@semck: Actually, in absence of this thread, I might agree that it would be difficult for someone to discern that it could easily be forged. I actually mentioned this in private to redhouse earlier on that it might catch people off-guard the first time they see it.

But especially in light of this thread and the repeated calls in it for moderators to make a judgment on this matter, that isn't going to hold much longer, because no matter what side they rule on they're going to have to address the ease of a screenshot being falsified, which would make it fairly public knowledge.

^semck, you were, and it was actually positively affecting my blood pressure. :-) It's exactly what I've been saying; this shouldn't happen on webdip.

President Eden, we don't want to become that community, really. We want to keep this game simple and the game manageable. What if these imgur files are later replaced by different images on the same URL? How are the mods ever going to know if what was originally on the URL was YES/NO an attempt at meta-gaming? Hell, I could put a picture of you on a drunk night on an imgur file, then replace it with a screenshot of my cat a day later.

The point is, we don't even want to go there, the easiest would just be to BAN the use of URLs to link to screenshots altogether.

@PE, I think that, like many, you vastly overestimate how many people on webdip spend a bunch of time reading every thread.

@rh, Oh, OK. :-) Good. I must be getting too used to people on here being sarcastic.

^EXACTLY what semck said. Exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly exactly

Whether the imgur content is legal or not is a point of contention, you can't use it to prove your case. If it is legal, as we claim it is a derivative entirely of in-game content, then it is exactly the same as press, and the same issues of trust go along with it. Further, how about my plan of sending images byte-by-byte. Fiedler seems to think this was a joke, it isn't. It's an important cog in the argument wheel. Would you be okay with me sending people images byte by byte over press? If you're not okay with it, under what rules are you not okay with it? You can't even call it reasons outside the game anymore, it's not on some other site, I sent it using, as fiedler put it, 'the textbox provided'

Also, the point that's being glossed over is that you can always lie about your intentions, and those are your strongest weapons, because they're only in your head. Your press being leaked doesn't matter. How do you think public press games are won?

@vaft, PE et al - Ok so I introduced the technical argument against outside communication. IF what PE says is true, then this isn't technically against the rules as they now stand.

But I do support redhouse in that this should NOT happen on an ethical basis. As I said, the only means of comms *should* be those provided by the game as intended.

YES this would be almost certainly impractical to police.

santosh your byte-by-byte example is absurd and you knows it. The point is a screenshot sent QUICKLY is very VERY likely to be genuine.

My example isn't absurd at all, it is perfect counter to your statement that imgur is 'outside the website'. Responses sent quickly might be genuine as well, an elaborate lie takes time to concoct. Perhaps we should ban responding within one minute of receiving a message?

This is Diplomacy. Ethical basis? You win this game by deceiving people. If screenshots can be fabricated, which it has been proved by multiple in this thread already, then how it can it be, "cheating"?

It's already been established they can be fabricated and thus the person receiving them needs to use his own judgment in reading it. This is no different AT ALL than receiving a copy pasted message of text.

fiedler, on an ethical basis, I agree with redhouse. I just don't like his attitude and redifinition of terms without actually bothering to look up precedents like the one PE pointed out. It brings out another question about ethics though. What ethics can be applied to a game that is based on deception? redhouse uses a justice system in his arguments. But a justice system aims to protect people's rights, and avoid people taking advantage of each other outside the norms of society. But a core element of Diplomacy is the ability of players to take advantage of each other and be rewarded for it. Do players have any natural rights? Should the burden of proof really be on the accuser in Diplomacy? I'm opening it up for discussion, I'm not going to say what is right or wrong. I'd like to hear other opinions. Mine would be that unlike real society, in Diplomacy, the burden of proof is on the accused. It's up to him or her to show their innocence since the very nature of the press game is distortion and deception.

santosh, although your byte by byte example is the most ridiculous nonsense I ever heard and demonstrates the weakness of your argument, I'll address it all the same hoping to settle the matter.
Sending byte by byte pictures forces the receiver to use software that is not found on the webdip site (and is hence OUTSIDE the game, please take your dictionaries and find "outside" to remind yourself of how silly YOUR interpretation of metagaming is, santosh PE and others) to interpret the image. Similar software would be necessary to create the byte-by-byte (I can't believe I'm seriously debating this, santosh, please leave my thread) and this software is also NOT found on the webdip site. Hence, it has OUTSIDE and for the same reason META written all over it.

@fiedler: Except, again, no, because it doesn't take very long to fake them at all.

Redhouse, why do you continue to use "we" in reference to the entire community? You can drop the pretenses, at this point it's almost entirely *you.* fiedler and semck agree with you, but they're more than capable of speaking for themselves, and besides, your sentences make much more sense with "you" substituted for "we" anyway.

This is entirely within the rules, backed by prior precedent regarding instant messaging clients off-site as a valid means of communication for full-press games (funny how bringing this up didn't get any responses), and confers no serious advantage on someone unless the someone is literally incapable of conceiving of the idea that a picture on the Internet, sent during a game of Diplomacy, can be deceiving. How this can possibly be anything but a slam-dunk case in favor of allowing screenshots is beyond me.

Communicating OUTSIDE of the site is not illegal. It's only against the rules to do so if the game has press limitations. If the game is full-press, you can communicate outside the site. If you wanna communicate on an outside messenger site, thats allowed. You're misapplying "outside the game" to wrongly support your argument.

@Vaftrudner, that is almost like saying "anything goes". This is not true. You can't multi, you can't meta. Simple as that. Don't make this argument unnecessarily complicated and don't hide the weakness of your arguments by putting some fog up.

You can't ally with people - and by the same token TRY to ally with people - for reasons OUTSIDE the game. The URLs that contain imgur files are found on a different website than webdiplomacy.net and hence are OUTSIDE the game. He who uses these URLs is referring the other player to a place OUTSIDE webdip and hence, attempts to META.

The reason it's perfectly normal to use COPY-PASTE is that this information A) is already on webdip and b) you can just type over a message without copy-pasting it (adding some juicy details, yummy) and this something COMPLETELY different from these imgur files.

@redhouse: +1 for making the effort to address santosh silly tosh.

@vaft, TheJoke: Be as deceptive as you like - WITHIN the PARAMETERS of THE GAME.

Is it ok if my rugby teams fullback has a heavy machinegun?

redhouse, you're equivocating.

"Reasons outside the game" refers to being reasons irrelevant to the game. Me and my brother allying to kill you because we're brothers and we want a 2-way draw is metagaming because of this definition.

It does NOT refer to being outside the infrastructure of the website. AGAIN, we ALLOW THE USE OF INSTANT MESSAGING CLIENTS OFF-SITE FOR FULL PRESS GAMES (caps for emphasis). This MEANS THERE IS PRIOR PRECEDENT FOR USING MEANS OUTSIDE THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE WEBSITE. Imgur is no different in this respect.

Another quick point raised in this convo that I'm oblivious to (so naive); o people send private e-mails to each other about live games and is that within the rules? I don't publish my personal e-mail so that can't happen.
Printing and sending screenhots to each other is churlish bullshit, it would be different if you were playing for money or for your life....... it's just a game you silly irriots !!
In saying that I've played against groups of students who get a little buzz out of working with their mates to win games. They have no moral compass when it comes to rules and just think it's a 'bit of fun', they would love to send screen shots to each other !!
I'm not saying it's only kids doing this but there are a number of players I've played with that would think nothing of doing this.
All this bullshit about not saying who does it, I'm all for naming them and getting there views on the issue by e-mailing them and getting them on the forum to discuss, they may have some valid points and could take part in the debate also.
All IMHO
Nigee

And now you're also equivocating, fiedler.

I must agree with those, who think screenshot are allowed. Since you are able to communicate, when the game allows, (free press), then it doesn't really matter on what communication channel your are talking.

Any discussion between 2 parties are their business, no 3rd party, not even mods should intervene into that. If anyone is meta/multigaming it wouldn't turn out anyway by reviewing the messages.

I must agree with Joker, this is Diplomacy, the point is to deceive people.

Don't forget, this is a board game, which can be played live with your friends. When you go to the kitchen to dicuss your moves, no-one will be able to supervise it later, neither will be if they email or text eachother in the meantime.

"2. No Meta-gaming
You can't make alliances for reasons outside a game, such as because you are friends, relatives or in return for a favour in another game. This is known as metagaming and is against the rules because it gives an unfair advantage to those involved. If you are worried that you can't stab someone because you want to stay friends, then that's fair enough but you can't join a game with them."

Literally quoted from the game site.

Imgur files are on a different URL than the GAME URLs, hence are outside, they are used to influence the outcome of the game, hence, they ARE illegal by any reasonable interpretation of rule number 2.

I love how you retained 'outside the game' and dropped the rest of the statement because it was inconvenient. Let me restate the rule - "If you enter a game with limited press/messaging (such as global-only) then you can't use other methods such as email or PM to bypass this." Your problem was the means of sending the message was outside the game, that is the problem you've fixed.

Your personal attacks, arbitrary capitalization and asking me to leave the thread because you don't like what I 'm saying, amuse me, redhouse. That is not how an argument is won, and that is not how diplomacy is played either.

"Equivocation ("to call by the same name") is classified as both a formal and informal logical fallacy. It is the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense (by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time). It generally occurs with polysemic words."

@PE:
"This is entirely within the rules, backed by prior precedent regarding instant messaging clients off-site as a valid means of communication for full-press games (funny how bringing this up didn't get any responses)"

- funny, I thought I did address that. Anyway I don't agree with that rule, btw.

"confers no serious advantage on someone unless the someone is literally incapable of conceiving of the idea that a picture on the Internet, sent during a game of Diplomacy, can be deceiving."

- there are a lot of very young players here. And not everyone has your advanced understanding of internets.

Imagine the following scenario.

I write a word document and say "Hey PE, I'm your friend, how about you and me we take on that German together just like in that other game where we clobbered the shit out of the other German."

Then I make a screenshot of that word document, put it on a website and send PE the link. He then makes a screenshot of a positive response

"Ow yeah that was cool, we should do that again."

And then the day after we both replace our imgur files by a picture of our cats. Then it would be an exchange of cats, while really we made a deal for personal reasons. Right?

I'll say it slowly.

It.simply.shouldn't.happen.

I don't think it matters if this is meta gaming or there are rules against it (at least no going forward. I guess it matters if redhouse wants something done for his game).

This very definitely is not *good* for webDip. It should not be allowed going forward, IMHO. I don't think it will come to it but imagine a situation where this is widespread.

For the record though, I never even copy paste messages for fear of the in game repercussions. I imagine that there would be an immediate gangbang on whoever did this.

"- there are a lot of very young players here. And not everyone has your advanced understanding of internets."

Exactly, I'm one of these people who wouldn't have a clue on how to make a credible falsification of a picture. I can, however, make a credible falsification of a message in writing. And that's what I should be getting points for.

^^ That is a valid scenario, redhouse. Now, you being to make sense. There is a possibility that screenshots can be used to metagame. They're not metagaming by themselves, but they may be used to send messages - or reveal identities in anonymous games, in which case they do become a problem.