Un-Rank Obvious Cheaters on Top 5

[N_Faker]

At no point did Jest Phulin defend the person in question. There are good reasons for disallowing accusations on the forum and directing such to the player reports.

The lack of any significant moderation action is another issue entirely.

[aesche]

... in many games they always make a kingmaking move at the last move to let that player win.

Here's an example of 1 game I saw..

So why are you calling them out in the forums instead of using the "report this player" [kingmaking] functionality that already exists?
By listing table numbers, you are identifying the player, even though you don't specify their exact name in the post.

I see two reasonable report options for him under the ELO boosting category:
1. The accounts play against each other to cheat the ranking system. If you click this, you will be asked to list here the BGA accounts owned by the same person. Then your report will be ignored because they don't play with the same IP, but refusal to win is comical.

2. The accounts are playing as a team to help each other. If you click this, then you can't even submit a report because the system throws you the following message: The best way to combat Kingmaking is to give the Kingmaker player a red thumb (public red thumbs). There is no use filling in a report here: please give a red thumb to the one who made the kingmaking moves.

Another refusal of win example: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=112491364

100% on spot. Caring about cheating is absent on BGA, making any competitive play a farce. Nothing to add, end of the story. Which is really sad.

[ViolentSilence]

Getting rid of ELO entirely may be the best solution - it creates a weird 'meta' on the site. Maybe keep the thing in the background so you can identify beginners etc, or simply replace that by a system that counts how many games a player has played, and have no ranking outside of Arena games?

It seems to create more issues than provides benefits as in the past few months I can recall:
-The person who moaned about being told off for creating multiple accounts to occupy most of the top 10 positions
-Lots of funkiness around Hanabi (players quitting so they only get perfect scores, someone accusing players of sabotaging him...)
-The complaint about 2 player games of 6 nimmt
-Another post today about someone quitting when they are behind which may well relate to ELO

We have the Arena mode now for people who want to be competitive, maybe we should make the default mode more casual?

Also, for the OP - Please don't identify specific tables publicly as it then becomes an active naming and shaming of a player which just creates bad feeling. I agree their behaviour is questionable, but a post should be about making sure the processes to deal with the players works, not calling out people for something you disagree with. In one of the Hanabi cases I mentioned above, the poster was an arrogant jerk who insisted everyone else was making errors and wouldn't listen when people explained how the other moves were valid. As soon as you start identifying specific players, it changes the tone of the post and becomes about dealing with them (which should be up to moderators) rather than dealing with the wider question of if the moderation is working (which it doesn't seem to be in this case)

[N_Faker]

We have the Arena mode now for people who want to be competitive, maybe we should make the default mode more casual?

There is cheating within the arena mode too.
The rankings probably drives a significant portion of the traffic to the site, removing it would be unwise if they intend to grow.

[KongKing123]

[...]

So why are you calling them out in the forums instead of using the "report this player" [kingmaking] functionality that already exists?
By listing table numbers, you are identifying the player, even though you don't specify their exact name in the post.

You cannot report kingmaking. The system just tells you to give a public red thumb, which effectively does nothing.

[...]

I think the answer to your question is quite obvious. Are you speaking out in favor of clear cheating even tho I presented examples of such? Are the people cheating your cousin or brother or something? Are you one of the accounts? Is that why you are choosing to defend such dishonorable behavior. If you don't like me bringing attention to such a matter, you can ignore the post and keep it pushing. Try to stay on topic here.. Thank you.

You are dismissed.

What an obnoxious post. Just because someone disapproves of public shaming doesn't mean they condone cheating or defend it.

Try to be less arrogant here, thank you.

[ViolentSilence]

We have the Arena mode now for people who want to be competitive, maybe we should make the default mode more casual?

There is cheating within the arena mode too.
The rankings probably drives a significant portion of the traffic to the site, removing it would be unwise if they intend to grow.

but does it also make the site less welcoming to newer players and ones who will be more casual? If the players shift towards playing arena, then that part of the traffic is retained, but maybe makes the site feel a lot better for the others. It would at least remove some of the incentive to game the system for the normal users.

Maybe it also means that moderation about cheating can be concentrated on Arena players, or there can be different systems in place to catch tournament cheaters? It just feels like a discussion worth having as the benefits of ELO seems to be dwarfed by the issues they create

[N_Faker]

If the site retains any way to rank yourself, any removal of some portion of it would be ineffective. It would just redirect the cheating to whatever remains.

Moderating Arena or ELO cheating is effectively the same.


The removal of ELO and/or arena would probably slightly improve the site experience for purely casual players, yes. Though the cost for the rest would be significantly more.

[Ze Monstah]

At no point did Jest Phulin defend the person in question. There are good reasons for disallowing accusations on the forum and directing such to the player reports.

The lack of any significant moderation action is another issue entirely.

The "defense" came from the fact that the bigger picture was ignored completely by that BGA player, in order to mention other details... which (as much as you want to make them seem extremely severe), pale in comparison to the fact that someone cheats and is brought to the front with strong evidence.

It is nice to see these replies above are so tolerant towards cheating... Or try to find the benefit of a doubt...

[Ze Monstah]

Also, for the OP - Please don't identify specific tables publicly as it then becomes an active naming and shaming of a player which just creates bad feeling. I agree their behaviour is questionable, but a post should be about making sure the processes to deal with the players works, not calling out people for something you disagree with. In one of the Hanabi cases I mentioned above, the poster was an arrogant jerk who insisted everyone else was making errors and wouldn't listen when people explained how the other moves were valid. As soon as you start identifying specific players, it changes the tone of the post and becomes about dealing with them (which should be up to moderators) rather than dealing with the wider question of if the moderation is working (which it doesn't seem to be in this case)

No... Those 2 were 2 concrete examples of a situation which is ignored and treated with evasiveness. And all she did was post 2 game links, and in both of them, there was more than 1 player.
If you are capable of giving the benefit of a doubt to a 100% obvious cheat situation, you should be able to differentiate the OP's links from the idea of specific public shaming.(even though it is obvious who the persons she is referring to, are, there are more names in those games, so it is not exactly a SPECIFIC PUBLIC SHAMING, as you call it. I suggest you replay those games, to see for yourself).

[ojomojojojojo]

What an obnoxious post. Just because someone disapproves of public shaming doesn't mean they condone cheating or defend it.

Try to be less arrogant here, thank you.

I'm trying to bring attention to a situation that I found needs attention and the user's solution is to bash my use of the platform in which I did so. This wasn't a call for the forum police to ask why I am writing it when we all know the obvious answer. Not to mention the answer to the question is stated above if it wasn't obvious. Deflection of the post is indeed defending the actions of the person. Otherwise there is no reason to deflect. If I see someone Rob a store and I tell everyone that person is a thief, I wonder if the police will be like, "Hey ignore the thief, you are the one wrong for bringing attention to him." Again, completely off topic. Maybe you want to set up a new forum on people that call people out on forums if you want to defend this behavior so badly.

I am writing to discuss a proposal to refute people that cheat to climb the rankings and bring attention to the topic. It is pretty evident in many games I have witnessed with those particular accounts and maybe many others. Actually if you invite all of those accounts to the same table, you guys will see they are all same IP 24/7 even when they are offline. You can pretty much choose any game at random where the player holds top ranking and see it is cheating.The evidence cannot be anymore clear cut. This really devalues and undermines the ranking system so I propose a possible solution. Perhaps the players that do it can still carry on doing it or playing with their "friends " as long as their ranking is only for themself.