, thus cheating is encouraged.

Maniac, I've not problem with you (hence addressing my post to Draugnar)

@Madmarx, I wouldn't follow that kind of policy with anyone who wasn't new to the site, or in any case where I was confident, to be clear.

@Maniac - Not significantly.
I am (and have for some time) been pushing for the ability to cancel finished games, but this has not been introduced. If we can get this through then we could remove these games and everything would be fine.
I think that it's rather unfair not to play with someone just because a significant time ago (as a portion of their life) they weren't good people. Given he hasn't cheated since one could argue it was a reasonable decision by Ghost.

Im just wondering when Draugnar is going to get off my nuts

Poor Agent K....

I both agree and disagree with Draug.

I doubt Agent K will contemplate funny business at this point, if for no other reason both because he has too much to lose and there are too many eyes on him.

This is not a reflection on Agent K, nor a question of his apparent sincerity. However, it is undeniable that at least a portion of his impressive statistics are ill-gotten, and in many eyes - including, I must admit, my own - they are therefore diminished.

So while I have no doubt he is a good player, he is unfortunately always going to have to deal with the fact that his reputation is sullied. Forever.

So while I agree that letting someone get away with cheating is a poor precedent to set - I don't think he really 'got away with it'. He could never lose another game and he still will be seen as a less skillful player than he otherwise might.

Which is a hell of a lot worse than wiping a few wins off his record

re tarnishes his reputation - agreed, but nothing like as much as you lot going on about it!
I would love to remove the dodgy games but for now I can't.

@fig - I'm sure he would, too. Even if they magically vanished, I'm willing to bet people would question his stats.

Look, I'm not saying Agent K is the antichrist here. If anything, I'm saying that the 'punishment' of not being respected is worse than anything the mods could deliver

Agreed, and the point I'm making is that its you lot causing him that which seems unfair to me.

I think that the problem with dealing with cheating on this site is that it cannot be immediately seen. There needs to emerge some pattern for the cheating to be visible. I referee rugby matches, and in that situation discouraging cheating is easy. If someone does something like a high tackle once, I shout a warning without slowing the game down. Second time I award a penalty and give them a one-on-one warning. Third infraction is a yellow card, fourth is a second yellow/red card. However, moderating here is nothing like that because the evidence all comes out after the fact. By the time the first warning is given there can have been multiple infractions affecting many games. Thus, there should be one very stern warning before serious action is taken. The fact that someone hasn't broken the rules in a while doesn't change the fact that they did something wrong in the first place. The other problem is that anyone can simply get a new profile and come back, so I guess maybe it's easier to keep an eye on reformed cheats if we don't ban them.

I'm just curious why the rest of them got banned though?

@SS - The rest of them? When are you referring to?

@LJ - Rugby in the US? :O
"The fact that someone hasn't broken the rules in a while doesn't change the fact that they did something wrong in the first place"
Agreed, but surely people can change and move on? I bet you did some things 6 months ago you wouldn't want your name to be constantly tarnished by?

ha ha yes I would love if the feature to cancel finish games could be implemented as I was myself victim of cheating in one of my games, the cheaters were banned, but my points and GR suffered from the operation
does anyone know whether cancelling finished games may/will be implemented?

I've put it on the dev-forum (http://forum.webdiplomacy.com) in the past, and mentions it directly to Kestas in the past, but I don't know if/when it will be introduced no.

rugby is pretty prolific on the West Coast, especially in my area, i just got an unofficial rugby team at my school last year (as in, rugby isn't certified by the CIF, so we're just a club, but we still get grade checks and stuff). We play against other schools in the area.

@ Kingdroid - Where do you live and what's your team? Even odds that I or one of my current teammates have played against you.