ah well thats okay then. If there is no risk of bans, then there is no problem. Dishonorable sure, but no problem.

Claiming two of the countries are being played by one player seems like meta-gaming to me. Who exactly is playing a country isn't 'in-game', IMHO.

I think that Orthaic's point was merely that whatever goes on in the global chat (or private chat) is "in-game". If there is a serious accusation to make, you must contact the mods. Otherwise, anything goes.
I've had reasons to think, in one game, that 2 players were probably allying and meta-gaming. Had no real evidence to that effect though, so I never made it official by writing the mods. Having said that, I did hint on the global board that such might be the case, hoping to collect a few allies from doing so (afterall, a juggernaut was forming and I was going to use any diplomatic means to make sure it wouldn't be an issue for me). I have to say, it worked! And when one of the two players I was "accusing" of meta-gaming wrote me saying that he really didn't know the other guy, I diplomatically apologized, gave him my reasons and made sure he was written off the map!!!!

Not to be argumentative, but orathaic said private chat only. Cheating accusations in global chat can be read by the community at large and can get the accuser docked points or worse as that is against the rules.

Ill see if I can find a specific rule against cheating allegations in the global chat. If there is one, I will take further action. If there isnt, then I'll get over it and move on.

I think its should be legal....public-messaging is still considered part of diplomacy right? and he has every right to say (almost) whatever he wants, including lies...

@orth:

In the past, mods have held that calling someone a multi in game is not a viable diplomatic strategy and have confirmed that those accused were not multis.

I can confirm that the rules specifically state that you cannot, in global chat, make this accusation. I have written to the moderators, and will abide by their decision. In the meanwhile I wish I had looked this up first. I just didnt expect it to be covered by the rules.

apologies if i gave the wrong impression there.

The rule specifically states: "Lying is fine in Diplomacy except when it gives mods/admins unnecessary work to do!

Falsely accusing someone of being a multi-accounter/meta-gaming to rally others against them in a game, or claiming that your orders didn't come out the way you entered them to cover up your motives, means mods/admins spend time looking for cheaters/bugs which were made up."

The central question is, in my mind, does this create extra work for the mods/admins.

I would presume that that rule was only for deliberately fake reports...after all, if its in Global there's nothing to say he doesn't actually suspect it but knows he has no evidence.

He's not really deliberately making more work for modmins.

On the other hand, if he's actually reported it and its a complete lie, then that's not allowed and he should be punished. Perhaps a warning to stop would suffice. I generally finish off hysterical players as quickly as I can anyway, loose cannons never help anything.

If he accuses some one in game but never reports it to the mods, he clearly has no evidence and may as well be lying. I live by the rule that, if I don't have evidence enough to ask the mods, I let it be.

Well, I looked at my message archive for that game I was talking about. Looks as though I didn't break the rules as I only hinted at a possibility of Meta gaming on the global board (and I really mean hinted, not even voice suspicions) and have only privately explicitly said that one nation knew her ally in real life.
There's a fine line between breaking the rule and suggesting it would be futile to hope for an alliance to break. Also, in that game, a mistake on global board by one of the nations made it easy to suspect they knew each other (he wrote a private message in the wrong chat window in spring 1901).

There is no rule against knowing each other or even allying with people you know. The rule is against going into the game with a predetermined alliance. Once in game, you can ally with or fight whomever you choose. So you insinuations were inherently wrong anyhow.

Actually another important question is: How do we know if the Admins get our emails? If gmail autospams them, then we could miss out entirely on action?

I've only heard of a few very rare instances were mail to mods was dumped to their spam folder. Mine were for a while because my post office was in my house under a consumer, not business class, IP. But I moved the server to Godaddy and that problem went away.