Ok, after discussing this for a while, here's what we've decided:

We will consider canceling on-going games where there are 2+ multis and they had a considerable effect on the game. We will first strongly advise the remaining players to cancel the game themselves. If they do not, then we will ask them to explain why not. We will either let the players play the game out or force cancel depending on the situation and the explanation. If we do cancel the game, we will explain why we have done it.

This will be our policy from here on out. Unfortunately, we will not be canceling games retroactively due to the sheer amount of work that would entail. We will try our best to pay attention to games that are affected when we ban cheaters and we will try to respond quickly when you bring these games to our attention.

Your moderators.

summary too

Is this a policy that places the responsibility on the moderators to pay attention to all games or on players to notify moderators? Gunboats may be an issue because not all players know what the mystery message icon means.

C'mon now. Why in the world would the mods create a policy that places a responsibility on the mods to pay attention to all games?

Does this policy apply to only multis or does it also entail anyone removed (not necessarily banned) for another offense?

We hope that the players would notify us because we will probably not catch all the games. We do not get a message saying how many games are affected or anything like that. We would have to do this manually, which is time consuming and we will probably miss something.

I'm amazed you get cheats. There is no money at stake, so it's not a financial incentive. That just leaves wanting to win. But if you cheat you haven't achieved anything so where is the sense of achievement?
The other surprise while I am at it, is that games with no messaging are popular. The whole point of the game is the diplomacy, thus the name. Still I guess it is every players choice, as long as they have fun.

Ps thanks to the mods, I love this site and it is very well run.

zultar, I disagree with you...I don't think you should be placing that much work on yourselves. -gleriv

Agreed, King. Some issues are tough to handle, such as this one.

Yay finally :D It is also nice to see that mods respond and consider the players' suggestions and request :D I hope my thread had, at least a little, influence in this decision. Thanks to the mods team :D

@bo_sox - The posty above clearly states two or more players. One player banned, even for multi-ing, does not get the game cancelled and it shouldn't. One player, who happened to be multi-ing in another game, can't multi alone in a game.

You will be cognizant of players who purposefully cheat in order to get you to cancel a game after they start doing poorly, yes?

You're right, Draug, it does say that. Strangely enough, I'm not asking anything like that. I am asking specifically in regard to - just for you - more than one player being forcibly removed from a game. I've seen it done before where no players were banned yet three were removed for some kind of offense.

Not banned but removed? Interesting. I've never seen it, but then I play mostly passworded games. Sorry I didn't understand that, bo_sox.

I've seen it for both metagaming and for "cheating" of which there were no more details. Both were in anonymous games and were pretty far apart on the map, but it could happen.

Well, then how do you know they weren't banned? If it is anonymous, they may have been banned and replaced with someone else.

If someone's banned during a game, then the players are notified in-game. (They're also notified if someone replaces a country, iirc.) So bo_sox would know if it were due to a ban (but probably wouldn't know more details than that).

They do now, but that wasn't always the case was it?

zultar: I thought that cancelling games retroactively was impossible. Is this no longer true?

@JECE: cancelling games retroactively is impossible (at least not feasible without manually digging into the database), and we will not be canceling or modifying any games that have already finished.

The game cancellation policy is only applicable to ongoing games.

No, PE is right. They were not gunboats, only anon games. I'm pretty sure one of them isn't finished yet, but in the other one, I ended up soloing in a situation that probably would have fallen under this policy. You can find it on my log if you're interested. That's why I ask.

On second thought, I don't think that game was anonymous. The other was, though; I know that for certain.

I think they always have. As long as I remember, they have