Its not against the rules what'soever on this website. unless in combination with some other rules violation such as cheating accusations or faked bug reports. however and all those cases the screen shot isn't what makes it against the rules. Please note screenshots can be incredibly easily and quickly and to look legit

*edited to look legit

** ninja'd

Using screenshots in the game is not against the rules. They are just to be treated as any other bit of press. They are incredibly easy to doctor as well. Right Mapu?

WebDip Admin

Thanks for the info!

no problem! Feel free to ask any other questions or send me a private message if you have further inquiries

what about if i used puu.sh in a live game? practically no chance that I've edited it to look legit

Also telling someone they are against the rules may be against the rules if it results in wasting a mod's time investigating...

@demonoverlord, i'm pretty sure i could live edit a webpage (not the image, just the html) to fake being the webdip implementation. It might take some setup time. But once done the first time i'd be able to do it.

Also you could easily have a second computer or browser open with different orders, which you then submit after... If you're talking about press, editing the html is piss easy.

If you want to do real fun stuff you edit the javascript and submit impossible orders, like army munich to the moon. Buti asked and claiming that there is some bug and you didn't mean to send your army to the moon is against the rules...

Well then.. Next time "be more tech savvy you dumb shit" will suffice.

There are browser extensions and websites that will let you edit sites in browser too. Always assuming anything can be faked is the way to go.

This thread brings back memories.

Please note though that it *is* against the rules to distribute screenshots of pigeons. This is something zultar takes very seriously.

It's worth noting that it's frowned upon by some. I wouldn't be particularly happy with someone taking screenshots or copying press, always assuming that if someone copies press of others, he may also be copying my press.

^ everything (down to including saying hello the wrong way or just not quickly enough) is frowned upon by some. :-) But player reaction is a different thing to being against (or not against) the site rules.

@Thorfi,

They are rude. Blind people should be able to play the game. Screen shots should not be needed.

I would refuse to play with anyone who would screen shot things and use it as press.

and I'll laugh at you with scorn and sadness.

No different than copy pasting, no different than typing it up fresh.

Not like people who screenshot use it as an exclusive form of communicating.

Al: Hehe. I'm not disagreeing - forwarding press, screenshots, chainsaw press, swear words in press, angry press, you name it, there are endless things that are probably quite reasonably considered rude by the majority of players, and which many many players will (also quite reasonably) hold it against you (potentially in many games forever) if you do them.

I still say that that's not the same as being against (or not against) the site (or game) rules.

Sometimes I don't doctor it. Sometimes I delete part of it and keep half in tact. Sometimes I change the entire meaning.

Just cause I don't want to spend the time and formatting issues to retype it up doesn't mean anything. Just as legit or illegit as any other type of press.

@thorfi,

No, I agree with you. The staff restrict too many deception techniques already. If anything, I admire Leon if he independently arrived at the idea of screen-shotting his press, although it's easy to see how screenshotting is problematic.

I personally want players to be sneakier, so the fact that he's perhaps attempting to leverage technology to be sneaky is admirable.

I don't know. My personal feeling on this is that diplomacy is a game of trust and persuasion, not doctoring screenshots. This isn't art class, it's Diplomacy.

I think this is why some of the other Diplomacy sites don't allow screenshots.

@A Tin Can,

Yeah, that's what the problem is. At best it's a distraction from the core elements of the game. My biggest complaint is that because my day job deals with this kind of stuff, I don't want my hobby to turn into an exercise in signal intelligence.

Forging screenshots is no different from forging letters in PBM, which is a very common technique of subterfuge.

Please note that while taking screenshots is fine, altering them is not, and I have docked points for it before. The reason being, when we get a report of this it's always along the lines of "that isn't how the press shows on my screen, is there a bug?" and we waste time making sure there wasn't an issue.

-WebDip Admin

Can there be a bit of clarification on that. Does that mean if I receive a screenshot it's guaranteed to be genuine? That's doesn't seem right.

@jmo
then taking screenshots shows 100% truthfulness, which is a little unfair given that in this game there has to be some level of potential for deceit. This website is meant to simulate a bunch of people sitting around a board talking to one another, I mean... are you allowed to use voice recorders in that situation? no! because then the other people say it's cheating, that one guy gets defensive and it ends with you beating him to death with the disembodied arm of that stripper who you had told to the police quote unquote 'left an hour earlier'

AND IF I CANT DO THAT ON THIS SITE... I absolutely lost track of what I was going to say... something about double homicide? that sounds like me but... hmph.

Yeah this is a big can of worms. I assume that since the interface doesn't allow screen shots in press (meaning you need to post the picture else where and provide a link) that they should just be ignored or treated like everything else (meaning they could be true or could be false). Abgemacht brings up a good point that if it is against the rules to do so then sending pictures would be the only way to send "truthful" press and players will begin to gravitate toward doing so. I'd hope there would be a way to allow sending doctored photos and not have players contact the mods when a decrepency occurs. Much like any other press the individual users would have to decide which is real and which isn't.

The point James so eloquently makes is that forging screenshots is the natural defense against people taking screenshots. If you can take screenshots but you aren't allowed to fake them then every full press game on this site has just become a really annoying global press only.

How much overhead is there in telling people it's possible to fake a screenshot and they can't be always trusted?

@abge,

Faking screenshots is not allowed. And as far as I'm aware the board rules do not prohibit video or voice recording. It's a little absurd if you're resorting to that, but to each their own.