Ratings Disputes and Offence Reporting (Discussion)

[rossenburg]

14 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I argue that he is not affecting anyone else in doing that, because no one else lost or gained any ratings at all.

hi @Yekaterina i understand your point but "farming rating" is like breaking 2 rules he agreed to comply when registering an account in the game. That is - making multiple accounts, and trying to gain ratings by farming from the secondary account. If ratings wasn't that important, i'm not sure it will have been added in the first place so i somehow disagree @Yekaterina. Before making an account we do agree to comply with some rules governing the game (which everyone that has account clearly did), Terms of Service, Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. To maintain fair gaming environment the rating system was introduced to evaluate rookies from pro players. A pro player playing against a rookie to gain point is totally okay so far as the rookie agreed to play. My point is, it might seem okay to some people but as far as he agreed to these rules before creating an account, and intentionally breaking those same rules he agreed to comply with shouldnt be allowed right?

[sternstaub]

It would probably be good to hear what the guy in question has to say on the matter?

@Yekaterina even if the behaviour should have been okay, we should provide space for discussing this anyway. I do not know how old the rating system is, but like anything in development, it cannot be expected to be perfect - so it is a good thing to look a bit into how people do exploit it. And certainly there are different opinions about which issues do pose a problem and which do not. Only after talking about the matter, a consensual problem definition can be given precisely enough to find a elgible solution.

Personally, i do think that having people boost their accounts is undesirable. To be honest, the idea of smurfing to 0ad is unfathomable for me in the first place.

Edited February 19, 2023 by sternstaub

[Yekaterina]

@Norse_Harold what exactly do you plan to do to cronelius? 

 

In addition, I would like to request @Stan`to voice his opinions on the matter: 

1. Is Cornelius actually "flagrantly violating the rules" as accused

2. Should the rules be changed? The current statements are quite ambiguous in English and some are inappropriate as of now. Maybe you should write some revised editions in a superior language, Français, then we try to translate it.

3. What should happen to cronelius and others who farm ratings.

 

[Yekaterina]

@rossenburg I understand and agree with your argument of it being a violation of defined rules. Now,  the issue seems to be with whether the rules were set appropriately, as the activity of players are retrained so tightly. Some rules about the lobby seem to be outdated. 

Regarding ratings, it had been very reasonable for A23 or earlier as the players with higher ratings were generally better. Nowadays, ratings means nothing because:

1. Anyone can come back with a second account, tell the community who they were and we immediately know they are around 1800 even though the rating number says 1200

2. There are many players who play only team games and not rated 1v1s. Examples include reza-math, Ginnungagap, NoobDude, SaidRdz. Their ratings numbers are misleading and they have done nothing wrong in not playing rated 1v1s. On the other hand, there are players who play many 1v1s only against weaker players and they have stacked up a huge number despite still being weak as they learnt absolutely nothing in the process. 

3. Even if players play rated 1v1s, their win/loss often fail to register. This could be caused by one player leaving without resign, or, simply a bug in the ratings bot. It happened to me on more than 1 occasions. Not everyone bothers with reporting

4. @Mentula has made the amazing localratings mod which generates a much more reliable rating than what the lobby bot can give, based on TGs and not just 1v1s. Many thanks to Mentula. 

5. Since everyone knows the lobby rating is useless, they don't care about it and the system gets worse. I am surprised that an OP player cronelius would acutally waste his time on that. 

 

I am also providing you with an easy solution which I had proposed many many times in the past 2 years, and it is simple:

COUNT ALL GAMES INTO A PLAYER'S PROFILE!!!

so we know who is an experienced TG player and who is truly new

@rossenburg I believe this should be a trivial task for your programming skills.  

[G.O.A.T]

Smurfs strikes back? 

[Norse_Harold]

6 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

First of all, I think the purpose of 0ad as a computer game is to entertain it's players who are willing to spend their precious time on it. As long as he is enjoying it and is not harming anyone else, he deserves his freedom.

If the matches were unranked then I would agree. Unfortunately, they were ranked, so I disagree that he is not harming anyone else by rigging ranked matches.

In addition to what I wrote earlier, I will point out that the value of maintaining the integrity of ranked stats is more than just the rating. The value is also the number of ranked matches that have been played. That represents a real time investment, considering that matches usually require at least 15 minutes, sometimes much more. It's easy to create new accounts, but it's not easy to build up substantial ranked statistics, provided that we enforce the rules about not rigging matches. If we don't enforce the rules about rigging ranked matches then it means that the time investment that people have put into their ranked stats has almost no value, whether for honor or for proving that one has invested in an account. When one has invested in an account then one is less likely to engage in severely disruptive behavior. You see, this goes way beyond the simple issue of rigged ranked matches inflating one's rating.

6 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Finally, it's just a game. Give it a rest and let people have the freedom to enjoy themselves. Don't turn the lobby into an exam hall or a Fascist country.

Sorry, but what you wrote here is an ad hominem logical fallacy. Anyway, the rules have very good purposes, and you've completely ignored those purposes so far in the conversation.

5 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

1. Is Cornelius actually "flagrantly violating the rules" as accused

2. Should the rules be changed? The current statements are quite ambiguous in English and some are inappropriate as of now. Maybe you should write some revised editions in a superior language, Français, then we try to translate it.

3. What should happen to cronelius and others who farm ratings.

How many ratings violations before you would agree that cronelius is flagrantly violating the rules? When you looked at the evidence that I posted, did you see any examples of rule violations? How many did you see?

If you think that the rules should be changed, then that's a separate conversation that should be in a separate thread. In fact, this isn't even the correct thread for this conversation. Anyway, go ahead and propose rule changes. In the meantime, WFG staff are expected to enforce the rules.

What I think should happen to cronelius is that the rules should be enforced the way that they are written. Anyway, the only moderation capabilities that I have are mute and kick. So, it's up to user1 to decide what course of action to take. I think that he will want to conduct an investigation first. Please share evidence that you may have, whether demonstrating rule violations or demonstrating rule compliance.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Norse_Harold

[Norse_Harold]

4 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

I am also providing you with an easy solution which I had proposed many many times in the past 2 years, and it is simple:

COUNT ALL GAMES INTO A PLAYER'S PROFILE!!!

Cool idea. Realize that development work can take months or sometimes years to finally get merged into the code base. In the meantime I expect WFG to be enforcing the rules the way that they are written.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Norse_Harold

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, Norse_Harold said:

How many ratings violations before you would agree that cronelius is flagrantly violating the rules? When you looked at the evidence that I posted, did you see any examples of rule violations? How many did you see?

If you think that the rules should be changed, then that's a separate conversation that should be in a separate thread. In fact, this isn't even the correct thread for this conversation. Anyway, go ahead and propose rule changes. In the meantime, WFG staff are expected to enforce the rules.

Thanks , defcon has explained to me why what he did doesn't comply with the rules and now I understand

 

1 hour ago, Norse_Harold said:

What I think should happen to cronelius is that the rules should be enforced the way that they are written.

And precisely what is that? I cannot see a corresponding punishment specified in the rules. 

Muting doesn't help because he didn't say anything. If you mute him then he will feel confused and possibly angry, instead of remorse. 

Kicking doesn't help neither because he doesn't know why. You have to explain it in Spanish to him. 

So the best way is to remove the points he farmed, if that pleases you and your rules. 

 

 

[Norse_Harold]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

And precisely what is that? I cannot see a corresponding punishment specified in the rules. 

As I wrote earlier, I wouldn't be the one deciding and implementing a course of action. user1 can correct rating points. He can also implement other courses of action, as necessary. It depends on whether the user chooses to comply with the rules or requires an escalation in moderation response. That's up to cronelius. or whichever Ramirez brother controls all the duplicate accounts that have allegedly been involved in ratings abuses.

It's not "my" rules. The rules were debated and carefully chosen many years before I was even active with Wildfire Games. And, there are many good and logical reasons for the rules. It's "our" rules, and it's a good thing that we have them. Otherwise it would be chaos and many good users would be driven away.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Norse_Harold

[Ornatkur]

@user1 Hi, I dont want to report player, because I want to believe this is not intentational. Nevertheless there is two different ratings. I was expecting low level newbie and tried to be nice, and faced regular. Furthermore seems like obvious smurf.

[Norse_Harold]

@StockfishPlease attach the replay file (commands.txt) from the game to your post.

[Norse_Harold]

On 26/02/2023 at 3:07 AM, Ornatkur said:

Nevertheless there is two different ratings.

You did redact the player's name, but there seems to be enough information combined with screenshots that I've taken in the past to determine the player's name. Don't worry, he's not reported for purposes of any rating adjustment. But, it's still useful to inform the player base about the player's behavior.

It looks like the player is tonyfurg. He is probably using the customRating mod to make his rating appear to be 1176, as I see in past screenshots. But, his official rating is 1397 after that rated match was completed. Of course, a player's true skill level is rather subjective, and it depends on the skill level of the opponent. If you post the replay then players can get more of an accurate gauge of the player's skill.

Also, unless your opponent is familiar to you, I advise that you always ask your opponent to tell you an actual skill level. Don't assume that your opponent's rating is accurate. That way, if they lie then you can call them on it. If you don't ask then they can just say, "Oh, you shouldn't have assumed that my rating was accurate. It's your fault for not asking."

Edited March 2, 2023 by Norse_Harold

[Stan`]

Did you rejoin?

[gui456wSERTDYF]

On 05/03/2023 at 7:54 PM, Stan` said:

Did you rejoin?

Yes. I had a keyboard issue and rejoined just a few seconds after the beginning. That was probably the issue with the recording. Anyway after that the game proceeded normally until I destroyed his CC, he said something like 'Incredible how did I @#$%ed up this game' and seconds later he shut down the server.

Is the chat saved anywhere?

Edited March 7, 2023 by gui456wSERTDYF

[Stan`]

Chat is saved temporarily in your mainlog.html file.

[BeTe]

On 10/02/2023 at 4:45 PM, Ceres said:

Hello!

I never played online (only on our home network), so am very likely not entitled to suggest something here, but maybe you allow me nevertheless.

How about offering players to star well-behaving other players? Those with a good reputation would be preferred gaming partners and others could be simply ignored.

Again, please accept my sincere apologies if I wrote nonsense here.

It's some kind of complex, or ego I guess. 

We as community should, for begin, talk about importance of well behaving. I hope people understand that it's common sense but also will attract new players which is good for all of us. We should be friendly and help people to improve. I suggested also to open Academy sub-forum. But....  

You can start Topic somewhere in Forum, anyways. THis is off topic here.

P.S.

Come and play us online! There are players that you can play with.  

[BeTe]

Offender: Raffut1969.

Reason: Lost everything and leaved rated match without resign. 

I hate him - this was first game I won in 2 days. 

(Alaric Pularic said he did same to him btw)

commands.txt

[Norse_Harold]

@BeTeThis is the wrong thread for posting reports of ratings offences. This thread is where completed requests and off-topic discussions are moved.

You should delete the post from this thread and instead post it in the correct thread for reporting offences.

Edit: corrected the link.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Norse_Harold

[BeTe]

17 minutes ago, Norse_Harold said:

@BeTeThis is the wrong thread for posting reports of ratings offences. This thread is where completed requests and off-topic discussions are moved.

You should delete the post from this thread and instead post it in the correct thread for reporting offences.

Huh, sorry.

You linked wrong thread but I found on my own: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/67875-ratings-disputes-and-offence-reporting/page/8/#comments

(I don't find option to remove the previous message)

 

[Norse_Harold]

@BeTeSorry I linked to the wrong thread at first. Good job finding the correct one. I've corrected the link in my post as well.

The reason that it's important to post these reports in the right thread is so that user1 can find them and process them. This Discussion thread is basically the graveyard for already-processed reports.

20 minutes ago, BeTe said:

(I don't find option to remove the previous message)

Only admins can delete posts apparently, so nevermind.

[Lion.Kanzen]

@user1