I have now updated the registration page informing members of both the multi accounting and metagaming rules. So hopefully this will help reduce the number of accidental meta and multi cases we run into.

http://i.imgur.com/yDsH42n.gif

So does this mean that I wouldn't be allowed to play in a game with thehamster? We went to high school together, and while I didn't learn that until about a year after I joined, we technically know each other in a very minor way. Of course we aren't friends or anything, but still.

If it's something you're concerned about then I would send an email to us asking. The nature of your real life connection would affect our answer. From the sound of it you don't really know him, meeting someone isn't knowing them. That's why we still handle situations like that on a case by case basis. This is just meant to clarify what was previous a fairly unclear rule.

Fair enough. I knew him in passing, but not well by any means. I think we played one Diplomacy game together in HS. Haven't seen him in years.

Metagaming is not really an issue among the long time players on the site. Hell, if you look at my game history with PE you could easily make the case that we were blatant metagamers and we've been gaming the system for years. Our intent here is not to inconvenience established players by suddenly putting them into friendship grey areas. Metagaming issues are most frequent with new players who join the site with two or three friends and jump into a public game together. Maybe they end up allying, maybe they don't, but the real grey area with this rule is proving intent. Its entirely conceivable that a new player could join with a friend, join an anon game, and end up allying and drawing with each other, which would set off all sorts of red flags for the mods even though it was entirely innocent. Those players can't prove that they weren't metagaming, which then puts the mod team in a tough spot of making a complete judgement call in a situation that should be more clear cut.

Usually, these investigations were closed by telling players to not play in public games with friends. However, this didn't agree with our posted metagaming rule. We feel that this rule is more clear cut for new players who are likely unfamiliar with the term. Nothing about the moderator investigation process is going to change, but it will make cases with brand new players easier to adjudicate.

"If you can prove culpable diplomicide even without intent or apparent motive that person should be found guilty and do time"
.................................Oscar Wilde (no sorry, Pistorius)

While I understand and support the intention of the rule, how can it possibly be enforced?

The same way it always has. If you see something suspicious, report it.

@zultar and mods/admins: I've played with close friends on this site and introduced others to it as well. I hope this doesn't mean I cannot play with old friends here simply because I know them. One example of this is Jacob. He and I along with his brother Chalks joined the site around similar times. I always work to make sure people know who I know I real life.

With that, are you stating the site rule is that players cannot play with friends in games where it does not contain only people you know from real life or merely games where it is not public knowledge?

The latter.
If everyone knows of your real life relationships, then that's fine.
If everyone knows each other in real life and is in a passworded game, that's also fine.

One of the places where we see metagaming takes place a lot is two or three people who are real life friends join a game and work with each other constantly. All trust. It makes it very unfair for the other people.

The updated rule just spells it out more for new players. Veteran players don't usually have this issue.
I hope that clarifies it some.

this is good thanks :)

Technically, would this rule preclude basing alliances on on-site relationships that you deduce through playstyle/speaking habits? I can pick certain players (particularly Al Swearangan) out of a crowd by how they talk in chat.

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't worried for myself but I've had friends join this site in the past and do just what you're saying is against the rules. They got banned and I always ask if they informed others they were friends in real life. It's almost always a "no".

I only ally with players that have an even number of points. Could the mods please clarify on if this is covered in the new rules.

and he wants to stab me all the time---that Abge guy---huh

Get 3 more points, ss. I really don't know what else to tell you.

hehe

"Technically, would this rule preclude basing alliances on on-site relationships that you deduce through playstyle/speaking habits?"

The point that I tried to make when I proposed this change was to make very explicit in the rule exactly what is prohibited and what's allowed. Though it was (obviously) amended from what I originally proposed, I don't see this as a problem, nor is anything that isn't explicitly listed. Now, that said, if there is something that comes up that is clearly giving a player an unfair advantage over another, we can address that on a case-by-case basis as someone (I think 2WL) said earlier. Your specific situation is fine though. People pick me out all the time and in the semi-anonymous nature of our high-level games, there's really nothing we could do even if we wanted to.

My guess is that no one that's discussing this in this thread will have an issue. The rule is the same as before in practice, we just made everything more explicit so that newer players who say "well, this thing we did isn't exactly covered" don't have that question anymore.

Abge, you know there is an infinite number of solutions to ssorenn getting an even number of points right? I know math isn't your strong suit, so I can explain it if you want me to. :)

that might that quite a bit of time, i know you a busy guy there big Z

take^

"I only ally with players that have an even number of points. Could the mods please clarify on if this is covered in the new rules."

So if I took the time to change everyone's point total that you are in a game with to SqrtRoot(-1) would you just rage quit?

thanks a lot for your improvement in the rules.

jmo +j

Frickin' electrical engineers.

At least everyone knows how Abgemacht rationalizes his stabs when your point total changes mid-game.

i know i will sound like an asshole but....
self moderation is no moderation.
te mods do what ever anyway and don't really look into complains,they act different with their forum friends and mute and band based on rasizm and indiference.
please don't answer.

Rasizm...combination of racism and Nazi.

Bump.