1. Hmmm if it would be a huge amount of work then maybe not.
2. Because if you were in games with people who are banned for multi-ing you might want to know if your game was actually affected by a single person with several accounts, or if it just happened that in your game there were 2 or more people who were multi-cheating in other games.
3. That's a very cyncial attitude towards the concept of democracy.

2) If that's your particular question, the mods would probably tell you for a specific case
3) This site is not a democracy.

One thing about banned multis (specifically duplicates) that we could all do better at is exposing that they were banned so that the games can be claimed before a phase goes by and screws the whole thing up.

With regard to point 2 it would provide a useful service in showing that there aren't a huge number of cheats out there. By showing that cheaters a,b,c,d,e, and f were all x might help reduce some of the paranoia. Linking banned accounts to the (I'm assuming) 2nd chance account I agree would be asking for trouble though.

Still, if it would stretch the mods too far then it's not worth it.

"3) If one of the accounts wasn't banned, I strongly oppose this idea as this forum has a terrible lynch-mob attitude. "

Whats wrong with lynching a cheater? The problem isn't lynching a cheater - the problem is that you let some of them stay among those that follow the rules.

"3. That's a very cyncial attitude towards the concept of democracy. "

Whoever said this website was a democracy? shame, jamie, - you have been arond here to know well enough that this site is Lorded over by Kestas, whom has deemed a select few his Minions of Power....any feelings of Democracy you have are purely your own.

Krellin, several prominent members were once cheaters, but given the second chance, have become very, very productive. The only one coming to mind at the moment (though I know there are others) is Lando. I wouldn't want a new user to casually browse his information, see that he was once-upon-a-time a cheater, and consequentially misjudge who Lando is as a player and as a contributor to the community. I'm all for second (and third) chances. It's different to lynch a repeat offender like SandLuna or Sargmacher and to lynch a first-time-offender (especially a repentant one) like (I think??) Partyzane. (Apologies to anyone if my memory is misrecollecting the facts of the past.)

@krellin

Sometimes mods decide that cheaters be given a second chance. It is better for everyone if the cheaters keep their original account so that mods can keep an eye on them.

Now, it has been proven time and again that even if mods give a cheater a second chance, lynch-mobs are likely to form against the cheater. Now, what does the cheater do when this happens? They abandon their tarnished account and just make a new one. This is bad for everyone.

if you are smart you can really easily cheat this website. i dont even see the point of trying to enforce these unenforceable rules. on top of that people can agree on outcomes of games before they start and that again cant be prevented. all you can do is watch games and if a group of people are working together often enough then you suspect they may be working together. but they could just say they are just more experienced and better.

i think cheating happens all the time. and it is retarded to pretend that it doesnt by occassionally catching people who are not smart enough to do it in a way to not get caught.

i also think that cheating is retarded and if you are that sad about losing a game or care that much about points, then you are an idiot. if you really suck and your cheating makes the game competitive that is one thing, but if you are competitive and your cheating makes the game just a one-sided domination, then how is that even fun?

@blank

Do you say that based on your vast experience of 1 month on this site?

Great incite, blankflag! You really nailed it there, Awesome...

Bah....lynch-mobs against a cheater only impact those few cheaters that spend their time in the forums and give a shit about what people have to say about them. But if they are shamed enough to ditch their account and start a new one, so be it

You imply, Abge, that you mods "keep and eye" on cheaters - implying to me that you are monitoring for the creation of new accounts with similar IP info or something. You should beable to do this whether or not they use the existing tarnished name or a brand new name....which, of course, would be against the rules and punishable...

I'm all for law and order, Abge, and I'm for receiving punishment and learning lessons from it.

Quietly having your multis banned while your "main" account is continues just does not seem like punishment - but perhaps you are taking some other action that I am unaware of.

@krellin

If the mods have a choice between doing something that will likely keep a cheater straight or likely cause a cheater to cheat again, they will usually choose the former.

Abge - In all honesty, I'm not really that concerned how you do what you do. it's just a thread...I comment...I'm bored. All in all, I think you mods do a great job, so you may take any criticism from me with a grain of salt, and mostly tongue-in-cheek when I call for lynch mobs.

In other words, keep up the good work.

OK? I'm not sure why you'd directly address me and then act annoyed when I answer you...

@Krellin, every case is different, but in the case of a first time offender making multiple accounts we will normally ban all but the oldest account, and dock around 30% of that persons points. That number can be more or less based on what they were using the accounts for, how many they made, if they lied to us, etc. This is a fairly significant punishment to anyone who was cheating, since you can assume most people who cheat do so for the points. If we let them make a new account then anyone who wanted a fresh start because of a crappy record would just make a new account to get caught so they could start fresh. We do watch pretty carefully, and it takes very little time to find repeat offenders.

@blankflag, you know what's interesting, some very smart people have gotten banned for cheating...I'm assuming they thought the same thing you do. The thing is, it takes so much time for someone to cheat on this site without getting caught, and the slightest slip up makes it easy for us to spot. It just isn't worth the effort.

In most cases, if you really want this information, can't you figure it out from the game history?

Not always no especially if more than one player is cheating across the same games as another cheat.

" I wouldn't want a new user to casually browse his information, see that he was once-upon-a-time a cheater, and consequentially misjudge who Lando is as a player and as a contributor to the community."

dubmbell I think that you illustrate the point in a way other than you intended to. What you likely know is that Lando once had another (one) account on this website. That is likely all you "know" about the situation. So, for you to label me a "once-upon-a-time cheater" seems a little unfair. While having two accounts is breaking the rules, which is easily admitted to by me the word "cheater" has pretty severe and additional connotations.

To give you a little background on what happened between when I joined in October 2009 and when the second account was banned in February 2011, the combined two players had played in over 500 games. Out of those 500, I believe there were 7 where the games overlapped. Of those 7, about 6 had one of the accounts CD. There was one game where I played two accounts.

So, yes, I cheated. I broke the rules. However, for you to imply that I was a rampant cheater, taking advantage of the site and other players is unfair of you. At that time I was also considered a contributing member of the community, that is not something that has changed from then to now. It's not like some dramatic shift occured when ava caught me. One account was banned, I had 100% of my active points taken away from me (about 1500 ) and then things moved on.

Then, however, zultar exposed and exaggerated the situation on the forum. From there, there was aosmewhat of a "shitshow" and you likely gathered the information you presented above from the situation.

So, my point is that this information being published is probably not write, what jamiet is suggesting or what zultar did. However, people also need to be responsible for their actions. There is a give and take, likely from both standpoints. At the end of the day, though, it is unfair and unnecessary for you to posture about things you don't know all the details about.

I don't see why having such information available is necessarily bad. People make mistakes, but that doesn't mean the mistakes didn't happen. Many people have a note in their profile explaining resigns. I think it would be reasonable for Lando's account to list any other(s) it was linked to, and it would also be reasonable for Lando to include a note explaining the situation if he felt it was appropriate.

Personally, I have no problem with playing past cheaters as long as they are not currently cheating. Indeed, as a whole, cheaters are weak players who are also weaker than their records would indicate, and therefore good to play against for those who care about GR. Obviously, I'm sure you can find a few stronger players who have cheated, but generally if you're a strong enough player to have a decent amount of success, playing multiple powers would make the game too easy to be very much fun, and therefore there's a strong bias towards weaker players being most tempted to cheat.

Lando, thanks for stepping in with a clarification, and please forgive the implications that I did not intend to include. I vaguely remembered it being minor cheating (the second account being used as a seventh then CDing to get a game running), but I didn't realize, as you say, that it was only seven games. Either way, you're also correct that I have unintentionally illustrated my own point.

Weak players who cheat do so for points and GR. Strong players who cheat do so for sport. Occasionally you get cheats who enjoy the game enough to abandon their disrespectful ways when caught and become productive members of the site. Some, such as Sandgoose, never do. It would be interesting to learn roughly how many of those given a second chance return to the dark side.

Abge - I wasn't ever annoyed with any of your answers. As I said...I comment...I'm bored...half of it is tongue-in-cheek...It is perhaps not understood, good a good portion of many of my posts are a little bit over the top, tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic or otherwise not really my daily belief...

Accept a compliment on a good job when it is offered.

A good example is Agent K, I will always go back to this one. He was a great player in his own right but clarly was trying to do some unethical things. gameID=71225

Why does the banned AgentK account still have 100 ?

If someone takes over a CD players position after they are banned the system auto reloads them to the 100 .