This devolved fast.

jacobcfries: Even if a mod is on, the process is a slow one. We usually aren't able to punish until a game is finished, though if they are pretty obvious, we have made pauses in games to investigate without the issue getting worse, but that's an exception if we find it in time, not the norm.

And we are volunteers that try to be on a much as possible, but we have outside lives and the load of work can be great at times to sort through... We don't have a good triage system as of yet...

More importantly FK did you get another result against the Dark Side?

Nigee, you know the mods don't like to publicly announce the outcomes of cheating complaints. I think they feel it encourages witch-hunts.

I don't know, they've had their moments and I love hearing about cheats getting caught. I think the more it is reported the less it will happen

I don't agree. Most multis, in my experience, are new-ish members and spend little or no time reading the forums.

A mod once told me that I would be surprised how many now well-established players started off with a small black mark against their name. I suppose that the softly softly approach is probably best, although I have some sympathy with the name and shame approach.

It's easy enough to find out. If they were banned and you were in a game with them that has ended, go look at the game and see if the big ol' X is next to their name.

*Cough* No verdict yet. *Cough*

No verdict you know of. They may have been found not guilty or given a warning/points docked if it was a meta case.

You're going to have to wait quite a bit longer than 19 hours for a group of volunteers to get to it. There's a lot of stuff going on in this site that's not allowed. They go through it all one by one. Rather than complaining because it takes a long time, I commend them for actually taking the time to do it at all instead of just saying "guilty as charged" and moving onto the next thing.

Yeah, and they have lots of tools at their disposla and take the time to *interview* the accused and see what is up before making their ruling.

A lot more than I can say for a lot of online games I've seen around.

''It's easy enough to find out. If they were banned and you were in a game with them that has ended, go look at the game and see if the big ol' X is next to their name.''

That assumes that every cheater is automatically banned. reading between the lines this is not always the case. Perhaps, if people do actually mend their ways this isn't necessarily a bad thing?

I don't think it's a bad thing to get a warning. While ignorance isn't an excuse, it's definitely a much more understandable reason than being a greedy asshole, isn't it? It's the same problem I have with the US' prison system. It houses both criminals and people who have a problem. People with a problem don't need prison, they need to be rehabilitated and helped so that they can return and contribute in society. They'd just have to take the time to see who is a criminal and who isn't. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often. More kudos to the mods I guess.

Take that to it's logical conclusion and you would have the Mods running the US Prison Service

I'd bet that'd work better than the current one does. Uh oh, controversial topic time...

Since there's a bit of interest in how mods work in meta/multi cases, I will bring up a few quick points:

1. We have a number of tools at our disposal and we look at specific moves in games, which is why cheating accusations should always have specific observations that indicate unfair play and not just "I've got a feeling" or I'm really good at this game and my experience says this or that.
2. We almost always send emails to the accused and give them at least 48 hours to respond before we act.
3. When the accused responds, it is sometimes very brief and they do not come clean and disclose all the details of their cheating or what they think is innocent play (I can trust my friend so how's that different than an alliance created in game). Then we have to spell the rules out for them and wait for them to respond. You can imagine that it can take a bit of time with this back and forth.
4. We rather take the time to clear up the issues and give them a chance to come clean and learn from the experience. Moreover, we take a cautious approach, "innocent till proven guilty" and all that. I think we can all agree that it's better for them to mend their ways rather than to send them off to Vdip or elsewhere to cheat.

This, surprisingly enough, is not good enough for some people. When they see a game that smells fishy, they demand that it is resolved right away and that the "cheaters" be punished accordingly. Sometimes there is just not enough data from a single game to condemn the accused and sometimes odd moves/supports happen and they have nothing to do with cheating. We give those cases the benefit of the doubt instead of the banhammer or point-docking. I think it's better to have five criminals free than to punish an innocent (we will catch the cheaters anyway and our ratio of cheaters to innocents is much better than 5 to 1 in my opinion).
For the most part though, people trust us to do our job and they understand that it is not always a black and white issue. Most of the cheating that occur are from newbies who didn't read the rules or understand why blatant metagaming is unfair.

I hope this helps people to understand the process a little better and feel free to email us if you have any questions.

Whatever way you slice it I think it is a good approach but I would love to see a banned thread where Mods told us all of the people who got banned for cheating and what they did, that would be entertaining

"1. We have a number of tools at our disposal and we look at specific moves in games, which is why cheating accusations should always have specific observations that indicate unfair play and not just "I've got a feeling" or I'm really good at this game and my experience says this or that."

Why is it different to say something like "the moves are extremely well coordinated for a no-press game" and to then to instead say "the convoy of one power for another in a no-message game, the vacating of BEL for the other to move in in a no-press game and the subsequent non-aggression based on the apparent "stab" all point to cheating."? do you have like a book where certain moves are cheating and certain are probably just good gunboating? I really don't understand this at all.

Of course, points 2-4 make great sense. But this specific thing I do not "get."

For me, I suspect cheating if there is change of supply centres between two powers without a change in their apparent attitudes to each other. I would also suspect cheating on supported or inter-country convoys without a "signal" move first. I would also suspect cheating if there a power is forgoing victory opportunities for the sake of eliminating a third power.

There are tons of things like the above that are not particularily specific. they are small differences in the game that I am able to notice because I have seen so many different situations. I am not sure how this can be argued with. It is simply true.

So, if I send a message with the above, why is it that geofram and xultar consistently respond and tell me to give them specific evidence?

A specific example, I was in a game where turkey was bouncing himself off of Warsawfor a bunch of turns to no avail. Then, after a bunch of turns England got a border on Warsaw and the immediate next turn Turkey stopped just poking at WAR and supported England to it. This made no logical sense from any gunboat perspective and while ti is not proof of cheating it is evidence. I was told this was nto good enough and that the case was "resolved."

This, again, is a major reason why I have lsot faith in the moderators and why I will not report cheating accusations anymore. I am tired of putting in an effort to articulate a cocnern only to be told that my concern is not only incorrect but was not valid.

I always send my important posts from my wrong account. Sorry.

Also, zultar, I really appreciate the subtle insult you threw at me in there. Quite classy and quite fitting. Douchebag.

The above all refers exclusively to gunboat games. I understand that when press comes into play it is easier to point to some more specific things.

Ok, I am not going to react to your name calling again. This is the second time you have called me names without provocation. The first time made me lose my cool and made me reveal information that I probably should not have in my role as a moderator. I am not going to take your bait again. I was responding to the prior posts and to explain to people about how we approach the issues of meta/multi.
Moreover, I have only moderated ONE case of your cheating accusations and I did not find enough evidence at the time. I can't speak for Geo or how he approached you. In my emails to you in that case, I specifically told you that I did not find enough evidence. I did not say that your concerns were invalid or incorrect.

I shall now step away from this particular thread and one of the admins can respond for me if they feel necessary.

Kids, behave yourselves now. We wouldn't want another Sandgoosian intervention...where I fling sand in your ass and make you scratchy scratchy now would we?

Excatly my point......

I tried to put forth some concerns about the system and I am told that I just wasted my time because the moderators do not care to respond to it, as it was made after their involvement in this thread had ended? Did I read that write?

And I udnerstand that the public does not know all the abuse you've spouted at me in the past, zultar, but I remember and your specific reference was a blatant shot at me. Hide behind your post, though, as expected. I don't really mind but you ARE a douchebag.

I should also note that the last time I messaged the mdoerators about ongoing cheating zultar repsonded (the time he indicated). his reaction and treatment of me is why I have not made any since, despite having a few suspicions.

read that right*

I DEMAND JUSTICE!!!

I'm just hoping that all of this defense of/clarity regarding the moderators is for information purposes and not in response to me. I have been nothing but courteous since I started this thread, and the mods have only ever been civil and prompt with me. I'm just enjoying the dialogue, and in no way am I complaining about the mods' services, just to be clear.

Here we go with the same ol shit...

@SG - What do we do when you and I are the voices of reason?

@zultar - You are doing the right thing by stepping out of this one.

@Lando - zultar didn't call you out. You went off on him like the old, well, me. Chill dude. So don't report your suspicions if you don't want too. But don't post them here and stop flinging needless poo around or I'll let sandgoose goose you with a huge pile of his sandpoo. :-) Seriously, zultar was just explaining how they work.

Oh and your example was bogus. Once England got there, Turkey may have offered up the support as a sign of friendship and hoping to hurt their common enemy. It isn't always about getting SCs. Sometimes it's about taking the SCHOOL from.the enemy no matter who gets it and making an ally at the same time hoping they willbreturn the favor.

Draug, we start tournaments and have a logical game together, join the tournament of sands!!!