Board Game Arena

silentProtest wrote: ↑08 January 2024, 01:25- sometime it is also needed to point out WHO is cheating, for sakes of avoiding them IF mods do not act on it,
OR if it is someone central to ranking, which does affect more than just the players, that had that one or two games with that cheater

my point: it is both in this case. And neither me nor OP can even show that, because of that rule. Even with 20 games played it is as clear, as that "4 in a row" example.

I don't think that you get that I do understand that you often cannot point out a specific type of cheating without pointing to a specific person doing it. I don't think that you get that I could agree that this particular person who was originally named in this thread was cheating. I haven't made that determination, but lets just say I agree because that's beside the point.

It's against the site policy. We can argue whether it should be, but that's not what I'm doing now. I'm not saying I like the policy. I'm just pointing out that It is currently against site policy which leads to the situation that people who are trying to raise public awareness of blatant cheaters end up getting moderated themselves. Is that "fair" in the broad sense: no.

Like I said, in another thread I agreed with the OP that the person he pointed out was cheating. I DMed the OP and basically said "Hey, I agree with you that this player is 100% cheating, but you are going to get in trouble instead if you leave this post up." Both I and the OP reported the player. Then one of the alt accounts got banned (unfortunately, not all, but that's another story).

I think the current situation of every other day people making cheating allegations is itself a dumpster fire (even if some of them are legitimate it doesn't make up for the low key whining that most of them are), but I am open to discussing workable alternatives. Would you be in favor of, say, a policy that you can publicly name a cheater, but if it is determined that you are wrong that you get a ban? I don't think many people would like that. I'm all ears to alternatives.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑08 January 2024, 02:28

Like I said, in another thread I agreed with the OP that the person he pointed out was cheating. I DMed the OP and basically said "Hey, I agree with you that this player is 100% cheating, but you are going to get in trouble instead if you leave this post up." Both I and the OP reported the player. The one of the alt accounts got banned (unfortunately, not all, but that's another story).

I think the current situation of every other day people making cheating allegations is itself a dumpster fire (even if some of them are legitimate it doesn't make up for the low key whining that most of them are), but I am open to discussing workable alternatives. Would you be in favor of, say, a policy that you can publicly name a cheater, but if it is determined that you are wrong that you get a ban? I don't think many people would like that. I'm all ears to alternatives.

As I said, I gave up on the site, but still am using it, just because the lack of alternatives.


But to better the site, sure, lets go through some options.
From before:
"workaround, to make the rules make more sense: Make a way to post anon. tables and make a marker for cheaters in an account, which should be less visable, and in elo/arena ranking, which should be visable even if the account gets deleted."
<- those are technical things they could implement

also yes:
"Would you be in favor of, say, a policy that you can publicly name a cheater, but if it is determined that you are wrong that you get a ban? "
to mitigate whining and people spamming the forum, there would need be a consequence, if publicly accusing and wrong. Since you can still just privately report it if you think someone is cheating. But here they also should have automatic checks, since player base is , presummangly, rising, as is the amount of different games. I pity the people that have to manually check those things. - so autochecks for basic things and things that discourage and frustrate cheaters could work in their favor.


btw, summarizing our chat here:
You were saying:
Do not post names or table-links -> it is against policy -> there could be consequences, from mod side
I was saying:
this policy Should not always apply -> makes harder to talk about specific things/game, connected to cheaters + cripples competitive community
Here it shouldnt have had applied -> check before crying out, since mods moderate it if needed -- post factum, just a warning that in general such postings might have consequences, for poster, seems valid though

Yeah, there are also consequences if you privately report someone who didn't cheat and mods can punish you. So the same thing could be made for forums, but it would be better because it can help other people until the mods react. What is the proper channel to suggest the policy change to mods?

Now because mods didn't react the cheater boosted his rank even more in both games.

*Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call out specific tables or players by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for. The Forums should remain a general discussion.

Their ELO was reset to 100 in all their games but they still got the Arena Champion trophy in both games where they were cheating.

This is obviously not ok. Trophies should be taken away from this player and reassigned accordingly

Scops wrote: ↑09 January 2024, 17:30 Their ELO was reset to 100 in all their games but they still got the Arena Champion trophy in both games where they were cheating.

This is obviously not ok. Trophies should be taken away from this player and reassigned accordingly

Agree 100%. Hopefully the ELO change is just phase 1 and this means they will fix the situation and crown the correct user as Arena champion.

rpm002 wrote: ↑09 January 2024, 21:09

Scops wrote: ↑09 January 2024, 17:30 Their ELO was reset to 100 in all their games but they still got the Arena Champion trophy in both games where they were cheating.

This is obviously not ok. Trophies should be taken away from this player and reassigned accordingly

Agree 100%. Hopefully the ELO change is just phase 1 and this means they will fix the situation and crown the correct user as Arena champion.

Sorry to disappoint, but according to the people I asked, that is probably all that will be done - in other instances also accounts were deleted - I would jump to conclusion that they would not do that because of premium, BUT it is explicitly stated in mod guidelines that premium is not a factor.

Two seasons ago there was a similar situation, and the player was removed from the ranking right after the end of the season. I was expecting the same this time, but it hasn't happened so far. I hope the situation will be fixed soon and all the trophies reassigned correctly. If this does not happen, I will probably stop competing in the Arena in the future.

silentProtest wrote: ↑09 January 2024, 21:34

rpm002 wrote: ↑09 January 2024, 21:09

Scops wrote: ↑09 January 2024, 17:30 Their ELO was reset to 100 in all their games but they still got the Arena Champion trophy in both games where they were cheating.

This is obviously not ok. Trophies should be taken away from this player and reassigned accordingly

Agree 100%. Hopefully the ELO change is just phase 1 and this means they will fix the situation and crown the correct user as Arena champion.

Sorry to disappoint, but according to the people I asked, that is probably all that will be done - in other instances also accounts were deleted - I would jump to conclusion that they would not do that because of premium, BUT it is explicitly stated in mod guidelines that premium is not a factor.

Bringing cheater’s elo back to 100 it’s admitting he cheated. Arena is the main competitive option on the site and elo is almost useless there. Punishing him just decreasing elo makes no sense.

It’s funny that in the last weeks they tried to prevent some cheating behaviours, punishing fair players at the same time (for example I got +0 elo points after a victory, only cause I had a winning streak against an opponent in the last month), and now that they have a huge cheat (maybe the worst one someone can attempt) in front of them, they let it go like this.
Ah, no, sad is the word I was searching for…

*Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call out specific tables or players by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for. The Forums should remain a general discussion.