Zmaj, just go back about two or three hundred pages in the forums and note that about half the threads are cheating accusations. They shouldn't be allowed for the simple reason they clog up the forums.

From a purely legal view: even in constitutions around the world people have the right for freedom of speech and the right to dignity. Sometimes these two conflict and even contsitutional judges and lawyers cannot agree which is above the other.

My point is, while your post makes sense some would consider players on this site have a stronger right to their dignity then you have to freedom of speech. I cannot make a decision on that one. My gut says, freedom of speech is stronger, but I'm more liberal I guess, conservatives surely say dignity is the stronger right.

I went back to page 500. Thirty threads, one cheating accusation. In other words, you're wrong.

Rokakoma, you and I know that nobody gives a damn about dignity in this forum. As I said, we call one another names and deride other players' religion, race and everything else with impunity. Only cheating is taboo. I'm asking why is that. I explained why the moderators' reasons can't stand.

Cheating accusations give players an undue and unfair advantage over other players in gameplay.

I have no clue, on the other hand I don't see the positives if they were allowed. Even if you're right, how would it benefit for the site?

2ndWhiteLine, how is that? Are you talking about accusations made while a game is in progress? But I agree that ongoing games shouldn't be discussed, it's not related to this issue. I'm talking about cheating accusations made after the games are finished.

Rokakoma, it would benefit all of us because we could say what we think. We can already speak our mind about everything else and I don't see a valid reason why cheating shouldn't be included. And considering the frequency of moderators' admonishments, it's not a minor topic.

when is dubmdell EVER right? :P

Since when did public opinion not have any weight on webdip? Public opinion is effectively the only thing with weight on webdip. If you're planning on staying, reputation is everything.

If you only play anonymous, password-free games, it doesn't matter all that much. But if you want to get into tournaments (especially the Leagues), be invited to games with better players (since pot size and skill are not directly linked until you get into the 10000 point range), and have a presence on the forum... having been publicly accused of cheating is not going to help your cause.

"because we could say what we think"

Well, this is the benefit for "WE", what's for the site? I totally agree it's good when somebody can speak about whatever he wants, but it's good for him, not the medium on which he does that.

And making accusations creates a means for outside-game communication and revealing who is who in a game, which is unfair in anonymous, public press, and gunboat games to those who choose to keep their presence in the game a secret.

TBroadley, see my reply to 2ndWhiteLine. I'm not talking about discussing ongoing games, which is obviously wrong. I'm talking about discussing finished games.

TBroadley, regarding the public opinion here. It is already based on prejudices regardless of cheating. Some players are not invited simply because of their style of play or because the game creators don't like them (*cough SD cough*).

It was a bigger issue when I joined back in 2008. I didn't realize 2008 was buried so deeply in the forums now though.

I truly believe that the Mods give cheaters a 2nd chance to keep the numbers up and keep the forum active; personally I'm not against that as you're behaviour as a brand new player may be very different once you have been on here 6 months as you may have grown to love it so maybe a 2nd chance isn't a bad thing.
There are other people who come on to the forum as friends and work together to beat other players, I take issue with that in gunboat games but why would we be surprised that friends work together in full press games. I see people making friendships and then joining in games together, mentally they are pre-disposed to work in their common interest against people they don't know and don't trust.
The beauty of gunboats is that some people you may think are pretentious pious tossers on the forum you can work with in an anonymous game for the good of the game and not be affected by personalities.
We may get some people join the site for the wrong reasons and stay for the right reasons. On what is a pretty laid back forum you can't make 'greetings salutations' without at least one, usually several trollers jumping in the thread to tell you how evil you are for breaking the rules, but as there are not many rules on the forum and everybody seems to care about that one then maybe that is a price worth paying to have such a fabulously interactive gaming resource.
Ultimately there is no point to cheating and there are other things to discuss on the forum than cheaters, like CD merchants, this is more common and seems to happen in a high percentage of games. There is an issue that needs a solution.....
All IMHO as always
Nigee

Alright, scratch my second post.

Public opinion here is to some extent based on prejudice, as well as personal character and playing prowess. Cheating accusations create prejudice against a player. We probably want to eradicate this, eh?

Nigee, I love the name "CD merchants". If I had a nickel for every Italy and Austria that left in 1901...

"As I said, we call one another names and deride other players' religion, race and everything else with impunity. Only cheating is taboo. I'm asking why is that. I explained why the moderators' reasons can't stand. [...]We can already speak our mind about everything else and I don't see a valid reason why cheating shouldn't be included." -Zmaj.

This is incorrect.

1. Accusing someone of cheating without solid proof of fact is defamation/slander.
2. Apart from nasty trolls, almost all of the debates on WebDip, however argumentative and passionate they may be, are friendly and intelligent. I get no sense that "calling one another names and deriding other players' religion, race and everything else with impunity" is accepted and any player who makes a habit of this quickly makes a pariah out of themselves. To describe WebDip as a place where racial, religious, and all other forms of discrimination and abuse are wanton is to a disservice to the great majority of people who conduct themselves very well here.
3. Moreover, most democracies operate under an 'innocent until proven guilty' formula. Imagine if every time there was a suspicion that someone was guilty of a crime it was reported as a headline on the news? "ZMAJ accused of CHILD RAPE", how would you like that? Such a system would be extremely unhelpful, as it would only create tension, animosity, and allow anyone to call out anyone they did not like.
4. There is little benefit to making public cheating accusations - you would still need to report it to the moderators, who would still need to do the work. The only thing that would change would be that a lot more people would be aware that you personally believe that someone else is breaking the rules. If it turns out you are wrong, that person's name is tarnished and there will be a thread locked on the forum to always remind them of it.

Freedom of Speech is not a licence for freedom to hate.

I DEMAND JUSTICE!

From being around when this kind of thing happened, I can say several things:

1. If cheating accusations are made on the forum, people won't realise that the way to contact the mods about cheating is via e-mail.

2. When we have public cheating accusations, naturally there are going to be times with several accusations in a short period of time. When this happens, /lots/ of people start seeing red, and many unsubstantiated accusations happen.

3. Humans are very, very bad at understanding scale. If you get an accusation every couple of days, people start thinking that there are cheats all over the place, even though, with a total of 500 games in progress, that would still give a low chance of an accusation being relevant to the game you are in.

4. When public, cheating accusations lead to excessive acrimony. People care much more about being labelled a cheat than anything else you can say on the forum. Which brings the next point:

5. People really care about cheating accusations being made against them, which directly contradicts the claim that there is no cost to the accused.

6. "Liveliness" is not necessarily a good thing, it is only good when other conditions are met. In particular, a lively argument over whether someone is a cheat is just not desirable. I've seen it happen before.

7. The same is true with "being related to actual games"

Sargmacher,

1. Yes, it is. What's your point?
2. Friendly and intelligent? To give just one example, Mujus has been abused to no end. Also, I clearly remember Santa being taunted for allegedly being a Jew. And Putin has denied at least one genocide. Come on.
3. WebDip is not a democracy.
4. People's opinions are often unpleasant. Fortunately, we're not made of glass.

TheGhostmaker, thanks for the thoughtful post. You've shown in a convincing way that cheating accusations are undesirable. However, "undesirable" is a long way from "forbidden." CDs are undesirable but not forbidden. Swearing is undesirable but not forbidden. Discussing ongoing games is forbidden, but that's because it directly affects a game.

Cheating accusations, like other undesirables, shouldn't be forbidden.

It's really quite simple, the person who made the code for this site, and who runs it doesn't want them posted here. Additionally, the people who volunteer hours and hours of time looking into these accusation seem to find it easier to get them all in an ordered email inbox instead of a forum where they can get lost to bumps and new threads. And on the legal points brought up, falsely accusing someone of a crime is slander and can get you in trouble. I'm guessing nobody would be happy if the mods started punishing people for unknowingly making a false accusation against another player?

And cheating accusations can affect a game. If a player who's in multiple games is accused on the forum of cheating in one game there is a chance other people in his other games will treat him differently in game, gang up on him and eliminate him. Since there are still a lot of public games there is really no reason to take that risk.

Zmaj, my point is that slander is generally regarded as against accepted practice.

No, WebDip is not a democracy - so really the moderators could turn round and ban you for suggesting something contrary to the site's rules but they do not do this because they actually do run this place on democratic principles. It's somewhat hypocritical for you to argue that this website is not a democracy but then table a forum debate on a site ruling you disagree with to raise support to change it.

I stand by my comment that most people here are friendly and intelligent. I have not cited Putin33 as a beacon of this so your referencing is skewed.

As for people's opinions being unpleasant - that is exactly what I was saying with regards to freedom of speech not being the freedom to hate. People are entitled to have their own unpleasant opinions, it is when they broadcast them to everyone else forcefully that it becomes a problem. Regardless, an opinion is slightly different to an accusation. We are not made of glass but this does not mean people can go round abusing each other - as your proposition would allow.

Why don't we have a vote on cheating accusations, a simple yes or no vote, should we or shouldn't we......

Lets vote on if we should have the right to vote!

"Get one thing straight. You're staying? This isn't a democracy anymore."

Yeah, if Kestas is against it, I can't do a thing. If mods are against it, ditto. I can try to make a difference, though. I'm not like Sargmacher and his dictatorial ilk, who would let others have opinions only if those opinions are harmless.

@Zmaj

I've demonstrated that cheating accusations on the forum have bad consequences. I don't see disallowing them as having any bad consequences of its own. In particular, I don't think we've sacrificed any of the freedom of speech that makes this forum so good, because there is a clear case for not having accusations.

Analogously, we disallow talking about the games in progress, because they have bad consequences.

We would also disallow revealing the names of people who have legal protection against them, (e.g. rape victims in the UK).

Conversely, we do not disallow other conversation because we do not think that the bad consequences we sometimes see can be removed without getting rid of other good things (i.e. other good threads, and the sense of a free, broadly unmoderated forum).



In other words, you need to make a case as to how allowing cheating accusations would make substantial improvements to not only this forum, but this website as a whole. It is notable that the rule is largely in place to protect people who are accused but innocent from being penalised in-game.