I disagree, Ivo. First, you medication anaolgy is bogus. Say I'm suffering from excrutiating pain and they have a pill that could relieve that pain but the possible side effects include going to sleep and not waking up. It should be my choice to take the pill and the government should have absolutely no say in the matter. As long as there is full upfront and ongoing disclosure, the government should keep their noses out.

As far as it being unfair to someone who is winning despite the cheaters, the cheaters themselves may have been what allowed the person to win/be winning, if they went after someone else and eliminated them but were as incompetent/arrogant as most cheaters are. Why should the person get the boost just because they weren't the one the cheaters went after?

Good example - USC cheated and, as such, should not have won the 2004 championship. But, more specifically, they should never have gotten there. Instead that should have been Oklahoma versus Auburn. Now we will never know... Should the NCAA decide to overturn the victory and give it to Oklahoma, that would be unfair to Auburn. But then again they can't replay a championship game from 6 years ago with the different teams that should have been there. So it is unfair to the potential winners who lost because they never made it to that game. Same as it would be unfair to let a victory stand for the non-cheater when he got it at the expense of another non-cheater because of the cheaters.

@Draugnar, as usual, your desire to play devils advocate and make a provocative statement took over the reason :)

1. My analogy might not be the best, but surely no government around the world would just let anyone sell drugs at will, as long as there's a "full upfront and ongoing disclosure". What you're saying is 'every man for himself'. Surely very original and the main reason for human advancement over the ages :)

2. I am European, please, give me examples of sports popular outside US and teams I might have heard of :)

3. In your example, would you support the decision to cancel the 2004 championship altogether? This is the rule I am arguing against.

4. What exactly is your point on the subject matter discussed, apart from picking up an argument, which I'm always ready for as I like teasing you and your extreme positions :P

Right Ivo, I like the medicine analogy.
Suppose I have a drug that is cheap and will cure 50% of cancer cases. I know it won't cure the rest, but thats 50% of the people who'll feel better, and I'm not going to give it to the other 50%, so there will be no adverse side effects. If someone might be suitable but I'm not sure I'll ask them. I'm hoping you think it would be a good idea to make this drug?

Well, I have a method that would solve 50% of cheating problems. However, sometimes it might not be the best option, so I won't use it in these circumstances thus preventing the risk of side effects.

I'm not saying that this would solve everything and that there would be no problems once it was implemented - clearly that is absurd. However, it would make things better, which is surely a good thing?

Moving onto the last part of that post,
"As for solving such cases one-by-one - well, first, this is no system, this is ad-hoc decision-making."
So you'd rather we made some very detailed rule and stuck to those no matter what? This sounds like a very bad idea indeed to me, since there will be cases which don't fit perfectly into the predefined model and have to be dealt with carefully.

"If you (the Mods) are able and willing to go this way I don't see what's stopping you from doing it now?"
We don't have the feature, hence me requesting it. If a game is in progress and people are caught cheating standard protocol is to cancel it.

"Second, can you imagine the amount of work involved - having to discuss and analyze the game in detail, making sure everyone is heard, people screaming in the forum how they were deprived of their glorious victory over the cheaters by a moderator... ugly stuff. " [sic]
How do you think we do things currently? It takes about a week to deal with a multi's because we give them a chance to explain themselves. Asking people if they want to have a game cancelled would take no longer than this, and anyway as mentioned above its quite normal of us to cancel games where cheating's occurring anyway.

1. I'm saying the government has no right intervening in experimental drugs that might pose some help for debilitating and/or life threatening illnesses just because the side effects haven't been fully tested. Theres hould be (and is) licensing for the manufacturer of new drugs, but the criteria for releasing them for public consumption should vary based on the intended purpose of the drug. Common allergy medication? OK, intervene cause the typical allergy sufferer should have some protection from having their organs fail due to taking a simple allergy relief med. But for life-altering diseases like cancer, AIDS, MD/MS, etc., let the people with the least to lose try it if they desire. But that is off topic for the thread...

2. Sorry, I don't know enough about European sports and who might be cheating where to give an informed opinion or make an informed statement.

3. My example, just so you know, is very recent in that the NCAA (our college atheletics oversite organization) recently declared a long time player of the USC Trojans (a top college football [americna of course] team) to be ineligible as far back as 2004.

Yes, I would be in support of declaring that Championship null and void. The two teams that belonged in it did not get to play. One of them was usurped by a team now declared to have cheated. Oh, and the player in question was a key player for the team.

4. My point is just that the mods should have every tool available at their disposal and that cancelling a game after it has been played is very valid if the mods deem it to have been permanently altered with the outcome indeterminate were it not for the actions of the cheaters.

Yes, making the drug will be surely ok. Making it the rule (obligatory) is not.

I don't know how you will be able to differentiate - saying it will be given only in the 'right' cases is highly subjective. There'll be people unhappy with this, you know it. In some cases you might be forced in a situation where you have to decide which innocent player to penalize for something they didn't do - one will want cancel and another one will want the game to go on - and both will have valid points to their cause.

Let me put it this way - though the drug analogy is getting more and more abstract :) - would you still product this drug if you knew that:
1. It can only be given to 7 randomly selected people at the same time, and some of those might not even be sick in the first place.
2. Most times the drug will help, but there'll be a good amount of cases where it might make things worse, or even cause a healthy patient to get sick.

In general, we're discussing whether the end justifies the means, is it ok to consciously take a decision that will hurt one in order to help the many in the long-run ... and this is something I simply cannot agree with on too many levels. This is a game, not a matter of life and death and I do believe there's a better solution that eliminates the downside.

So, yes, I would agree with you that your suggestion would have a positive effect as far as reducing cheating. However it's not the best solution for sure and, at least as far as I'm concerned, it fall short of my 'minimum' requirements - which are that it should not make things worse in any way, for any player.

Well your minimum requirements are quite clearly impossible. There will never be a perfect solution very every situation.
Reading through I think you'd slightly misunderstood my point above: I am mainly fighting for the option to cancel finished games. Clearly in some cases it would be impractical, but most of the time it would be a real improvement.

@Draugnar - "My point is just that the mods should have every tool available at their disposal and that cancelling a game after it has been played is very valid if the mods deem it to have been permanently altered with the outcome indeterminate were it not for the actions of the cheaters."

Surely you must realize that any player in a game will have some effect on it. So all games will be "altered". Even if all the cheater did was hold and go CD. Find me one game which had a cheater in it and I'll bet you whatever you want that he did play a role.

The mods do have all power necessary now (?) - but it's not a matter of having power, it's a matter of using it in a legitimate and consistent manner.

@Ivo - you are equating the decisions of the mods to random chance. That would be like saying the winner of a soccer match is determined strictly by the toss of a coin or whether or not you use a hammer or a screwdriver is determined by which one happens to fall of the work bench. It is a tool. It would be used as an appropriate tool for the appropriate situations. We aren't talking about using the tool in a game where no cheating occured (comparable to forcing the drug on a healthy patient). It would only be used in a affected game (a sick patient). And then the mods would decide whether it was the apporpriate tool to use (the doctro would decide if the patient was a good candidate). You are removing the checks and balances established by the site. the mods aren't just one person, but a collective gorup that discusses any quesitonable situations, and they research the games well before acting. Their actions are not rash or unconsidered. That's why it sometimes takes them so long to act.

So now your argument has become facetious as you are removing the built in controls of the mods(doctors) and their decisions guiding the use of the tool(drug) on the games in question(patients) and assume it will be used on just any ole game(individual) whether it was clean(healthy) or affected by cheats(sick). Don't be so naive and obtuse, man.

No, the mods don't. They can only cancel active games, not finished ones. So if a cheat wins, everyone else still gets the loss. Once again, you are mistaken my friend.

Yes, I'll be as clear as possible since apparently I wasn't earlier:
We cannot cancel games that have finished.

@Figle - frankly, I'd definitely like some of my past games deleted - especially in cases where there was enough suspicion, but it was either metagaming (not bannable), or the evidence was not enough for a ban.

However, I'd get much more pissed off if you canceled a game I won against cheaters, than if you didn't delete a game I lost. There's no way in hell how you can justify the double penalty for someone who had to deal with the cheaters, managed to get a good result, and then you cancel the game??? :)

Finally - my requirements are not impossible and can be met with a white-list policy.

Not sure why noone ever responded positively to this suggestion - it's the most common practice in the world - when you have to deal with large masses of sheep :) you institute a rule/certification/license (similar to driver licenses, or gun-possession permits) - and whoever does not comply is left out.

Start banning people and not cancelling games. The way to solve the problem is to look for options BEFORE the 'crime' was committed, not after.

"the evidence was not enough for a ban" - How can we ban people before they do anything? Starting to sound like Minority Report there...

Licences - Maybe, but how do you issue licences? It will just stop people joining the site, and certainly create A LOT more work.

Sorry, I put the wrong quote there really - I meant to use "look for options BEFORE the crime was committed"

@ Draugnar

1. I never said the mods take random decisions or whatever you're trying to imply. Figle said that cases will be looked at one-by-one, which is a good definition of having no system. Plus, I did say it would be subjective, not just random there's a big difference there.

2. You clearly did not comprehend the example with the 7 patients. The idea is that canceling a game would be like giving them all the same pill - even when only one of them is sick (cheater).

Everything else you wrote is based on these two errors, so not going to respond to it :)

@Figle - well, I gave you one suggestion. I'm sure we can draw more examples from the FBI for example. I'm pretty sure they don't have the practice of waiting for someone to blow up a building before starting to move. Must be magic :)

They also have the ability and funds to tap someone's phone lines, watch them for hours, and a massive network of contacts.

We have a set of rules (see the rules page) but sometimes they have to be interpreted - I don't mean we'll flip a coin every time merely that we'll use common sense rather than just cancel everything in sight.

Test this on a couple of games and you'll see that there'll be unhappy people. It's not a clean solution. Cheater are a fact of life - hard to blame the 'system' - otherwise it will be you on the line and every mistake will be a new forum thread.

Anyway, I certainly hope my fears are unfounded and this works.

Well I've probably cancelled about 30 games that were progress and none of those have complained about it so I expect so. Anyway, as mentioned above, the main request is for the oppartunity

@Ivo - you are right. I didn't equate the 7 patients to the 7 players. I thought it was just seven random games. But your analogy that it might make some of the seven sick who were otherwise healthy is false. It would only bring them back to baseline from "feeling great".

Haha, baseline you say - well, I guess it depends on your definition of baseline :)

@figle - oh, ok, did not know that. Well, good job then. I am totally unfamiliar with the actual size of the problem - was more-or-less arguing for the theoretical principle that such system are flawed :)

Baselinem, by definition, is returning to the state before the event/action(s) took place. You are merely returning the players to the state they were at before the game started. That is, by definition, returning them to baseline.