I would be critical of speaking about confidential matters like that, but anyone that names their account after one of the top 3 genocidal idiots in world history garners no higher expectation than to do such things anyway…

Metagaming and multiaccounting are bad. Lots of people do it. Don't do it and it shouldn't be a worry.. if the position left is desirable, someone will pick it up.

How is saying I received an email from the mods "confidential matters"? ALSO bo sox why are you such a fail troll?

I'm not trolling; rather, I just don't praise people who systematically killed 13 million people.

If the moderators didn't intend to make it confidential, they'd just tell you here. Simple as that.

It's not like I mentioned any names, or referenced any games that are currently in play. I was just talking about my general confusion about the situation on topic. It makes no difference to anyone that I said what I said, so why make an issue out of it?

Also no one seems to understand that "hitler69" is a satirical name, not that I actually praise a dude who killed countless people, but rather that I'm making fun of him. Dimwits on this website....

You mentioned you got accused of metagaming, and I agree, there are lots of dimwits on this site. I couldn't care less whether or not you think I'm one, or anyone else for that matter. I've got plenty of fans for all the wrong reasons. And, since you evidently don't get it, the moment you reveal you are accused of breaking a rule, you're guilty to a ton of people here, even if you never even came close to doing it. Lots...

OOOOO like I care? Like I said I've been playing in anon only games since my "accusation" and if you haven't noticed you were in one of those games with me. EoG http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=105280#gamePanel .


You're saying "lots" of people go through the effort to flag suspected cheaters via the forum (even though we have been proven innocent by mods, considering I haven't received a ban) and then try to avoid games with those players at all cost? Yeah, I some how doubt that "lots" of people means yourself and a handful of others. Also I feel bad for you that you care that much about trying to keep people like me out of your game, when I'm just a regular player like anyone else. Sounds like paranoia.

"Also I feel bad for you that you care that much about trying to keep people like me out of your game, when I'm just a regular player like anyone else."

I followed you until you hit that line… don't have a clue what that means.

You obviously don't care about your reputation, which is up to you, I really don't either, but the name "Hitler" gets to me and I'm not about to show you any respect as long as I'm seeing that, which you currently can't change. Keep on thinking that name and thinking about that face doesn't make me think about the people in my family that aren't here anymore because of him.

I purposely play Anon only/ No messaging games specifically to avoid meta-gamers and multi-accounts. If anything happens beyond that then oh well... someone obviously is putting in a lot of effort to win by cheating, and I believe they will get their ban in due time.

I was just offering a harmless message to someone asking a question and you jumped down my throat, super forum troll.

So I went from fail troll to super forum troll… good improvement. Progressing, you might say. Thanks for your reassurance. Since metas and multis never join anon gunboats, you are clean. You'll never have to worry about them in games where it's hard to weed them out and easy for them to join. You got me, bro.

Wow, thanks so much for the clarification. Now I remember why I don't use the forum.

And blah blah blah about the name. Honestly there are tons of people alive today with the last name Hitler. Do you fucking intensely hate them for their last name? What if it was my last name and 69 was the number of the hockey/football/basketball uniform I wore? It bears no meaning to the thought of genocide, more like when Southpark makes fun of Hitler or Satan or Sadaam.

Seriously if word association bothers you that much then you are out of luck.

It seems to have been going up steadily for quite a while, and I'm not sure why exactly.

I've seen so many online communities get killed off from over moderation, so people who get banned are directed to my e-mail address so that I can get a feel for how the team are doing.
I get e-mails probably every 1-2 days these days, and they're always adamant they've done nothing wrong, and I feel that with so many coming through there must be mistakes, but I've not yet found any.

For all the checks I've done so far the mod team has always done a careful job, had good reasons for suspicion, and tried to talk things over first when in doubt.


A big part of the problem I think is that it can be practically impossible to tell multi accounters from people using the same sets of machines.
I'm working on an update at the moment which implements some suggestions from the mod team (e.g. IP bans), and mainly I'm hoping the ability for people to be open about who they know in RL with a new grouping feature will mean we can take a less black & white approach, but we'll see.

Being quite new to WebDip and Diplomacy myself, I can't say my word had much weight. However, I have to agree with kestasjk. In the short time I've spent here, I've seen more and more bannings with increasing frequency (though perhaps its because I recently joined multiple games). I believe there was one game where two or three players got banned after the Spring 1901..rather depressing since it gave some a really unfair advantage.

Currently there are a number of meta-gamers on the site and I know that in time they will be found out and either warned or banned. I do report them if I'm over 90% convinced they are cheating, or sometimes they just admit it in a PM.
When identifying the less obvious cases I look at several things (bear in mind I'm referring to WTA Anon gunboats, how can you prove or stop meta:-gaming in full press games, how many 17-17 draws do we see)
1) In game how often they avoided taken an open SC in the Autumn and how often they support moves of other players.
2) In game when a country A from the beginning completely abandons any defense against neighbour country B and chucks all their units at country C, country B reciprocates by attacking country D, they save loads of time not defending their own SCs.
3) When player A is soloing and player B is helping them solo and making no attempt to stop them
4) I then do The Czech test, if some noob has better player stats than The Czech there is another warning sign.
5) Two players consistently do not 'READY UP' or do it together.
6) Then I go through their history, find the 3 or 4 players they have played most with, then take the average number of SCs earned when they play with those players against the number of SCs when playing with those players, the difference is usually so marked that it becomes obvious their outcomes are significantly enhanced by playing with each other.
Recently there seems to be a jump in new players (can the Mods confirm this stat.) and I believe the metas are using a bigger pool of User IDs that they mix and match.
The thing is I don't want them banned as we need a big pool of players to keep the live games going, my hope is that in time as the noobs improve they play games themselves rather than with their mates and so they bring some integrity to the games.
Even after looking at all these things I don't always report them until they really take the piss, Sarg was the first I spotted months ago but months passed before he was banned, I only checked him out because he was abusing me in PMs.
I think it takes a while to learn all the subtleties and nuances in a game, especially gunboats.
In saying all that I played someone last night who trounced me, one of the best players I've seen on this site, check out Azogar
http://webdiplomacy.net/profile.php?userID=3149
We need players like this playing more games, 51% win ratio, not bad eh !!

Nigee, Azogar has just been banned from the It WebDip. It's a funny coincidence...

No way......

What do you mean he has been banned, where from?

Oddly enough, I haven't had the cheater problem for a while, whilst in the past it was endemic and highly annoying to lose so many points to multis. So, on my side of things of that topic, I must say I am so RELIEVED !!!

from the italian Webdip, Webdiplomacy.it.

Dharmaton, I've looked at your recent game history. I've give that a couple of months and then take a look to see if you've gained a few red crosses :-)

BreathOfVega - I didn't know there was lots`of different WebDip sites, who is the Supreme Ruler of that Italian site, is he omnipotent as well?

Azogar was a proven cheater on this site, I thought he had been banned years ago.

Speaking of banning people, I noticed the other day in the Forum that Krellin had a little red X by his name. Didn't have time to read anything about it, and then I came back a few days later and he's not banned anymore. What happened there?

It appears that somebody made another account to look like krellin. probably a small change in pacing before or after or something. I just noticed the banned player had zero games, while krellin obviously has a bunch.

"Azogar was a proven cheater on this site, I thought he had been banned years ago. "

Lando please don't make cheating accusations on this forum, if you have any evidence please post naked pictures of the accused on www.dirtyrottenscoundrel.net and the accused will be publicly humiliated within hours when their tiny shrivelled wiener goes viral :-)

Having multiple personalities, but having one single account, does that make me the bad guy? Just a thought.

Hey, Adolf. Maybe your choice of name puts people's backs up, mine included. Those whose family died by his hand may not see the irony you suggest in your writings.

@Nigee, there is since 2010 I think. It's all Alex's (here: http://webdiplomacy.net/profile.php?userID=23073) doing, using the same open platform. Well some of us has helped him, too.

And yes, he is omnipotent. :D

The "Czech Test". I approve!

I think the reason behind the increase in bans is fairly simple. For a while it was just Yebellz and Zultar handling the bulk of the cases. With Goldfinger0303 and myself helping out the team size is basically doubled. We are getting through a lot more cases then before and regular members are being more helpful in contacting us when they suspect someone. What this means is that we are getting through more cases.

How a case generally works is that a moderator finds something suspicious, or a member points out something suspicious. We investigate with a number of tools, and if we find evidence of some sort of cheating or strange activity the player receives an email. Nobody is banned without warning, and banning is a last resort and almost never needed when someone replies honestly to us. Most cases are looked over by more then one moderator and anyone who asks for an appeal is given one by a different moderator/admin then the one who banned them. And if they still feel they were banned unfairly Kestas reviews a number of cases himself to make sure we are not unfairly banning members.

@MKECharlie, that was a fake account, you can generally tell those by clicking the users profile and checking the joined date.

@BreathOfVega, borderline cheating accusation, send it to [email protected]

@Lando Calrissian, [email protected] would be the appropriate place to send that inquiry.

@NigeeBaby
"The thing is I don't want them banned as we need a big pool of players to keep the live games going, my hope is that in time as the noobs improve they play games themselves rather than with their mates and so they bring some integrity to the games."

Banning is a last resort, for simple meta gaming cases I'd much rather inform new players of the rules. We can do this a lot easier then a regular member, which is why we ask that only moderators contact suspected metagamers.

@kestasjk, we're very much looking forward to that new grouping feature!

userID=3149

To add on to what jmo said, if you reply honestly to a cheating accusation, we will almost never ban you. Many of the bans come from people who tried to cover up or explain away blatant cases of multiaccounting or metagaming.

Now that is a truly fair adjudicator. (No irony this time.)

@mkecharlie: it used to be that the font used for user names had no visible difference between a 1 and a lower case L, so a fake account replacing one or both L's in krellin with 1's was possible. I don't know Know if that is still the case.

Let's find out:
Krellin (regular)
Kre11in (number 1)
Kre||in (vertical pipe)
KreIIin (capital i)

It was the 'i's

Although Kre||in looks pretty good and is still outstanding.

I thought it was krellin. Lower case K.

Did he get his games back? I took over one position and will hand it back over if he wants and teh mods approve.

BTW Thats why you should use Capital Letters and/or numbers in your tag.

Czech - it was this account was banned User ID#: 49395

It was a fake account, they replaced the Ls with capital "i"s. krellin is not banned.

It was a FAKE?! But I have a position of his. I swear. It said kreIIin. (I spelled it with two capital Is this time) He he he . Don't be mad bro!

I'm not mad, are you?

@jmo: no, it's not a cheating accusation, since I do not suspect him of cheating - also because he wasn't banned because of cheating in ItWebDip. It's just a funny coincidence, as I said, so no need to report anything to the mods in particular.

The real krellin is all lowercase.

The fake Krellin had an uppercase K.

Would the real Krellin please stand up?

Thank you Kitty Carlisle.

wtf is kc, mr c?

Uh, She was a panelist (my personal favorite) on "To Tell The Truth". The game show that created the tag line "Would the real [insert name here] please stand up. Where did you think the line came from anyway?

Eminem probably