BTW - may I suggest something else, since this would be an extreme special circumstance. There are options:

1) Draw all of the games that Concorde is in
2) Remove Concorde from all of his games and GIVE HIM HIS POINTS BACK!
3) My original suggestion...unpause all of the games and let the players on each game decide whether to pause or not.

Concorde - I couldn't get hold of you by email so I'll post here:
If you want, I can ban the account for you, then unban it after. This would put your games into CD, so people could take them over and they'd continue. Then, when it's unbanned, you can join new games.
Hope your friends are alright, my thoughts are with you.

Figlesquidge - would that give him the points back that he's invested into the games that he's in? I would think that it'd be fair to give him those points back. He would, in essence, not lose anything in that case.

It would in this case, as he has almost exactly 100points at the moment.

i don't think Concorde deserves a ban. he's not been multiaccounting or something like that. you shouldn't ban members when a natural disaster happens to them

thats not what there saying at all

Fig - I think we need to double check what happens with points before banning/unbanning. I'm afraid that banning will actually drop him to 0 and unbanning will not restore anything.

I did actually Dangermouse - I can't remember the account in question but if you look in the admin logs last night I unbanned then rebanned some old account.
To clarify to those confused:
I was offering to ban the account IN THE SHORT TERM. This would put his games into immediate CD, allowing players to take them over. Once they had all been taken, I would UNBAN the account, restoring him to 100points.

Edit: I had a look again, and found an account with finished games. Unfortunately, this account didn't get it's points back when unbanned. So sadly, I guess that won't work.
I wonder why an account without any finished games gets it's 100 points back yet one with them doesn't?

The account without got back the points the game would have given back for going CD or being eliminated. It's part of the code for ending/leaving a game to check and see if the account gets back points from that game.

I don't understand what you mean. When an account is banned, it's points are set to zero. As a test of theory, I unbanned a banned account,which had no finished games, and saw that it had had it's 100 points restored. This is correct.
Then, after Dangermouse's post, I checked with a banned account that had finished games. The account did not get back 100 points, and this is not correct.
Just to make sure I was correct before, I then retested with the first banned account, the one without any games. This again was restored to 100 points.

still, imagine a natural disaster happening to you AND you get banned from phpdiplomacy.net. it's a little too much! nobody should be banned without a good reason, right??

Alamothe - that's not the point!! It was only a suggestion to give the games that Concorde is in a chance to progress whilst he/she is sadly absent. It's got nothing to do with actually banning him!

alamothe, trust me, we've discussed this at length and we're sure this is the best way and the most appropriately sensitive way to deal with the situation. If you don't believe so, I invite you to e-mail me and I'd be happy to discuss it with you in private.

i still think it is unfair. please ask kestas for his opinion also. he has only banned members for multiaccounting (and possibly once for spamming the forum) while he was in charge

Guys,

The fire has already finished with our town.
Sadly the farm is gone, but we have our house, and each other, so we're ok.
The other 173 people(and counting) are gone.
I appreciate what you've donw here, and I am back now the electricity has been restored.
Plus side is no school for a bit since the town's mostly gone.

Pls feel for these poor people in case there are others out there in a similar boat.
This thing is NOT over by a long shot, sadly.
Most of Victoria (pop around 5million) knows someone or is affected by this.
I wonder, out of curiosity... what happened with this site in Spet 11, 2001?

i emailed kestas, so hopefully we'll get a response

Why do i get banned for a disaster?
This is not fair?!
I am back now, was only outta touch 3 days?

Doesn't look like they ever actually banned you, so controversy should be over.

Moderators - can you force all of the games to unpause related to this?

You're not being banned. It was just unclear whether and when you would return. We decided the best course of action would simply be to remove you from your games and reimburse you and let others take your place. We sympathize with your situation, but surely you can understand.

alamothe, I'll talk to Kestas, but I think he'll agree with our decision. If you would e-mail me, I would gladly explain... It's just that it might require some discretion.

The action wasn't even carried out and now that you're back we can re-evaluate the situation...

i've voted, but a forced unpause is cool too

Chrispminis, yeah i understand.
It's always about the good of the many and not the few.

Understood

The site was not around in 9/11.

Relieved you're back safely concorde, and that your house and town made it. Seeing the death toll stack up has been shocking, luckily noone I know in Melbourne has been affected

Regarding your games they should all be as you left them, so no dramas there


For everyone else wondering about the banning thing: What the mods were suggesting was putting concorde's games into civil disorder and returning the points, which would let the people volunteering earlier to take over for him to do so (banning and unbanning happens to be the easiest way to do this, but it's not actually a ban)

Since not everyone (at first) seemed to want to pause, and he wasn't around to give his username&password to those offering to take over, it seemed the only alternative would be to let concorde go into civil disorder by running out of time, which would ruin his games because his country would go inactive

But luckily before that decision had to be made it looks like everyone paused and concorde returned safely, so no harm no foul :-)

so the best thing to do was to get a sitter. That seems like the only way to go. As long as Edi's around, you shouldn't have a problem with that ;-)