Subtlety is not my thing.

Only a conceited idiot would be caught red-handed for cheating, and then start a thread attempting to boast about what a clever cheater they were.

@Al: Yes "cheating" is part of the nature of the game. By this, it means doing things that are not expressly against the rules. Cheating by doing things blatantly against the rules is not permitted (hence the rules) unless all parties agree. This is why you never see a tournament game of Diplomacy with one guy playing two countries on the same board---because each player plays ONE country according to the rules of the game.

This site adds additional rules to keep things fair and proper. One of them is a rule against metagaming. This is EXPRESSLY against the rules, again unless all parties agree to permit it.

This is a form of cheating that is not the type that is something inventive, it's a blatant disregard for rules that we at this site all agree to. If you join the site, then you agree to abide by the rules and to suffer the consequences of breaking them, which includes being banned.

@ Sh@dow

Ever play a game by Steve Jackson? Illuminati? Or perhaps Munchkin? He specifically puts in the rules that cheating is allowed, as long as you don't get caught. In Illuminati, I make a habit of stealing other's cash, and from the bank as well. If you are sneaky, you can get away with it!

Al, just continues to be the shithead that he is. Nothing new here. But next time he wants to rave about his win/loss/draw ratio......hmmmm...Really?

Does anyone know if there has been punishment laid down yet?

@KingCyrus: If whatever falls under the undefined category of 'cheating' is explicitly accomodated by the rules, then by definition it is no longer cheating, as cheating is by definition any covert action undertaken outside the rules of a game.

The point is that every game has rules. Stick to those rules. Dont cheat.
If a game allows everything - then that is the rule - no activity can be defined as cheating.

Even without cheating, Chaqa wins on the fact that Al Swearengen is an idiot.

Game options should be: PPSC, WTA, and Without Al Swearengen

You all know, you are trying to prove rules and ethics to a shithead, right?

Lessons Learned: Don't join a game with "Swearengen" in the name.

I would like to know from a moderator, in this thread, what actions were taken against someone who admitted that they cheated.

@ssorenn

Al did not actually metagame. He claimed to be metagaming with Austria in a live game in order to fluster Chaqa into making tactical mistakes. This, however, was a violation of rule 4 (Do not lie to give the mods unnecessary work to do), and as a result, Al was docked 50 after we deduced this.

Sure looks like he learned his lesson.

@Jeff,

I have learned my lesson. While my behavior is at times bad, I have enough respect for the moderators not to be caught breaking the same rule twice.

That's what makes cheating creative. If you're a repeat offender, it's no longer entertaining or novel, it's annoying to the staff.

You can't imagine the staff were that outraged to find that me (a 46 year old man) had convinced one of my closest friends on the site (Chaqa) that I was a high school student. That is *ART*!

So you're saying you didn't read the rules on the site? Or did you not expect claiming to be cheating to be "lying to create work for the mods"?

I would be surprised if you weren't already annoying to the staff this time. It's creative, entertaining and novel to you. To the people who have to deal with, it might not be.

So, a doc of 50 pts is what the base line is here. What's that accomplish. Especially to a guy with 1500+.

A slap on the virtual wrist and a warning for the future.

We try to be lenient and give the benefit of the doubt, so the policy is 25-50 or 10%, whichever is smaller and depending on the infraction. It might be necessary to revisit this policy.

He says in this thread he knows he cheated. admission is guilt. In jest or not.

very disappointing .......

So cheating is breaking a rule in a way that impacts a game. Rule breaking is breaking a rule that did not have a noticeable impact on a game. Since Al did not go to school with said person what he said was fine except for the fact it gave us work to do. For that reason I probably would have just given him a warning for this "offense". However a 50 point dock is pretty reasonable considering the very minor nature of this rule breaking. And it was rule breaking, not cheating.

Now if there had been an actual unfair impact on the game then we would have used our general policy for point docks which is percentage based to serve as a significant.

I say this only because Al brought his case to the forum, typically we will not discuss the details of ongoing investigations for a variety of reasons.

Didn't Al claim it did have a noticeable impact on the game? I mean, sure, we've established he's a liar, but still, he did believe, or at least hope that he was cheating.

Surely lying about out-of-game relationships, for the purpose of having an in-game influence, is illegal metagaming, pure and simple. No?

@phil, who cares if he's a liar in the game. I would guess 100% of members have lied in a game.

@jamiet, no, metagaming is playing with someone you know outside the site or using knowledge about another player that the other members couldn't reasonable get to impact the game. He did none of those things.

I don't see how that can be construed as metagaming, Jamie. To me it just seems like pretending to metagame? Which, as the mods have noted, is a much less serious offense. The fact that Al denies any real wrongdoing is pretty irritating, all the same.

Jmo
Rule breaking is breaking a rule that did not have a noticeable impact on a game. is the statement I was reacting to. Al says he thinks breaking the rule had an impact on the game. That is what I was trying to say.

It wasn't his rule breaking, I would argue, that had an illegal impact on the game. It was his lie that had an impact, and a perfectly legal one within the rules laid forth by this site. His rulebreaking only illegally impacted the mods, who had to unnecessarily investigate the matter. He's getting punished for inconveniencing the mods, not for the effect his deceit had on the game.

The thing that bugs me really is that Al is going to the forum to crow about this supposed creative cheating success. He wants copycats. Have fun policing that, mods.