FOG2DL given clean bill of health by Slitherine review . . .

[Jagger2002]

The new system being automated will not allow this. You will be required to make your connection work to participate and the automated system will not give any opportunity to offer an excuse.

So let me understand this properly, if a person has a power outage and their computer crashes requiring a reload, that person receives a warning? A second power outage produces a warning or a suspension?

Just as an observation, people do not have the ability to control power outages or computer failures. And the reality is people don't have control over their modem/internet connection. However a failure in either modem/internet connection really should not require a reload, thus not a problem.

[stockwellpete]

So let me understand this properly, if a person has a power outage and their computer crashes requiring a reload, that person receives a warning? A second power outage produces a warning or a suspension?

I think we we will have to wait for the fine detail of how exactly Slitherine are going to calibrate their upgraded system. At the moment we just have the broad outline, which is very welcome. Personally, I hope there is scope in the new system for a player just to get a warning PM (without any other sanction) the very first time they re-load their turn for what might be a completely legitimate reason. At least then a player will know that the system is monitoring their behaviour. And maybe, after 6 months or so, an isolated occurrence could be wiped from the system altogether, because I think most regular players have had to re-load at some time or other.

[IainMcNeil]

There will be warnings before a sanction. I'm not willing to discuss the details of this as it could be used to try and manipulate things. The aim is to find a balance between preventing cheating and false positives. We agree it was too far one way, we just want to be careful we don't go too far the other. The system will involve black marks being allocated, which will fade over time, but we wont be discussing details of either aspect.

[stockwellpete]

There will be warnings before a sanction. I'm not willing to discuss the details of this as it could be used to try and manipulate things. The aim is to find a balance between preventing cheating and false positives. We agree it was too far one way, we just want to be careful we don't go too far the other. The system will involve black marks being allocated, which will fade over time, but we wont be discussing details of either aspect.

Iain, will you be making a formal statement at all about the new monitoring approach? Perhaps on the main forum? I have written a Player's Guide for the FOG2DL, which has been in use now for nearly 3 years, and I could include your formal statement in it, or I could write a general guidance for players of my own. Given that we are not going to be told the fine details, a more general statement from yourself would be very helpful.

The basic season of the FOG2DL is at least 10 weeks long finishing on a Sunday. In an earlier post you wrote,

"However having said this we do feel like the system needs an overhaul. It is going to be a lot less tolerant in future so you will get a lot more warnings a lot earlier, and automatic temporary bans will be enforced if you are a repeat offender."

So this refers to players who may have made excess downloads, but it has not been proven that they are cheating (otherwise they would be gone). It may be that they have a poor internet connection, or whatever, but their re-load count is now being flagged. And if that situation persists then that player will eventually get their first suspension. Are you able to tell me how long that first temporary suspension will be for? Are you also able to tell me how many temporary suspensions a player may receive before they are permanently suspended? Presumably the details of these sanctions will become fairly common knowledge once the system has been in operation for a while so I am not sure if they need to be kept secret.

Or have you decided that we have just got to wait and see how it all develops over the next few months? Because there may be things that happen that require an adjustment here and there? It would be very helpful for me, as a tournament organiser, to know, for example, whether a player suspended in week 6 will be re-instated in time to finish off their matches by the end of week 10. If we are not to be told that information then fine, but it means we will have to deal with any such suspensions under provisions of Rule 1, "Any eventuality not covered by these rules will be subject to adjudication by the organisers."

[IainMcNeil]

We will make an announcement once everything is finalised but it will be about general systems and not details. Partly as these could help people to game the system and partly as they are going to be subject to change without notice. The issue is as we're reviewing different games there are different patterns of behaviour. For example, in a game that last 200 turns you need more tolerance for missing uploads than one that lasts 10-20. So we're still working out the exact mechanics as we have to take the entire system in to account.

[stockwellpete]

We will make an announcement once everything is finalised but it will be about general systems and not details. Partly as these could help people to game the system and partly as they are going to be subject to change without notice. The issue is as we're reviewing different games there are different patterns of behaviour. For example, in a game that last 200 turns you need more tolerance for missing uploads than one that lasts 10-20. So we're still working out the exact mechanics as we have to take the entire system in to account.

OK thanks.

[devoncop]

There will be warnings before a sanction. I'm not willing to discuss the details of this as it could be used to try and manipulate things. The aim is to find a balance between preventing cheating and false positives. We agree it was too far one way, we just want to be careful we don't go too far the other. The system will involve black marks being allocated, which will fade over time, but we wont be discussing details of either aspect.

And there we have it.

I hoped the zero tolerance policy towards cheats was now established.

Apparently not.

[stockwellpete]

There will be warnings before a sanction. I'm not willing to discuss the details of this as it could be used to try and manipulate things. The aim is to find a balance between preventing cheating and false positives. We agree it was too far one way, we just want to be careful we don't go too far the other. The system will involve black marks being allocated, which will fade over time, but we wont be discussing details of either aspect.

And there we have it.

I hoped the zero tolerance policy towards cheats was now established.

Apparently not.

Give it a rest.

It has been explained to you already. Zero tolerance for cheating, incremental sanctions for excess downloads where a player is not cheating.

[MikeC_81]

There will be warnings before a sanction. I'm not willing to discuss the details of this as it could be used to try and manipulate things. The aim is to find a balance between preventing cheating and false positives. We agree it was too far one way, we just want to be careful we don't go too far the other. The system will involve black marks being allocated, which will fade over time, but we wont be discussing details of either aspect.

And there we have it.

I hoped the zero tolerance policy towards cheats was now established.

Apparently not.

Without rewriting how their games work, this will always be the case devoncop. This is the best they can do without releasing data or instantly banningon the first attempt. Even with full transparency that you and I want, the only difference would be the player base deciding what threshold is acceptable.

[stockwellpete]

Without rewriting how their games work, this will always be the case devoncop. This is the best they can do without releasing data or instantly banningon the first attempt. Even with full transparency that you and I want, the only difference would be the player base deciding what threshold is acceptable.

Bye-bye then. Please take your gripes somewhere else. Slitherine has provided a prompt and perfectly good response to an awkward situation. Cheating is minimal across the FOG2 multi-player community as a whole and we seem to have had just one serious offender in the FOG2DL. I trust the players in the FOG2DL, you obviously don't, nor does devoncop. It is not the right place for you in future, is it?

To everyone else, we are in a new phase now as Slitherine rolls out the new monitoring system over the next few months. I am already talking to Anders and Ian about we handle the issue of any player suspensions for excess downloads next season. Once we have had a chat (it will be next week now), and then talked to Richard about it as well, I will post something on the forum to show our basic approach for Season 9. The forthcoming statement from Slitherine will be very helpful and I will incorporate it in the Player's Guide and "sticky" it on the forum so players can discuss it.

[devoncop]

Fair point Pete.

Thanks to all my opponents. It's been great fun.

Thanks also to Pete who whatever our differences has done an amazing job with the League.

[stockwellpete]

Fair point Pete.

Thanks to all my opponents. It's been great fun.

Thanks also to Pete who whatever our differences has done an amazing job with the League.

Cheers. All the best.

[SnuggleBunnies]

Bye-bye then. Please take your gripes somewhere else.

Uhm... it seems to me that Mike was basically saying this is the best case scenario, given that rewriting the code isn't feasible and full per turn transparency us off the table? I don't think he was griping in that post...

[stockwellpete]

Bye-bye then. Please take your gripes somewhere else.

Uhm... it seems to me that Mike was basically saying this is the best case scenario, given that rewriting the code isn't feasible and full per turn transparency us off the table? I don't think he was griping in that post...

I made it clear yesterday that I was not going to allow this forum space to be used to attack Slitherine.

The way I interpret what he wrote, " This is the best they can do without releasing data or instantly banning on the first attempt." is another attack on their competence in dealing with this issue and their overall commitment to deal with cheating. You cannot separate this post from what he has written before. He also continues to suggest that cheating is a bigger problem than it is (why else keep asking for the data?) and he seems to be suggesting that banning people for just one excess download would be a preferable approach.

It should also be remembered that Slitherine sponsor this tournament and have done since the beginning. Total sponsorship now is in the region of $1500. So they are due a bit of respect, and our support, particularly when they are addressing a difficult problem very quickly and with good liaison with their playing community. Mike has his own tournament space now and he can use that if he must continue his unwarranted attacks on Slitherine.

[SnuggleBunnies]

*Shrug* okay. Well getting back to the topic at hand, I think this is a reasonable response from Slitherine. While I personally would prefer to see reloads logged every turn, I can see the arguments against it. I'm also glad to have my feeling that cheating was extremely rare seem to be confirmed by Slitherine. Hopefully, it will now become vanishingly rare, and we can all get back to enjoying raging at actual bad luck.

[stockwellpete]

*Shrug* okay. Well getting back to the topic at hand, I think this is a reasonable response from Slitherine. While I personally would prefer to see reloads logged every turn, I can see the arguments against it. I'm also glad to have my feeling that cheating was extremely rare seem to be confirmed by Slitherine. Hopefully, it will now become vanishingly rare, and we can all get back to enjoying raging at actual bad luck.

Yes, inevitably dkalenda's behaviour has overshadowed what has been another really exciting season. It would be good though if we could concentrate on some of the positives during the last week of the tournament. We have seen a very impressive return to the tournament of Ludendorf after a long break to become the champion of Classical Antiquity; pantherboy has also returned and seems to be returning to his best form once more. Nosy_Rat has put in a series of excellent peformances with less-fancied armies to win two championships (Early Middle Ages and Biblical) and a runners-up spot (Classical Antiquity) to become our new "top player". ConstantinIX and Macedonczyk have continued their seemingly inexorable rise up the divisions and ConstantinIX has won the Late Antiquity championship at the first time of asking. harveylh has been rewarded for his consistent performances at the top level with a win in the Themed Event. And then we have a whole host of new players joining the tournament (Including some excellent reserves) for the first time and really getting into the swing of things very quickly. DanZanzibar has produced a great set of results to win three promotions and it will be interesting to see how he performs at a higher level next season. There were also very good performances from BishUK, random27, kraff, Stew101 and Aetius39. So there is a lot to celebrate and all these players are "clean".

[stockwellpete]

I have updated the title of this thread to reflect where we are now in this episode.

[edb1815]

There will be warnings before a sanction. I'm not willing to discuss the details of this as it could be used to try and manipulate things. The aim is to find a balance between preventing cheating and false positives. We agree it was too far one way, we just want to be careful we don't go too far the other. The system will involve black marks being allocated, which will fade over time, but we wont be discussing details of either aspect.

And there we have it.

I hoped the zero tolerance policy towards cheats was now established.

Apparently not.

I disagree. There is still zero tolerance towards a cheater.

Having said that zero tolerance policies in society do not often work as intended and are often have disastrous, if untended consequences. But let's look at this from a criminal law perspective. The accused in most countries is presumed innocent unless the charges are proved against them. If you apply that to the system here, which as Iain noted, applies across multiple games, they need to ensure sufficient evidence of actual cheating before perma-banning someone. So an automated system needs to have a safeguard against conviction of an innocent player. Once guilt is established your cheater is expelled. So you can still say there is zero tolerance because all cheaters once proven guilty are banned.

I do hope you will continue to play I always enjoy our games.

[edb1815]

We will make an announcement once everything is finalised but it will be about general systems and not details. Partly as these could help people to game the system and partly as they are going to be subject to change without notice. The issue is as we're reviewing different games there are different patterns of behaviour. For example, in a game that last 200 turns you need more tolerance for missing uploads than one that lasts 10-20. So we're still working out the exact mechanics as we have to take the entire system in to account.

Thank you Iain.

I hope that the players who want to have all the details and "transparency" will understand and accept your reasoning. Personally I don't have enough gaming time to be spending it analyzing reports from the system on an opponents moves. This is a game not a job. It is also clear that at least one vocal member of this forum, who wants to see all the data, has taken the time to determine how one could game the system and reported his findings. Frankly I think that supports your reasoning for not being specific about the details of the anti-cheat system.

[NikiforosFokas]

I do hope you will continue to play I always enjoy our games.

+1