Well abge, I'm sorry if we alienated your friend. But given his play in that game and his stubborn insistence that he was right, I don't really think we were that out of line.

@ : )

As I said, I haven't actually looked at the game, but from this thread it looked like he was explaining his position. For future reference, telling someone they are PMSing and are an idiot is probably not the best way to explain them how to play a game better.

I said neither of those things, though.

@ : )

I know. I wasn't trying to accuse you, specifically, of anything. In fact, looking back through the thread, you seemed pretty polite, so I apologize for lumping you in with the rest of the peanut gallery. Although, in general, telling a new player you'll never play with them again after 1 game is not the way to grow a community, whether their my friend or not.

That's a fair point Abge, but I'd encourage you to look at the game. It was very frustrating. We had a stalemate, and he intentionally threw the game to Turkey, and then proceeded to CD. Not very excusable behaviour, if you ask me.

Trust me, I've been part of *very* frustrating games, so I know the feeling.

And, CdreChris *did* mention that the site went down for him, so there wasn't much he could do about CDing.

The reality is, that if you piss someone off, they may throw the game. Is it a good plan? Certainly not, but it *is* something you need to be careful of. If you attack someone, they may hold a grudge through the game.

@abge - on this we have to disagree. Looking at the game, looking at his play, and looking at his attitude in this thread, I stand by my evaluation that he is an idiot when it comes to Diplomacy (letting his hurt feelings in a game rule his head), that many (if not most) of the best players would agree with me (as this thread shows already), and that I would never play him. The first two are my opinion, and the latter is my right.

So let me get this straight. You are saying that 1 SC taken from him by England is enough to throw the game to the person who 1. Stabbed him in the back, 2. Took all of his other SC's, and then proceeded to kill him when England was trying to keep him alive? That was my first real gunboat (not counting the failure make-shop SoW that got set up) and I thought I did pretty good until England stabbed me for a fleet build (which he jurisdicted as an army built) and caused me to lost my positioning against Turkey, but I still didn't stop. (The site does occasionally go offline for me during live games as well, so the CD was probably not his fault, granted that if it went offline for him it would have went offline for all of us). If he is going to hold a grudge about 1 SC that was crucial for the Stalemate line, then I don't think that a gunboat match is where you should be playing, because occasionally your rivals one minute and best friends the next.

@Draug

Do you understand what a sample size is? This thread has about 5 people in it, one very low in GR. It's a bit presumptuous of you you claim you speak for most of the best players on this site based on what a couple people have said.

@Scmoo

As I've said, I haven't looked at the game; I'm not defending his in-game actions. All I'm saying is that you guys are rude and it's not conducive increasing our community.

@abge - The same presumption exists on your side of the argument, except my sample size agrees more than 80% with my assessment, where as your sample size is you. Apply the same standards equally when you evaluate opinions and whether the community backs them or not.

Well, when you find the time to do so, It would be most warranting as you would see our frustration and where it is coming from. I am sorry for what I said, but it probably won't help anything now, I mean, everyone knows how it is, it is the heat of the moment and you do what you think is right, not what is right. It is probably the same thing that happened to him in the game. If you look at it, he got agitated by England, and raged from there to Munich. It is the same idea. He probably didn't really pay attention to what Turkey was doing after that, because he was just using his units to hit England's units and allow Turkey behind him..

@Draug

My 1 against your 4? Both completely statistically irrelevant. Again, you are completely missing my point. I don't care if not a single person on this site won't play with him: You should *not* be rude to new members. Are you arguing against that as well?

"My 1 against your 4?"

Sorry, I had to respond to this. If you approach this from a Bayesian perspective (The perspective by which you should approach everything) Draugnar is completely right. The probability of the majority of good players agreeing with him is higher given four agreements and one disagreement than it was. It may be weak evidence, but it is evidence. You don't have to adjust your probability estimate 90%, but you should adjust it some. You can't completely ignore it.

I hope I don't qualify as "the peanut gallery" considering I didn't say anything insulting until it was thrown at me first.

@ : )

I almost failed my course on Stochastic processes, but I think we both know that 4 people (some of which were in the game) is not enough to draw a conclusion about 200 people.

I said top 100 GR, not top 200.

@ abge:

Beliefs are not binary yes no decisions, they are probability estimates.

I can not prove God does not exist, but I am an athiest, because I assign a high probability to his non-existence, given the facts I have accumulated in my life.

Similarly, we can assign a higher probability estimate to the top 100 GR players agreeing with Draug, finding that 3-4 of them actually do, than we would assign given that we had no evidence. It may not be more than a marginal difference, but to not update your probability estimates upon receipt of new evidence goes against basic laws of rationality.