[MrCrabbs]

Magflag has suggested that the punishments that are given for different types of offense be written up and posted for all to see. If this happens, I would like to see a category of "systemmatic cheating" made, where players who are cheating as a matter of course, by point passing for example, have all accounts reset, as well as facing a ban.

I think this is important because doing that is different to cheating once or twice, or because you lose your temper. It should therefore carry an appropriately harsh punishment.

[Magflag12]

I agree with the systematic cheating concept Crabbs has advocated. HOWEVER:


As a goal, we hope to make judging cheating cases more simple. Of course there will always be problems of interpretting trade logs and such, BUT with a systemmatic cheat concept we have to consider this as a serious punishment. Gettingi banned is relatively easy to overcome, but resetting your points to 1000 is extreme. Although I think that systemmatic and habitual cheaters that cheat as a means to get points and thats the only means they use should receive that extreme punishment, I do believe that because of its extreme nature of punishment that any accusations of systematic cheating should be seriously reviewed and discussed and there must be substantial and empirical evidence to allude to such charges.

We should consider it the murder cases (and convicting a murderer to life in jail) of GM. I say that, because murder cases are the most seriously taken in the court of law, and are reviewed by many and any convictions that take place are unanimous decisions by peers. It must be clear and not just a probability.
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If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.

[MrCrabbs]

I agree with that, of course.

[trace567]

Back at the end of January asked about guidelines on trades, bans punishments whatever you want to call it. I also suggested it being made open to all. This request I made to moderators as I was in the process of taking this job.

However, and its a very big however. Since I have been working on this section of the forum as a moderator I have found that every single case is different. Therefore must be viewed as such. I do work by a general guideline of 50% both players on cheat trades. Light bans on first instances of foul language, depending how excessive and extreme it is, Also checking up on players after short bans to see if the ban sent the message across, or is a stronger ban needed.

But when your talking about general complaints regarding trades there are so many factors to take into account.

1) have they performed a similar trade before (how recent was this?)
2) how bad was the trade? ie 100 for all properties owned, or was the trade just unsound?
3) how new is the player to the game? do they yet understand property values?
4) how many bad trade offers were made in the game?
5) could the trade of been an accident?

Believe me it is so not cut and dry. Certainly no where near as cut and dry as I thought before taking on this role.

Would people prefer me to not think those questions through my mind prior to making a judgement? Or would people prefer I consider the reasoning behind the action before issuing sentence? Baring in mind at anytime it could be you reported, or me, or anybody.

[MrCrabbs]

I agree on all that Trace and see it as a drawback to Magflag's proposal of transparent and well-known punishments.

But what I am saying is that there should be a zeroing of accounts for players who as a matter of course abuse the game. I refer you to the cases of Papa Smurf and Smurfette a while back. I had to work hard to prove them, but they were proven, and it became clear that the players were, on a daily basis, robbing others of their points. That should result in a zeroing of accounts if discovered in future.

[Magflag12]

As for punishments I am referring to simply after the facts. If Bill says that BobbyBrown is cheating, then I think there should be a system of punishment to be received.

First of all, if someone is accused of cheat trading and it is found to be true by Bill or Trace then it is essential that the punishment be not based on severity of cheat, but the quantity of occassional cheat for that particular cheater. If someone sells all properties for 100 dollars to some guy, then they should be held accountable to a set of punishments. If a player sells half of his properties for 100 dollars the punishment should be exactly the same (assuming it was the same amout of occurances). Cheating is cheating regardless of its 'severity' to judge by severity would cause way too many problems because the severity COULD be only due to a particular game's circumstances. (I.E. player happens to own greens and sells them for 100, vs he happens to own reds and sells them for 100). We can assume that his intentions for that game were to cheat, so regardless of his property he owned, he was going to cheat.

I think that is the same concept as criminal punishment in real life. There are set guidelines courts ruleby, most of the time there is a 'minimum' punishment that must be enforced for a particular offense. For example murder of the first degree in Texas has a minimum of a lifetime sentence. Of course Texas still has the stupid death penalty and so if the situation is absurdly gross then a man or woman can be put to death.

What I am saying is that by setting up these guidelines for punishment (that can be amended if needed because of flaws) you allow for fair and non-biased punishments to take place.

As for abusive language and such you can categorize it into this.

Moderate abusive language after warning to stop is 3 days ban
Extremely abusive language after warning to stop is 10 days ban.

Whatever it may be you can do that, and then when a mod declares something as inappropriate rather it be cheating or verbal abuse he can just say that BillyBrown has spoken with extremely abusive language after warning to stop and is being banned for 10 days now. Or whatever.

Do you see it as good yet?
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If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.

[ElvisHasEntered]

I think you guys should worry less about the sentences imposed and concentrate more on what the parameters are for "cheating".


To me, it really doesn't matter between 5 and 10 and 30 days- but there needs to be clearer guidelines on what is and isn't acceptable. Just look at the past couple of days. Everyone is all over the place on what constitutes acceptable play vs. cheat trades...

[Bill2k06]

elvis please read the post put up by trace
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