'I for one would like to keep track of people who "play with friends". These people are often not banned, but also not revealed to the community. I want to know who these people are, because I'll avoid them. When I'm hosting/joining an invitational game, I will for sure check these people and make sure they're not "playing with their friend" again. And if I were in a game where someone cheated, I'd like to be informed of that, namely so I can remove it from my statistics spreadsheet.'

Playing with friends is allowed on this site.
Infact some people use this site exclusively to play games with their friends (the same friends who you've played Risk with, and maybe Civ where one of your friends is notorious for nuking people as soon as he gets a chance... ) this is an important thing, and if they play with no-body else what does it matter to you if they are all one person?

'I appreciate the work that mods do, but that doesn't mean that your opinions on certain matters outweight those of us lesser mortals.'

never refering to the non-mods as lesser mortals. However email addresses can be kept private, IP addresses are by default private! Do you advocate opening up this information to the public? In a sense arming the would-be cheaters with what information is necessary to defend themselves? (if a cheater knew how an investigation occured it would be harder to prove anything - and they would even see the deabte as a challenge, something with feedback from the community to tell them how well they are doing.)

'It is central to the debate that in effect people with power (mods) don't trust other members to differentiate between suspected cheaters and those found guilty. I have faith in my fellow members to treat accused as innocent until proven guilty and the mods appear to not trust their fellow members and want to reserve the right of judge to themselves.'

it's not about mods not trusting the judgement of the players, it's about the community as a whole not wanting their privacy unnecesarily invaded. If you think you want to help the mods make these decisions then you are free to volunteer and work in private (doing this thankless job that the rest of the mods attempt)

Most people accept that certain info is privately available to the Admin of whatever website they are using, this is acceptable BECAUSE this information is not opened up to public scrutiny.

Now if we had a randomly selected jury who were appointed investigators for each case we could escape this claim that the mods see themselves as superior.

Though obviously multis would have an advantage if they had multipple accounts on said jury.... :(

'clearly some cheaters are smarted than this.' - firstly that is not clear. If it were then we'd be able to do more. Secondly, there are people who may be smarter than any system you care to propose (except the satelite tracking/UAV multi-hunters, me and figles discussed recently... but the funding for this doesn't seem likely... :p )

'In real life we have law enforcement and judiciary...we also have free press and the ability to speak up when something looks wrong...Thus, if the majority of the population think someone is cheating they can take some action (e.g. avoid this person) and not have to wait for an official decision.' - and we also have defamation/libel/slander laws which prevent people from destroying reputations with lies in the 'free press'.

"I've been accused at least 3 times in the forum and investigated after. I see no problem with that and am pretty sure others won't take it that personally either. That's a requirement for having a better community and if haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about anyway."

Yes, at present the normal behaviour of the community is to dismiss forum based accusations in favour of moderator investigation. If that were not the case your reputation could have been ruined many times over by these public accusations.

"why do you think that mods could receive a notification about an alleged cheater and still treat that member fairly whilst you feel the ordinary members couldn't hear such accusations?"

First the accuser is often a biased witness, we don't let the family of a murdered person sit as judge/jury in the real world.

The mods are less biased. (and should not be investigating friends)

'it has been bad form / against the rules to post cheating allegations on the forum for some time, yet still it persists. If we can't stop the allegations appearing, then I think we should accpt it and move to a more open system where people can post accusations; '

however dismissed allegations lose their weight, when the community doesn't value them. (and the first three responces are, 'please email this to a mod' or an explaination that gunboat communication happens through moves - which is still dismissing the cheating claim.)

'you say that you wouldn't want the mob to judge you so I assume that you are happy with teh mods judging you in private? I would prefer the opposite, if I'm accused, then let it be publicly examined by my piers and not by an unpaid overworked mod.'

i believe it is entirely fair to ask. However, the private investigation by the mods can often reveal much, and i think making what they know public would make proving anything more difficult in some cases.

And yes, i'd love a system to exclude 'certain' types of players from my play pool, ie WTA/non-anon players only...

and fortunately i do have the option of setting up such games and playing in them.

designing a social network style interaction to tell you if another player is compatible to play with (like an automatic dating compatiblility machine) would be incredibly difficult and not neccesarily useful.

Even with a compatibility measure - allowing that one can edit their measure by registering their personal dislike of someone - which allows you to play whoever you want while armed with the knowledge of their 'compatibility' - would be a mamoth task, better performed by humans deciding for themselves who they want to play with. imho.

You clearly fail to realize that giving people tools and options to give back feedback and 'manage' their environment better is an inherently good thing. Yes, now we all have to pre-select our opposition, create private/invitational games, keep private black-lists and so on.

If that was your goal then job well done.

I would have thought it better to try creating a system where people are encouraged and educated to behave in a certain manner - where cheating in any form, CD-ing, or generally being a moron would have an impact - leaving 'normal' people to join freely games without having to worry about such nonsense.

Btw, you have to consider what exactly are you moderating, if your conclusion is that everyone has to deal with this themselves...

"and if they play with no-body else what does it matter to you if they are all one person?"

That's a huge if. Those are not the type of games i'm talking about.

"I would have thought it better to try creating a system where people are encouraged and educated to behave in a certain manner - where cheating in any form, CD-ing, or generally being a moron would have an impact - leaving 'normal' people to join freely games without having to worry about such nonsense"

i agree with the 'educational' atmosphere thing. And i've been fairly vocal i think about what i think is appropriate behaviour (including telling the players if you know someone and see them IRL) for example, however i don't think that anyone has the right to tell me how to play, and equally i don't think that I should be allowed to stop people from playing the kinds of games they want (anon, ppsc, gunboat? i'd ban them all... :P )

That said, this is an opensource project, if you don't like the social rules you can get off and setup your own version (with only your friends and whitelisted players invited!!!) then you can teach them whatever you like...

"Btw, you have to consider what exactly are you moderating, if your conclusion is that everyone has to deal with this themselves..."

We (and personally i do minimal moderating, because i hate it, but i'm trying to pitch in) are applying the rules. This is to foster a better environment. I don't see anyhting being gained from having a public debate about the issue when most cases aren't clear... i'd go into more detail, but i don't want to reveal tricks of the trade.

The mods are not some secretive clique set out to control the 'players' - and if you feel strongly that your opinion and ability to discern truths is going to waste then feel free to volunteer to help the mods out.

@☺ "Those are not the type of games i'm talking about."
of course not. But the point is, people ARE allowed paly with friends. (and as i've said, it is bad form to fail to inform other players if you are friends with someone in the game. Personally i have been stabbed three times by my housemate in a current game, and i think we're about to lose... but c'est la vie.)

The kind of games you are talking about are either cases of
meta-/multi-gaming. I don't see how you can prove anything by making accusations on the forum. You can definitely blacken someone's name.

imho that is neither good for the site nor the community.

As another mod said, we don't make the rules we just enforce them.
As kestas was kind enough to make this code for free and opensource, if you don't like the rules of his site you can feel free to take the code and pay for your own server!

That said, this kind of reasonable discussion has effected a number of changes in site policy before, and i see no reason to try and prevent this kind of debate.

All of what i've said is my opinion, in support of much of the current system, but in no way official policy. I as every other member have a say in policy, and believe this continue to be the case.

I happen to disagree in principle with Maniac and those who support him. I can't see any good being done for the community if trial by mob was standard.

@ orathaic:

Let me clarify. I don't think I was clear the first time.

If two friends play in a game with 5 random people, I do not want to be in that game. I don't think that it's possible for them to NOT cheat, unless it's anonymous. Even then, they might tell each other. I'm not saying it's (or should be) bannable, but I would like to keep track of people that do that so I can avoid them.

That is a fair choice, and I do think it is bad form (and against how i interpret the rules) to go into a game with one friend and *not* tell everyone else.

**I mean this rule: ' Responsibilities: Use common sense and respect other players.'

I agree that knowing someone in real life gives you an unfair advantage. However being madmarx gives him an unfair advantage (he can't help it, and it's not cheating), and if the other players know he is being marx then they can colaborate to stop him from winning every game. (just as if my opponents know i'm playing with my house mate they can take this into account when wondering if we're about to form an alliance)

In our case (as i may have suggested) the bastard keeps stabbing me, and having played risk and freeCiv in the past he knows he can't trust me. So while we do communicate better and have a distinct advantage in this sense (though other's could use skype to look into their opponents eyes and see if they are lying.... there is equally no rule against doing this...) so long as the information is there for other players they can counter this advantage.

it would be rather less enjoyable to join a game where the 6 other players are all friends in real life (as i found out to my despair when subbing in for a friends recently... his mates destroyed me, though i did have austria in that game... i digress)

If you choose to avoid these people, you should have a chance to be removed/not join their games.

If they do not inform you at the start of the game then i would consider this a breach of the rules. (though that is my intepretation, and i'm not sure what is suitable punishment, canceling the game and not refunding them their points seems enough, i'd hesitate to go further than that - in cases where meta-gaming is demonstrated to NOT have happened.)

Imagine, for a moment, webDip had public forum accusations. You are (falsely) accused of cheating, but there are multiple games which look kind of suspicious. It's not enough for the mods to ban you, but henceforth you are no longer accepted in private/invitational games, and in every game you join you are immediately quadruple-teamed. This may not happen often, but the fact that it's possible is enough for me to accept that public accusations are a bad idea.

Orathaic, I'm not going to argue anymore. You keep repeating the same stuff:
1. We can't do anything, just moderating the rules. I'm sure Kestas has not locked himself without connection to the outside world and would like to hear ideas if they make sense and are supported.
2. We can't let people have a say, because it's a risk. So, we'll not even think about this, just tell them to shut up.
3. Actually, even discussing this is a bad idea... or maybe not (which is it finally?)
4. Go make your own site if you don't like it here. (well, maybe I like it mostly, doesn't mean it's perfect, right. When did this site become as dogmatic as the RCC?)

Few yeas ago it was mostly ok to just go to the New Games tab and pick and join a game. Who's doing this now? We all play preselected opposition. When the system fails to provide adequate environment people find other ways.

There was a suggestion few posts back for a survey tool that would enable players to rate others after a game is finished. This can be kept private for a start, just recording the results. Maybe it can be shown only to the user, so that at least they know everyone else thinks they are doing something wrong. Where is the downside in this?

Later on we can start making this more visible and give people the option to chose opponents based on a filtered selection. Again, where's the downside?

You have to define what's your objective with all this. Just stating "everything is ok, shut up" is not good enough.

Ivo, there are two good reasons why having these "public trials" would be a bad idea, in my opinion.

First of all, the debate will become very heated. To judge whether someone has broken the rules, one needs to do some investigation. And since everyone does the investigation himself, people will come to different conclusions. It gets even worse if you take into account that some people (who played them before) have other information than others (who just see his profile page).

Having a difference of opinion is fine, but if people get emotional about it (and people tend to get emotional about being called a cheater), this leads very quickly to conflict.

Second, after the whole discussion has passed, and the thread has died out, someone will have to carry out the verdict. So a mod will have to look at the player, read the entire thread, compare the different points of view, and then make a decision.

We wouldn't only have a jury, we'd have lawyers, a judge, basically an entire court of law.

In most cases, it's obvious that someone is multi or not. but these are dealt with rathr quickly as it is. It's the non-obvious cases that matter. And in those cases, I prefer to let the mods do a private investigation instead of having a huge thread where half of the players are in favor of the accused, and the other half aren't.

@Ivo

I don't think anyone is saying we shouldn't have these discussions. And if they are, they shouldn't be, as most of the policies we have on this site are community driven. Earlier, I was arguing that we didn't need *two* threads for this argument, but that's different than saying we shouldn't talk about it.

And, I agree with you that saying "If you don't like it, leave" is a very damaging policy to follow. We should be striving to get more members, not fewer. However, that will mean that everyone is not always 100% satisfied.

I also think there have been a few good ideas on this thread, the problem, however, is always time. If we had a full dev team, yes it would be nice to try out a lot of different things, but we don't. So, we are forced to prioritize the order in which we do things.

I was wondering how the descriptions go in profiles when users are banned. Besides cheating, how else can you get banned here? For example - I was looking at rumley's profile and it says that some people just move on, and I was curious why he was banned.

@Maul
The rules can be found here: http://webdiplomacy.net/rules.php

Breaking one of those 9 rules will either get you banned or a warning, depending on the situation and your past record.

rlumley was a special case; he asked to be banned.

Ah ok, thanks :)

@ Abge: Didn't he technically break the rules though? ;-)

We interupt this forum to bring you today's play for today....

Insane Man: Ahhh, Ahhhh, Ahhhhh, Mr Mugabe just cut off my leg.
Judge Dom: He may well of done, but you really shouldn't be making such load allegations in public, couldn't you write me an email?
Insane Man: But I just saw him do it.
Judge Dom: Appearances can be desceptive.
Insane Man: But I want him arrested and thrown in jail, at least take that bloody meat cleaver of him.
Judge Dom: We really shouldn't, he's innocent until proven guilty.
Insane Man: But I saw Mr Magabe do it.
Judge Dom: <silence>
Insane Man: Why arn't you talking to me?
Judge Dom: Because I've told you once, please don't make public allegation. What if he is proven innocent and feels upset about you calling him names.
Insane Man: I don't care about his feelings, I want him locked up.
Judge Dom: We may do, but we will need to investigate it fully, in private.
Insane Man: But what if I collect other evidence from others that he cut their legs off?
Judge Dom: Those others really shouldn't tell you that because your not a Judge, you're part of a mob.
Insane Man: But what if he gets off?
Judge Dom: Well surely that's better than someone's feelings being a bit hurt.
Insane Man: Errr no, but then I'm insane, what do I know.
Judge Dom: Very little, whereas we know a lot, we can't tell you what we know, because then you and everyone else will know it, but suffice to say, we are very clever and will get the person or person unknown that may or may not have cut off your leg.
Now I'm very busy and I'm doing this without pay, so please stop bleeding by me.
Insane Man: But he's getting away, he could be cutting off other people's legs as we speak.
Judge Dom: You're starting to annoy me.
Insane Man: But I've lost my leg...
Judge Dom: <interupting> so you say.
Insane Man: What do you mean, so I say?
Judge Dom: We haven't had time to investigate yet, did I mention, I'm busy and not been paid, and you're annoying me.
Insane Man: But this is rediculus, can't I just shout out that Mr Magarbe has 'apparently' cut off my leg to warn others that their legs myay be cut off.
Judge Dom: We will listen to that suggestion and come back to you.

<Later>

Judge Dom: We have considered you suggestion, thank you so much for suggesting it, we do endeavour to act on all requests. However, their isn't time in this parliment to make a change so it really doesn't matter if it was a brillient idea, we still wouldn't impliment it. However, if you would like to hop off to somewhere else, or become a Judge yourself then maybe, just maybe we could consider it again.

Insane Man: It's true, insane men do think everyone else is mad, <he hops away, mad as ever.>

@ : )

Yeah, rlumley was a real pain. If I ever found out he was on this site again, it'd be an instaban : )

Why was he a pain?

Also, abgemacht - are you German?

It was a joke, I actually miss rlumley.

No, I'm American. I can speak a little German, though.

That's good :)

@Smiley/Abge - No comment.

hahah Yeah, god help us if there were any German mods : )

Efficiency would be streamlined.

'You have to define what's your objective with all this. Just stating "everything is ok, shut up" is not good enough.'

I'm pretty sure i said a lot more than "everything is ok, shut up"

In fact i don't think i said "shut up" at any point. I happen to disagree with the laternative position, and you happen to keep repeating it without addressing what i DID say. (which i'll freely admit was long and meandering... but i always write crap like that and if you read any of my other posts you'd already know this)

I even suggested a randomly selected panel of 'members' to act as jury in private cases where a private accusation has been made. sheesh!

@Maniac, unlike 'the real world' it is actually reasonable to suggest people can go and create their own server.

though some people may seem to be under the impression that bigger is always better, the community likely has an optimal size. Survival of the fittest webdip community would allow YOU to try different variantions of the rule et al. and see what gains the most players...

Nature provides us with a wonderful system for mutating rules and selecting the fittest. This is not equivalent to your judge-armless man 'story'. You've done such a good job of creating a nice story that it is clear that this isn't qualitively the same as what goes on in multi-hunting cases at all.

Infact you've failed to providee a second alternative narrative where the rules you seek to apply are translated into your bizzare axe-man case...

Maniac is officially a bitter troll. <*plonk*>

@orathaic - I don't understand the 'if you don't like it go somewhere else argument'. In any community most members are never 100% satisfied with the rules and regulations. They don't move away, they raise issues and sometimes, if there is enough support their concerns are addressed.

With regards an alternative narrative to my play how about....


Insane Man: Ahhh, Ahhhh, Ahhhhh, Mr Mugabe just cut off my leg.
Judge Dom: That could be against the rules, we'll look into that.
Another man: Mr Mugabe also cut my leg off
yet another man: Someone who I didn't see cut my leg off, it could have been Mr Mugabe, but I'm not sure as they everyone had masks on.
Judge Dom: Thanks for alerting us to this potentila problem, we can now study all the evidence including some tricks that we can't divulge and come back to you.
Mr Mugabe: OK it's a fair cop, i would've got away with it if it hadn't been for the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression, damn you basic human rights.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Alternative ending....

Judge Dom: we've looked at all the evidence and can conclude that Mr Mugabe did cut your leg off, he is cleared!
All: Thanks Judge Dom, we can all go near him again knowing that all the evidence has been tested.
Mr Mugabe: I'm hurt that you could think that I could have done such a thing.
Insane Man: I'm sorry Mr Mugabe, but we're trying to make a clean site so have to examine allegations, I hope you'll understand.

And they all lived happily ever after.

You later ending is a fairy tale. Insane Man would still swear Mugabe did it. Just look at the news when some one is found innocent and the prosecutor and supposed victims claim justice was *not* served. I suspect then real second ending would involve Insane Man pursuing Mugabe and harrassing him making everyone on the site uncomfortable until one of the two of them either left or was banned anyhow.

It is sophistry to equate unethical behavior on a free game server to someone's cutting your leg off.

And an accusation of cheating where the accuser may not understand that no cheating took place is far different from someone cutting off a limb, which even the least informed of us can tell has happened. This is more along the lines of "Maniac borrowed my shovel because his walk is clear and he doesn't own one and I didn't give him permission". Maniac didn't see him do it but inferred the crime by the result.