Dude, that's still posting an accusation. That's still working outside the rule book.

Trust the mods are doing their best. Remember that they're not paid for this. And keep in mind that this is just a game.

Actually, let's not do this.

You are still posting a cheating accusation, which is blatantly against the rules.

If you'd like to start a thread where you simply post how long it's been since we've responded, that's fine, but this is nothing more than a thinly veiled cheating accusation.

If you are concerned about a game, you can always email us again.

LOL.

Yes. This is exactly what the rule exists to stop, Smerdyakov...

Ok, fine--if you're not asking for more volunteer admins then we the players have to assume you have enough and that everything is being managed. If this is not the case then why not ask for more help?

I'm not saying "country x did this, country y did this" etc. and the details are not important because that's for the email and it's an anonymous game anyway. If you'd prefer a thread where players give vague, non-specific complaints about slow responses to cheating allegations I don't know how that would be useful but maybe that can be done too. There are less than 500 ongoing games, if there are allegations in 10% that's 50 games and since I assume it has to be really, really obvious in for you to take any action, It seems like this could be handled in about two hours a week by two people...I really like the site and understand it's transitional right now but at the same time this has the potential to be really big and I'd hate to see the community die out because no one wants to criticize volunteers.

My impression is that the mods are doing a fine job as is, we did have quite a backlog for a while, when only one mod was able to be active, but they ploughed through most of that pretty quick.

I mean today is the 30th, you sent a accusation on the 27th. That's three days, I appreciate that you may not enjoy playing in a screwed up game. However the mods have to investigate all the accusations and contact the accused party, particularly if it isn't a cut and dry case. Given that I'd hardly say three days in an unreasonable amount of time. I'd rather the mods took the time to be thorough then ban a person who doesn't deserve it.

I also wanted to add that I haven't encountered any multi accounters in a few months, so either the community is getting cleaner, and the mods have been doing a great job of policing or I've just had good luck. My impression given these experiences is that the community isn't in danger of dying out.

That said I'm not trying to say the mods should be above criticism, more that I think that your criticisms are invalid in this case.

Smerdy,
You just got here, so take it easy! The admins are usually pretty good and the site (even if it has a few kinks) runs smoothly. I understand your frustration, but I'm not too worried about the community: I don't want to speak for everybody, but the feeling is that this is much more a "friend-run" site.

"Ok, fine--if you're not asking for more volunteer admins "

They're not. But if you want to avoid cheaters, I suggest playing in higher pot, password protected games. Make a thread on the forums advertising for a new game and requesting high quality players. Most vets are willing to play with a new player to welcome them to the site. Or even, just for fun. :-)

Unless it's a live game, I never play non-passworded games. High pot, password protected, anon, WTA games - it's how I roll. :-)

Ok, thanks for the responses and advice--I just haven't heard anything back and I figured nothing was going to happen. It would have been possible to fix it when I first reported it but now it doesn't really matter as the game is pretty much ruined.

...which was actually just as much my fault because I first reported it on the 24th but didn't give the game ID. And an admin took a look at it just now, so long story short, I am an idiot.

The mods err on the side of caution. We don't want to risk banning an innocent person, so even if the case looks clear to you, we still give players a chance to explain themselves.

The downside is that this means things take time. It takes time to get responses from players, but it also takes time for the mods to carefully consider the situation. What you may consider to be a 5 minute action, may take an hour over the course of a week.

Is it the most efficient or quickest way? No, but we also don't make many mistakes, which is a trade-off that myself, the mods, and Kestas are willing to make.

The mods are doing fine. It's difficult to police metagaming but they will do everything they can.

The bottom line is that I have played in several games where people were multiing or metagaming. In all of my games like this, no multi or meta player has ever won or participated in a draw. If you can look at a player's profile early, it's much easier to detect and you can eliminate the threat early. If you don't pick up on it until later, it's still easily possible to band the rest of the board together and eliminate the possible threat before it gets out of control and most players will agree to it.

The bottom line is that there's little to no reason to bother posting the accusations in the forum. Just create a little in-game vigilante justice.