@draugnar - I was suggesting an option for people to change screen names, some people may not be so attached to theirs as you clearly are to yours. I suggested earlier that open examination may lead to people having a better understanding of how people think in gunboat games; surely this could help people who don't play at a high level.

@Ivo - "but we also have free press and the ability to speak up when something looks wrong"

Slander? Libel? Do these words not have meaning to you? Falsely accusing someone in public can get you sued or worse. So you better have *real* evidence before you accuse someone of a *real* crime. And yes, I'm guilty of just that a while back. No need to go back there. I was wrong and admitted it then and still do. So don't. Just don't.

@draugnar - as you may know I'm in England. I must have imagined all those O J Simpson trials coming out of the US....

Re: Gunboats...

Perhaps a SoW for gunboats with experience gunboat advisors (but no public commentary) and a series of EoGs at the end from the professors (who could talk to the students directly) would help to engage and educate the new players and dramatically reduce the number of cheating accusations where a new player thinks it's impossible for a coordinated attack or defense in a game with no verbal communication.

@Maniac

"so why do you believe that people would take the fact that a person doesn't visit the forum as a sign of guilt?"

Because it has been the case in the past.

"why do you think that mods could receive a notification about an alleged cheater and still treat that member fairly whilst you feel the ordinary members couldn't hear such accusations?"

For three reasons:
1) We are privy to substantially more information that the average user.
2) We are able to conduct our investigation in a calm, controlled environment, rather than the chaotic forum.
3) I have seen first hand such allegations in the forum quickly crumble into witch hunts.

"I get the distinct impression that you are more concerned with being right than listening to reason."

I'm sorry if you feel that way because it is not the case.

"I think we could safely give it a try."

OK, clearly you don't remember, but the reason we have our currently policy is because we *did* try it in the past and it was a disaster. Why would it be different this time?

" I would be happy to receive any evidence that anyone falsely accused has left and stated the accusation as a reason for leaving."

I don't know if anyone has left because of it, but I do have at least a half dozen emails of people claiming they thought about leaving the site because they were accused of cheating.

Judge Alito allowed the OJ trials to be aired. As I said, "unless the judge allows it."

Mania -- i don't thinkit's just the mods who don't want the accusations posted. I think lots of players feel the same way. perhaps we should have a vote, since you're so into public action :)

and yes, i prefer the current system. i don't think the fact that people still post accusations in the forum doesn't invalidate the general rule. if we went with your proposal, the forum would be filled with cheating accusations. as for teaching people how to play the game (gunboat or otherwise) i don't think publicly stating cheating accusations accomplishes that the way school or war or referring people to articles, or just writing a forum post about it, would do.

Maniac, do you feel you are being unjustly tried in private? do you feel that the mods are not responsive to your concerns about cheating? i'm curious where this is coming from, or if it's just a philosophical exercise.

@ dj: If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, it wasn't an accusation that he was a multi but rather that he shouldn't get credit for games he won because a multi was in the game with him and was banned. I think it was an argument over whether or not games with a banned player should be automatically canceled.

smiley -- i don't follow.

If I recall the conversation you're talking about correctly, this was it:

We were having a debate about whether or not games with players should be automatically canceled because they were tainted. As evidence, someone looked through Ivo's prolific history to provide examples of games where he won (or lost) under ridiculous circumstances because someone in the game was banned (Either during or post-hoc). Ivo misunderstood and thought he was being accused of cheating, and got very defensive.

threadID=510850

oh i don't know. just someone called him a cheater and i said i didn't think so but such things should be referred to mods.

I got an idea, why don't we all just deal with it the way it is now... the mods are perfectly capable of investigating cheating accusations.
also, lets be honest, If people could post here, they would NOT be innocent until proven guilty in most peoples views... unfortunatly, thats not how people think...
If you don't agree with how things are, you have 3 real options:
A: deal with it.
B: go to a new site
or C: make your own site where the rules are whatever you want them to be...

Or D: butter your head :)

While I agree with butterhead, that made me chuckle, Ivo.

To the main topic: I am convinced that having these out in the open, actually having the issue publicly more visible will help, while slander and such will not be a major problem long term - if someone keeps posting absurd accusations they'll end up looking as morons and will stop. It's a learning process.

I'm pretty sure if there were no cheating-related topics at all we'd have more cheaters. One has to be careful what they wish for.

I wonder why someone would cheat to earn ranking points, but it occurs. People on chess sites use computer programs to artificially boost their rating. Why it helps their self-esteem to be a data entry clerk for a computer program is beyond me. But unless I'm playing for money, so what? I don't feel it's necessary to worry about whether, on a free site where there's no tangible reward for cheating, someone is cheating.

If someone chooses to cheat, that's their bad decision. They don't get to enjoy the real fruits of success if they win, and if they lose, that probably makes them feel particularly stupid.

More importantly, given that there is value in a community without cheaters, it is easy to catch most cheaters by analyzing the data. How likely is someone else to be present in my game, especially an anonymous game? Do that person and I tend to do better on average when we play together when we do not? Straightforward data analysis can identify any unusual correlations. Humans can investigate pretty easily whether there's something fishy going on.

Finally, why not have a player rating system for integrity? I should be able to flag opponents for suspicious behavior in a private manner. This could be taken further such that I can ban a player from my games - I can't join games in which they're already a player, and if they join a game I'm in, I automatically withdraw.

grep5000 +1 - I've wanted your last option added for some time, especially the auto withdraw if they join a game I already joined.

Response to abgemacht -
1) We are privy to substantially more information that the average user. Then why not post that information in a forum.
2) We are able to conduct our investigation in a calm, controlled environment, rather than the chaotic forum. - Whereas I and other members can't act in a calm manner and can't be trusted to make informed decissions?
3) I have seen first hand such allegations in the forum quickly crumble into witch hunts. My point is you are getting witch hunts anyway...surely it's better to accept that people willpost accusations and deal with it and try to introduce a better method for dealing with them, ie allowing people to speak for and against and present fresh evidence?

@DjBent - partly this is a philosophical excercise, but also I think open debate and discussions about what is and isn't acceptable can only help members. I'm in a game now where a new player told me he wasn't going to attack his real life friend. He's new and I merely pointed out how such things are interpreted on the site. However, I think open debate about cheating, and metagaming will help members new and old to appreciate fuly how their actions are likely to be viewed.

@grep - an excellent idea about players ranking other players. Perhaps we could do away with points and ghost rankings all together and we should all strive for honesty rankings bestowed on us by our felloe players. I use honesty in the sense of not cheating, at the end of each game every player could -1; 0; or +1 their oppenants based on how honest they think they were.

"based on how honest they think they were"

That and the whole idea sounds a bit crazy to me. Part of the game is to deceive and "stab" people. Although it would be great, I really doubt that after every game every player will then have the rationality and maturity to award players a mark. If someone had to stab and defeat people to win a game, and for people that aren't good sports, they'll pissed off and just give a "-1".

@Maniac
1) Because disclosing all of the tools we use to detect multiaccounters will only make it easier for people to cheat.
2) You would not be making an informed decision (see 1). And, no matter how collected an individual user may be, I feel the forum has a tendency to make us lose ourselves on occasion. We are all guilty of this, including myself.
3) We get fewer now than we would otherwise. Again, just because a situation isn't perfect doesn't mean we need to make it worse.

@Sargmacher, if you automatically dropped out of any game that your -1 rankings joined, you'd probably find yourself able to distinguish between "lied to me" and "acted really suspiciously." It's a double compensating system: players who act suspiciously might have trouble finding a game, and players who label a lot of others as cheats might also have trouble finding a game. Frankly, I'm not sure which of those are worse to have in a game.

grep's idea has something to it. Of course it won't replace GR or points (where did this come from?) and it has to be well designed.

However, I'd really appreciate a small multiple-choice questionnaire about the opposition after game end:
A. Good player. Good future opponent.
B. Easy pray. More of this please.
C. Lying bastard, but I'd like to play him again and kick his ass this time.
D. Moron. Avoid for next six months. If option D is selected more than twice, avoid forever.
E. Cheater. Avoid at all costs. With a text-box for explanations, forwarded to the mods for validity review - to classify these as invalid/has some merit/cheater.
... or something like this.

Oh, yes...
F. CD. Avoid.

Hahahahaha. I wish I had that questionnaire handy.

@grep: But Maniac suggest scrapping points altogether in favour of players ranking each other. My point was made towards that idea. I don't think all players would rank each other fairly in such a system.

@Sargemacher: understood, but in ranking others, people are also ranking themselves. Ranking another player as a cheater is equivalent to "crying wolf." If someone cries wolf a lot, no one should pay any attention to them. If the wolf cry is completely basis, same thing.

However, my preference would be to privately indicate whether I want to play with other players again, perhaps along the lines of Ivo's suggestion above.

It wouldn't mean that I think they're cheating, it's just an expression of preference. Maybe I think the player brings a bad vibe, sends me nasty messages, or whatever.

Expressing that I don't want to play with Person X means that I might be limiting myself. If that person plays a lot of gunboats, for instance, I might have to decide whether I'm going to put up with it or not.

I think an "avoid" list would be a wonderful idea -- don't have to worry about bumping into them in an anonymous game.

I definitely think an avoid list would be good. I've already encountered some players here who I wouldn't particularly want to join a game with again - especially those players who leave halfway through. That just kills games.

You wouldn't get someone just leaving in the middle of a face-to-face game so it's something different to deal with here.