It's between mods and non-mods, do not try to blur the battle lines here jimgov my friend

+1 above if you agree with SYnapse.
+1 if his views dont reflect your opinion as non-mod.

@SYnapse, a couple of clarifications I need to make:
"Philcore acknowledges this and is silenced"
I was silenced for ignoring a very specific warning in that thread. I chose to make my point despite the warning.

"cos it looks pretty fishy if philcore was silenced and Landowner is never banned"
I disagree that it would look fishy. I wasn't on a mission to get him banned or anything, I was actually trying to get him to come clean with his story - I gave him plenty of options that would have been understandable reasons. But even if he was never banned, That would be completely separate from me willingly taking a silencing for ignoring a warning about it.

It was a very entertaining 24 hours with you and Nigee going on about it, and when I got back on, I expressed my appreciation in a humorous way, as if I had just gotten out of jail. But to be clear, I'm not looking for a public apology, nor do I deserve one. The mods did nothing wrong in my case. I've made this very clear all along. You can still use my case to harass them if you want, that's between you and them, I just want to make sure that you understand that you're not really doing it on my behalf. Hopefully your doing it because you think it's funny, and not because your serious about it ;-)

This is not about you or me philcore this is about freedom!!

Can I just say I was having some fun poking fun at the Mods the other day but as a team I think the Mods do a great job and I have 'nuff respect' for them.
All I would say to them is if the same people want to beat the same drum about the same kind of issues ad infinitum (which of course they are free to do) then the Mods should not feel compelled to answer in their own defense, and nobody else should feel compelled to do so on their behalf. Maybe to provide information yes but you obviously don't have to continually justify your existence as anyone who has been using this site for more than 6 months knows what an improvement there has a been as a result of the good team play by the Mods, I think it is fair game to question an individual decision but not the people 'cos they have been trying their best.
It won't always be like this 'vive la difference' while it lasts.
The issue for me, why is there a constant stream of people who want to break the rules (not about cheating accusations because I think we are grown up to be able to discuss such issues) with regard to playing the game, is it human nature just to cheat if you find a way to do it ??
Maybe if some of the forum rules were relaxed the Mods could focus on violation within games rather than on the forum, and if Players were not banned from the Forum but just banned from playing the game we would have something more fun to do than wind up the Mods ...... wind up the cheats, that sounds like much more fun to me, and then maybe we could have cheats games where only cheaters could enter and these games were played without moderation so nobody could complain about what went on in them. If this were possible who would your 7 banned players be in that game. I would start with the 2 obvious ones, please add to if for entertainment purposes only, I'm sure it will never happen.
Cheaters Championship:
1) SandMarcher
2) SargGoose
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)

Phil you need to ask yourself whether you are a mod or non-mod, and where your allegiance lies

@Synapse: I figured it was humor. You're good at keeping in character, I'll give you that! ;-)
well done!

Obviously landowner needs to be in that game.

Agent X needs to be in there too.

Cheaters Championship:
1) SandMarcher
2) SargGoose
3) Land Owner
4) Land Tenant
5) Agent X
6)
7)

I believe its Agent K...

@SYnapse - We see your email. We have over 30 active cases at the time, so we'll get to you. Be patient.

@Nigee - We actually spend very little time modding the forum, so not to worry. I just do it when I'm taking a break from doing something else haha.

Woops, yep.

"jmo sees something fishy, can't prove it, abuses a loophole in the system, bans a likely innnocent user."

This wasn't just my case. It involved most of the mod team.


"At least argue about something important like Boba Fett being a complete failure of a bounty hunter"

He later became the Mandalor and made his planet filthy rich in the books...slightly more of an accomplishment then his father. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Boba_Fett


"if the mods aren't conspiracists how come figlesquidge and ghost maker just disappeared?"

They probably disappeared because of threads like this one.


"- Landowner basically admits to being a multi/sends cryptic messages/causes a lot of suspicion
- Philcore acknowledges this and is silenced
- I complain to the mods and they do nothing
- I ask the details of the case (why Landowner wasn't banned) they say it's under investigation
- Jmo promises to give me an explanation of the case afterwards (cos it looks pretty fishy if philcore was silenced and Landowner is never banned)
- Landowner is banned
- No apology to philcore or update of the case, depite the fact that I am awaiting reply"

1) He didn't admit to being a multi, and suspicions are to be sent to the mod email only.
2) Philcore was silenced for breaking a site rule. You'll notice the rule doesn't say that accusing someone of being a multi is okay if they seem extra suspicious.
3) We already had a case open into Landowner, and your appeal was reviewed by Yebellz
4) We do not hand out details of cases.
5) I haven't had time to reply to your email, just getting on the site.
6) This is a correct.
7) It doesn't matter if Philcore was right, accusing him is still against the rules. Philcore has stated that he +1'ed my post where I silenced him and that he knew what he posted was against site rules, but did it anyways for comedic value. Hence, silenced.


"That's not actually true. Sandgoose was on vacation when he got an email about the mods having noticed that another account was his twin, and by the time he checked his email, he was banned (partially for not answering)."

No, Sandgoose was banned for many many things, see any of the multiple previous threads devoted to this conversation, but breaking rule 8 was not one of them.

Ok jmo that's all well and good but you haven't responded to the proposal to institute mods vs multis as a sideshow.

vDip mods vs webDip mods
vDip multis vs webDip multis

I'm thinking: http://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=52
the webDip mods get fortress Nth America
the vDip mods get fortress Sth America
and the multi's get the rest.

But the game is played with Ankara Crescent rules:
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=90

I was thinking more along the lines of Plants vs. Zombies, but with the plant varieties being:

Zultar
Jmo
goldfinger
abgemacht
TGM
figlesquidge
Thucydides
kestas
etc

and zombie varieties being
Landowner
Land Tenant
Sargmacher
Sandgoose
Agent K
Bearnstein
Jimbozig
etc

And as you get more powerful mods they have bigger banhammers that can squash even the most boss of enemies.

Thanks for the correction, jmo.

That said, I still don't see why the suggested change wouldn't make sense as a general matter. It might be slightly more work for the mods I suppose; but very slightly I would think, and how often is rule 8 the cause of a banning? (A rhetorical question; but maybe I'm wrong and it happens all the time).

Rule 8 normally comes into play during investigations. Everyone we email gets 3 days to reply, these are almost always people in the middle of cheating in multiple games. Dozens of these multis a year just don't care about the site, stop logging in, and don't bother replying. They get banned.

If we aren't sure if someone is away or ignoring us we might dock their points till they reply and send them an email letting them know they can get them back by replying. If someone has been gone for a few months or weeks then they will banned if it's clear they are a multi after the 3 days or possibly put on a watch list to email again if they start back on the site.

Every case is unique, so we judge and make the decision we feel is best to keep play fair. Everyone can always appeal a ban though. So if someone does get banned for being away all they have to do is email us, say "hey this is what happened with my case and this is why I didn't reply" and they will be unbanned. It happens once every few months, but they still need to have an explanation that fits for the reason they were originally contacted.

We take a lot of time and effort to make sure people aren't banned unfairly, or without knowing they were under investigation. If we have to send a few follow up emails and a pm then we do. It's also very easy for someone to appeal a ban, as I'm sure none of you know, when you are banned and try to log into the site a notice comes up with Kestas's direct email, letting members get an appeal without worrying the mods will sweep it under the rug. Literally everything about the process of our investigations is designed to make them as fair as possible and works extremely well.

Just one final note, landowner did see our email and was logged on after he received it. So he would have been banned even with your change.

All the moderators are extremely fair and lenient in their decisions, which you can see from the number of chances multiple players on this site have been given. I realize without perfect transparency there will always be doubt about the way we conduct investigations, but perfect transparency would make it far easier for people to cheat at the game. So everyone is going to have to meet us halfway there and trust to a degree that we're actually doing our jobs fairly. Everyone is welcome to appeal their own case, but when other members start shouting accusations without knowing the entire case it just wastes everyone's time. People are more then capable of appealing their own cases, and all the information for doing so is provided to them regardless of their punishment. We volunteered for moderator positions so that everyone else can play the game without worrying about these kinds of cases. So let us worry about these cases and have fun playing the game.

This man was born to do this job .....

Thank you for the explanation, jmo.

@frank and Lando C:

You guys obviously know more of the story than the rest of us, why don't you just tell us landowner's side so we can all know what you guys know?

Wasn't Sandgoose banned while on vacation?

Foru days go by and you revive this piece of shit thread? Holy fucking shit, Al! Let it go.

Ok...am I the only guy who likes the idea of a tower defense game?

Awaiting a reply from Kestas regarding philcore and blankflag, however I agree with and admire your post jmo. Your ability to deal with cheaters has never been under question.

Draugnar,

Easy there, Old Boy!

Say, how is the coding bidness treating you?