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A place to discuss topics/games with other webDiplomacy players.
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obiwanobiwan (248 D)
12 Dec 11 UTC
A Question About US/UK TV...
Well, all my friends like Doctor who, so I've taken to watching it...and a friend told me DW was still in B&W in 1966...while Kirk was fighting that hilariously-rubber-suited Gorn in color already? On the other side of the coin...we seem to borrow some TV shows and ideas from Across the Pond...why is the BBC behind tech-wise and US TV behind "idea-wise?" (Are we...or is this just me?)
16 replies
Open
SantaClausowitz (360 D)
12 Dec 11 UTC
Lowes pulls advertising from TLC's All-American Muslim
Good to know Lowes thinks a show about people merely living as families in the United States is a political lightning rod. Home Depot it is.
6 replies
Open
solo1805 (111 D)
12 Dec 11 UTC
Question about World Diplomacy.
How can a FLEET in Poland move to Ukraine?
10 replies
Open
Invictus (240 D)
12 Dec 11 UTC
A Conspiracy I Can Get Behind
Was Russia the one behind Stuxnet?
http://the-diplomat.com/2011/12/10/was-russia-behind-stuxnet/2/?all=true
7 replies
Open
goldfinger0303 (3157 DMod)
08 Dec 11 UTC
NFL Week 14 Pick'Em
This is a bit late. Damn Thursday games
20 replies
Open
OttoBismarck (0 DX)
12 Dec 11 UTC
Please Ready in live gunboats
It's so annoying when you don't, especially on build phases. I'm going into civil disorder just because the game I'm in now is so frustrating
2 replies
Open
MadMarx (36299 D(G))
07 Dec 11 UTC
MadMarx ABI-50 EoG's
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=69938
31 replies
Open
Lando Calrissian (100 D(S))
11 Dec 11 UTC
Webdipmods
I have a little story


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Lando Calrissian (100 D(S))
11 Dec 11 UTC
Recently playbake and mr. crispy have been banned for cheating. I sent in an accusations about these two players on November 27th. My first response by the moderators was "There is no evidence to suspect foul play." I did not appreciate this answer, which I will explain below, but I asked them to continue looking into it, received no response and now see the players banned.

A few days ago I was in an ongoing game and suspected cheating. I sent a message to the moderators and got the "There is no evidence to suspect foul play." response. As my evening continued I found myself in another game with the same two players. I e-mailed the mods again adding evidence to my claim. I received a familiar response of "There is no evidence to suspect foul play."

This response bothers me. I wonder what the mods think I am sending them if not evidence. It may not be enough evidence, but to tell me it isn't evidence at all is bullshit and bothersome. On top of all this, it is the exact same response I got when I sent an accusation that turned out to be legitimate.

I am calling bullshit on this and expressing my disappointment.
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
A little more, a bit different story:

I emailed the mods about a game, where there was a clear multiplaying, even Lando was also participating in that game, gameID=72766, there was also a thread about that, threadID=794098, even one of the mods participated in the thread, and so far nothing has happened in 3 weeks. I didn't get any answer at all, and the game hasn't been canceled, what I expect to happen still!

Also I have a few positive experience with mods when they were fast, helpful and cooperative, but definiately not recently...
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Ohh, and 1 more thing, I just realized, the cooperating players in the game above were banned since. Why wasn't the game cancelled then?

I think it's quite easy to check for games which were won by banned, multiplaying users ...
SacredDigits (102 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
For a variety of reasons, they never retroactively cancel games with banned users. It sucks, but that's the way it is. Once a game is finished, canceling it makes more of a problem than it solves.
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
@SacredDigits: can you explain to me what problems does it make, it they cancel a finished game?
Tru Ninja (1016 D(S))
11 Dec 11 UTC
I kinda agree with rokakoma. I can't see what sort of problem would arise from cancelling games with multis. It ruins ghost-ratings, removes diplomacy points which you can never get back, and makes people a lot more angry about things than they need to be.

I had a game where I was eliminated by multis. Thankfully, the mods did detect it and they were eliminated, but it took about 3 weeks. Had the two been eliminated within the first week or so, I'd have participated in the draw of the endgame instead of being eliminated, but at least they didn't win either.
Thucydides (864 D(B))
11 Dec 11 UTC
Well first of all, we have never cancelled them, so starting now is not fair to those in the past.

Sorry to hear about your negative experience, but Lando at least it is clear that we are looking at your accusations seriously, even if what we tell you initially is not the action we end up taking, we clearly watch the people you bring to our attention.. what more can you ask?
TheJok3r (765 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
I agree that it's a good thing it gets investigated, but for the person filing accusations, he has no peace of mind on the matter. It causes more confusion and can make that person feel not protected. I think a more appropriate response would be, "The issue will be investigated, thank you for your concern."

With repeated responses like lando received, I would begin to think something else was going on. I understand mods are volunteers and haven't had a training course on how to respond, but surely sending an honest reply that it will be investigated is better than, "there is no issue here."
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
@Thucydides

I had games, which were cancelled during the game (even they were a live games), luckily the mod was around.

On the second hand, about cancelling past games, in my view it's just an SQL query, listing all the games which were won by banned users, and cancel them all. If they weren't won by banned user, I would leave them as they are.

On the 3rd hand (if such an expression exists at all :)) I think if players write to the mods, and there has been a clear multiplaying, they have actually wrote the claim when they were still playing, mods should cancel it, even later. The point here is:
a) players claim during the play
b) if somebody takes his/her time and effort to get back his/her points I think he/she deserves to get it back. If someone doesn't than mods don't have to care.

It's like not being an automatism, cancelling these games, but if someone is involved, and makes a claim, that should be an automatism to fulfil it. In this way, no one cares whether you are fair with the past games, or not, since everyone has the opportunity to file a claim about past games.
Thucydides (864 D(B))
11 Dec 11 UTC
They weren't lying, we don't do that. We give as much information as we can about the case, and whoever responded clearly thought at that time that there was indeed no foul play, but found out otherwise.
TheJok3r (765 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
It shouldn't matter if the cheating player won or not that decides what happens to the game. Any game with the multis together is going to have an effect on everybody playing. And can definitely be the difference in surviving and being eliminated.
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
@TheJok3r

Maybe, you are right, although I'm sure there are cases when multis cannot cooperate with themselves, for eg. they are turkey+england and both get eliminated before they could actually cooperate. In this case it would be a mistake to cancel the game.

Bottom line: I still think these games should be investigated individually, but those which were won by a banned player should certainly be cancelled. But I can also live with the fact, these aren't as well.

Tell me 1 single reason why can't a past game cancelled on a claim file later, turned out to be right. Anyone has the chance to file such a claim, anytime, so in my view everybody is responsible to get back his/her points if he/she feels sg. was unfair. It doesn't have to be mods' responsibility to investigate every games. But it's their responsibility to investigate every claimed games, and even cancel it later.

Than, who doesn't agree with this policy can still file claims on his own games, but at least those who get angry because they were cheated, could get some compensation.
TheJok3r (765 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
@Thucy: but if the matter is still being investigated, shouldn't there atleast be no reply as opposed to saying everything is fine? I don't know how well the mods are able to communicate with one another, but it would seem to have some uniform procedures on handling cheating accusations would be necessary. Such as not creating situations that happened above. I can understand if somebody made a mistake if they missed it when reviewing, but if it's still being looked at, isn't it better to say so? Or say nothing at all until it's concluded?
Spell of Wheels (4896 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
This game is a primary reason I left the site for a year...and it still irks me to see it on my record and in my games. gameID=26384
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Spell of Wheels, 'nice' game, i completely understand you

I just checked all my previous games, there are many where a banned player has won, making 195 D altogether. Now I just got irked as well :)
jmo1121109 (3812 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Let me give you an example of why you cannot just go through and delete all the games where a banned player won. There is a banned player, but he was banned because he wanted to change the name of his account because it used his real name. All the games he won were won fair and square and the people he beat lost fairly. So deleting all games won by a banned player would get rid of some legitimate games too. And I'm sure the account I know about isn't the only one with that kind of situation.
Lando Calrissian (100 D(S))
11 Dec 11 UTC
@Thucy, I ask that the moderators take my concerns seriously. Getting the same repsonse, "There is no evidence to suspect foul play" when I am clearly presenting evidence is what is bothering me.

The mod who repsonded that twice in a row is clearly teling me to stop bothering him. Maybe I am reading into it too much, but if my concerns aren't valid than I have an issue. I have sent in upwards of 20 accusations most of which have turned out to be legitimate. And now I have a concern and a mod is telling me to leave him alone and that my observations are not evdience of any kind.
Draugnar (0 DX)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Barring a technical issue like some referential integrity issue in the database, that wouldn't apply into the case of multis where two or more of the multis were in the game and one of them won or both of the drew. Same with metas. As long as two of the offenders were in the game and at least one had a positive outcome, it should be cancelled. If there is a referential integrity issue, I volunteer here and now to write a SQL update statement that will clean it all up and keep referential integrity. It shouldn't take more than a couple hours to write and unit test it.
EmperorMaximus (551 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Out of curiosity, what is an "Auto"?
Draugnar (0 DX)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Now, the one sticky spot is when the banned player was replaced. I don't think we could find those games because the history of who started the game isn't in the database, only who was the final 7 (or 5 or 17) players.
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
One other solution could be, if mods were to open a shared google doc, put the claimed games' ids into the first column, and simply vote whether they think it was a multi and should be cancelled or not. And the Majority decision is accepted. Or 2/3rds, whatever.

Reviewing most of the games takes no more than 5 minutes, in many cases lot less (such as Spell of Wheels' case, which is about 10 seconds to see it was a multi)

In my case, among my 100 finished games there are only 2 which I would argue about. That's 2%. I do not think reviewing them would take a lot of time serverwide.And only those games should be reviewed which are filed by someone involed in the specific game.
Draugnar (0 DX)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Adding more work, even just a little, isn't going to helpvthe mods catch-up on the backlog. No, we need two simple SQL scripts that run on past games. The first would be a one time run off all old games and would cancel any conforming to "the cheaters won" rule and the second would do the same but looked for a specific set of cheaters.
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Draug, I know, but for the future my shared doc idea may still stand. There would be no backlog with SQL cleanup.

About the SQL cleanup: I completely agree with cancelling "the cheater(s) won" games.
Leaving all "the cheater got nothin' " untouched.

But still, tough question on those games where both cheaters and players got sg.

By policy I would define more sets of games.

WTA nohcat won by cheater - cancel
WTA nochat drew by just cheaters - cancel
WTA drew by not just cheaters - no idea
WTA with chat - no idea

non-WTA nochat cheater(s) won - cancel
non-WTA nochat just cheaters drew - cancel
non-WTA with chat - no idea (if there was chat easier to handle cheaters during the game)

Also having chat in WTA games also helps handling multis. So I think games with no chat and won/drawn only by cheaters are the only clear situation to cancel. The rest is arguable.
abgemacht (1076 D(G))
11 Dec 11 UTC
Lando,

The moderators on this site are not your personal secret police. We are not required to keep you informed of every minor update on a case, nor are your suspicious valid evidence against a player.

When you first emailed us, there was not enough evidence to do anything, which is exactly what we told you. Clearly, we didn't ignore you, because we continued to look into the case and eventually banned the players (once enough evidence was available).

As you well know, the mods take time on each and every case to make sure mistakes are not made. This may mean cases take longer to finish, but I think it is better than banning anyone who even remotely looks like a multi. Don't you agree?

santosh (335 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
^Cheaters may not cheat every time they play. Also, cheaters winning isn't a fair rule either, cheaters taking out a neighbor and losing to another power make the game unbalanced as well. Basically the only fair rule is to cancel all games cheaters have played AND cheated in. But it's hard to tell if people cheated or were meta- without investigating a game in detail, and asking the players involved, this is one of the reasons why investigating a game takes ages.

Overall, way too much effort to bother. People who it really matters that much to should go through their own games and maintain private stats on their profiles instead of giving mods a ton of work.

But I agree with OP, the mod who replied could probably have been nicer. The two times I've reported cheating I've had civil replies along the lines of "Your report will be investigated. Thanks for bringing this to our attention", so maybe this one had a bad day.
Lando Calrissian (100 D(S))
11 Dec 11 UTC
@abgemacht, I don't care about the crispy/bake process because it worked. There is a recent set of players whom I e-mailed you about and Geofram basically replied and told me that you wouldn't be looking into it. This is my problem.

I have always used the proper channels and have a good track record of helping catch these people. It bothers me that my newest report is being thrown back in my face and that you will not continue to look into these two players.

It is even worse because last time it happened the players were caught 3 weeks later likely when someone else reported them.
Tru Ninja (1016 D(S))
11 Dec 11 UTC
+1 Draug

I'm not complaining about the mods. They certainly got to my game when they could. It just happened to be a bit late. I was also 99.9% sure there was a cheat and I posted some very clear reasons why. I just hate knowing that the game is going to scar my record for life.
abgemacht (1076 D(G))
11 Dec 11 UTC
I personally reviewed the case you're referring to. The reason we told you there was no evidence is because there was no evidence. I'm sorry, but we simply cannot ban players for being good at gunboat games, which is the only thing against them. If any more information arises, we will look into it again. That is all the detail we'll be going into on that.


Who sent the report to us is irrelevant. When you sent it, we didn't have enough info, so we waited. I wasn't following that case, so I don't know if anyone else even reported it. In any case, the next time we looked at it, there was new info and it was enough for a ban.

I'd like to point out that in both these cases, you specifically requested a speedy response because the game was ongoing. That's exactly what we gave you in both cases. You weren't happy with our answer, so you asked us to look again. But, there's nothing new to look at over the course of several hours. So what else are we supposed to say?
rokakoma (19138 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Tru Ninja, I agree, that's my main problem too, losing points and rating forever because of some proven cheaters.
Draugnar (0 DX)
11 Dec 11 UTC
@abgemacht - I think altering the stock message to be something like "There is no evidence to suspect foul play, but we will continue to monitor the accounts in case more evidence comes to light. Feel free to email us more evidence you should come acroos." might be all that is needed. You stock answer is very abrupt and dismissive.

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140 replies
MadMarx (36299 D(G))
19 Nov 11 UTC
Cut-Throat "Hosted" GR Challenge Game
Details within... but give me 5 minutes!
487 replies
Open
Yonni (136 D(S))
10 Dec 11 UTC
Top 5 albums of your lifetime
By your lifetime, I mean music that you listened to when it came out. I'm born in '87 but I'm not going to list Nevermind. Kapeesh?
70 replies
Open
Putin33 (111 D)
12 Dec 11 UTC
To my Hungarian friends
Anybody know where you can find Szalon Cukor? Every place I look is out of stock.
6 replies
Open
korben (153 D)
12 Dec 11 UTC
live game 273
looking for 2 more players...
1 reply
Open
santosh (335 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Errors
The map isn't displaying, and I get:
29 replies
Open
krellin (80 DX)
10 Dec 11 UTC
XBOX 360 of PS3??
OK...I am a *PC Gamer* at my core...but with the family, there is are certain advantages and positives to owning a Console as well.

57 replies
Open
Maniac (189 D(B))
10 Dec 11 UTC
It's been a while
Who wants to play Ankara Crescent?
56 replies
Open
abgemacht (1076 D(G))
11 Dec 11 UTC
I NEED A NEW FRIEND ASAP!
gameID=74265

The mods banned one of my friends : (
9 replies
Open
EmperorMaximus (551 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Need one more player
gameID=74293
WTA
36 hour
Password: winter
1 reply
Open
taos (281 D)
07 Dec 11 UTC
what do you think about fat women?
i am looking for an advice
i have this girlfriend who is really but really fat(120 kilo or more)
she is a really good women works,cleans,smart and other stuff you may be looking in a wife
151 replies
Open
Thucydides (864 D(B))
06 Dec 11 UTC
Favorites thread
We will introduce and attempt to justify our favorite things. See inside
108 replies
Open
santosh (335 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Aargh
I can't mark as read the unread messages in my gunboat game, one of the players got banned. I'm OCD about removing notifications from the top bar, and this is killing me. Help!
3 replies
Open
orathaic (1009 D(B))
08 Dec 11 UTC
better nuclear power?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16085385

there's a good talk by bill about this on TED, if anyone is interested...
5 replies
Open
Tettleton's Chew (0 DX)
08 Dec 11 UTC
Exposing Obama's Bald-Faced Lies
Listening to Obama's spewing of the standard socialist rhetoric demands they face the light of day for what they are, bald-faced lies.
8 replies
Open
velocity (570 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
What to do about a multi player in my game?
Hello all. I'm seriously concerned about a multi-player situation in one of my current games. Who do I contact to look into it?
2 replies
Open
Argento (5723 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
New game "For the old times..."
gameID=74492
0 replies
Open
Lando Calrissian (100 D(S))
11 Dec 11 UTC
"I want a good gunboat"
good game everyone
2 replies
Open
Geofram (130 D(B))
08 Dec 11 UTC
Gun Control
So two more people were shot (and killed) on my university campus today. Fucking coward Americans and their retardedly lax gun control legislation ruining our Reading Day. More than 80 gun deaths a day, are you kidding me?
198 replies
Open
Gazelle123 (127 D)
11 Dec 11 UTC
Live game
gameID=74485
10 min/phase , ancient med, starts at 4:30
:)
1 reply
Open
Gazelle123 (127 D)
10 Dec 11 UTC
Live game
Simple live game, 5 mins/phase
5 D to join
URL: http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=74484
0 replies
Open
The Czech (39715 D(S))
10 Dec 11 UTC
The knife show gameID=74451
Wish some people knew how to play.
2 replies
Open
dr. octagonapus (210 D)
10 Dec 11 UTC
How to resign?
^how do you resign from a game?
4 replies
Open
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