Accusations of cheating

[BattleMaster Server]

Summary:	Accusations of cheating
Violation:	Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violati
World:	Far East
Complainer:	George Dion
About:	David . D

Full Complaint Text:
Since I cannot make a complaints through Anatole, my character in the Far East, I am making the complaints here.

The aforementioned player along with the player of Optimus in Cathay, Far East are accusing me and other individuals of ooc cooperation in the formation of the realm Toupellon.  

I have not met any of those players, neither do I know them.

The player of Vanimedle' family is making idle accusations and spoiling the game both ic and ooc for everyone.

Here is an ooc message from him:

Out-of-Character from Farnese Vanimedle' (2 hours, 19 minutes ago) Message sent to everyone in your realm (37 recipients) The obvious OOC overtones for a lot of what has happened in Toupellon screams of OOC friends, the secession of Colasan, and then Ozrat was planned by friends for ages in advance, and then all the titles and appointments were given to certain players the moment they joined, and were reserved until they joined.

And here is the ooc message of Don Smith, player of Optimus.

Out-of-Character from Optimus McGahee   (2 hours ago)
Message sent to the Rulers of Far East (8 recipients)
I RP the game and enjoy it no matter what happens, I have played the game for nearly 10 years,  

But some use the game in different ways and thats why I never play on Atamara and mostly stay here on FEI, but this ooc message is disturbing and sad if true.  

__________________________________  
The Dukes of Colasan and Ozrat were OOC friends and planned this well in advance, together they drew up an agreement to divy out titles, they reserved all other titles for specific players they knew would join, then appointed them without so much of an explanation or any realm wide discourse happening. No one gets a say in who is appointed to what or why, and no one is invited to discuss it, the circle of friends who created Toupellon already agreed on how to distribute all power and they aren't letting the IC side of things get in the way of that.  

Nothing is being done In Character, it is all Out of Character, they are signing alliances as fast as possible without even making treaties or discussing it, all the appointments are done as fast as possible to certain players, no discussion, no roleplay, it's all been clearly contrived from the start. As for roleplay, there isn't a shred of it, as for the Prince actually building a realm, all he does is pick his friends for positions and he never talks unless it is to argue with some one.  
____________________________  

Enjoy your day fellas
Don Smith

[Indirik]

My character recently joined Toupellon, the realm that this is about. So, I'm not so sure I should be involved in this decision. However, this case is not about whether or not Toupellon was involved in any OOC shenanigans (it wasn't...) but whether or not these accusations consist of a breach of the social contract.

[Anatole]

The above post is created by me, the player of Anatole.

The accusations are a direct breach of BM's social contract . Article 2 states: Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence.

As such I feel that the player of the aforementioned family not only breached it but is currently causing a turmoil of ooc messaged throughout the Far East. An intervention is needed before ic is confused with ooc and things get out of hand.

I thank you for stating that there was no ooc involvement in the realm I created and hope you enjoy your character's future there.

[Nathan]

Should there not be a separate case for each of the players accusing George of cheating?

[Geronus]

From the Social Contract posted on the Wiki:

Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence.

http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Social_Contract

I would say that the reported incident is a fairly clear cut violation of this clause. More to the point, even if the players making the accusations actually do have evidence, airing it to the entire realm in OOC discussion is not the appropriate course of action. The evidence, if any, should be submitted to the Titans for investigation. However, right now I'm not sure about whether this applies to the second player. It looks like he was quoting from someone else, then stating his opinion concerning the allegations, rather than making any accusations himself. It would be the original message he quoted that would be problematic from the standpoint of the social contract.

As to Nathan's question, I don't know that a separate case is needed just yet. Certainly the ruling can be applied to more than one person if that is deemed appropriate.

[Chenier]

From the Social Contract posted on the Wiki:

Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence.

http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Social_Contract

I would say that the reported incident is a fairly clear cut violation of this clause. More to the point, even if the players making the accusations actually do have evidence, airing it to the entire realm in OOC discussion is not the appropriate course of action. The evidence, if any, should be submitted to the Titans for investigation. However, right now I'm not sure about whether this applies to the second player. It looks like he was quoting from someone else, then stating his opinion concerning the allegations, rather than making any accusations himself. It would be the original message he quoted that would be problematic from the standpoint of the social contract.

As to Nathan's question, I don't know that a separate case is needed just yet. Certainly the ruling can be applied to more than one person if that is deemed appropriate.

While he is not being accused of cheating or of abuses, he is being a target of an unsupported public accusation of foul play. As such, as per the same article cited by others, I do not find this to be acceptable behavior.

[Sacha]

I agree with the above. The Social Contract is quite clear, no public accusations without substantial proof.

And I think it's worth noting that the one of the accusers in this particular case has a reputation for having a... questionable view on how to play fairly. David D. is a lead figure of the old 'Saxon' block known for exploiting loopholes in the game code and accusing the GMs of deliberately screwing with their realms.

Also, Don Smith isn't technically accusing anyone himself, he is relaying what appears to be a message from someone else.

[^ban^]

I agree with the above. The Social Contract is quite clear, no public accusations without substantial proof.

That is not actually what it says. The qualifier of 'substantial' is not present, which is not an insignificant difference. In other words, there is nothing wrong with a public accusation of cheating so long as it is supported by proof or evidence. This fact should not be overlooked by us.

It seems to me that the Vanimedle player in fact did offer both reasoning and potential evidence to support this claim. I direct your attention to this portion of his message in particular:

... the secession of Colasan, and then Ozrat was planned by friends for ages in advance, and then all the titles and appointments were given to certain players the moment they joined, and were reserved until they joined.

The thing I am unclear of, and which may be indicatory of guilt, is how the Vanimelde player came across this information, whether it is reliable, or whether it is true at all. If not, then his claim becomes one of an unsupported accusation, and subject to the penalties involved as such.

As to Don Smith, it appears as though he was merely forwarding a message. That message, it's source, and Don's reasoning behind posting it publicly, I feel are subject to the exact same test I applied to the Vanimelde player. If Don had no reason to believe the evidence was anything more than hearsay or fantasy, then both he and the original sender of that message might be subject to reprimand. However, we must also examine whether or not the message was forwarded to a public audience. I, for one, would not consider the ruler channel to be a public audience, and would therefor be opposed to any reprimand against Don Smith.

This said, Indirik (whom I trust) has already stated there was no OOC activity behind the scenes of this realm's secession. Therefor, I find it unlikely that the evidence provided alongside these claims is anything more than fantasy, and must call in to question the innocence of David D, Don Smith, and the player of the anonymous message (who I will locate later if need be).


Update: The author of the anonymous message was the Vanimedle player. However, as it was sent directly to the ruler of Cathay, I would hardly say it should be subject to any reprimand on its own merit.

[Sacha]

I wouldn't call Vanimedle's 'proof' proof at all. It's just accusations. If he had shown us something specific like a conversation or an intercepted OOC or anything to give weight to the accusations, then it would be proof.

[Chenier]

Indeed, sounds more like conspiracy theories than "proof". It might be "based on proof" that was not shared in that letter, though... He'd have to speak for himself for us to know.

And what if it was true...?

It's not against the rules to play with friends, after all... And if all of this took "ages" to do, then I'm sure everyone else had tons of time to do something about it, 'cause it's not against the rules to gather support and secede either...

[Geronus]

That is not actually what it says. The qualifier of 'substantial' is not present, which is not an insignificant difference. In other words, there is nothing wrong with a public accusation of cheating so long as it is supported by proof or evidence. This fact should not be overlooked by us.

This would be a literal word-for-word reading of the Social Contract, but I believe that it is generally not appropriate to accuse someone publicly, proof or not. The fact is, as a player there is nothing at all you can do about cheating, abuses or violations. The only reason to ever make such accusations publicly is to try and negatively affect other players' opinions of the players you are accusing, and potentially influence how their characters will act as a result.  If there is evidence of wrongdoing, it should be forwarded to a ruler (for an OOC ban), the Titans, or us, the only people besides Tom who can actually can do something about these things. After all, what if the accuser is wrong? How much evidence is enough evidence to make it not a violation of the Social Contract?  Considering the purpose of the Social Contract (to create a specific atmosphere in game), I find it strange that it does not simply blanket ban public accusations of cheating altogether.

At the moment I will respect ^ban^'s interpretation (because the wording does indeed specifically carve out this exception), but I don't care for it and I think that wording could stand to be reconsidered. I fail to see how anything good can come of permitting IG public accusations of wrongdoing under any circumstances.

As pertains to this case, I don't see that Don Smith has done anything wrong, but I do find it disturbing that Vanimedle' would seek to spread allegations of cheating or abuses privately in such a way as it could influence IG events. What if the ruler of Cathay now looks less favorably upon an alliance with Toupellon because the player behind the character has been biased by these accusations? In my opinion this type of libel is even worse for the game than public accusations of wrongdoing, as it is clearly indicative of an effort to influence IG actions by OOC means. Can you think of any other reason to speak privately to the ruler of Cathay about these accusations? He can't do anything about them if they're true. The only reason to say that to him would be to negatively influence that player's opinion of Toupellon and perhaps make Cathay more antagonistic toward it as a result.

In short, there's a lot I don't like about this. I would very much like to know if Vanimedle' has any evidence to support his claims.

[Bedwyr]

As someone else deeply involved in setting Toupellon up, I can state pretty definitively that the OOC aspect is nonsense.  There were lots and lots and lots of IC machinations, on several levels, and at least some of the planning went back years (all the support in OW and Cathay for this didn't just appear in a month, after all).  Even just the parts I know about would fill pages and pages, and I know I don't even know half of what went on.

Regardless, this seems like a really straightforward Social Contract violation.  No evidence was presented (I don't count conspiracy theorist bull!@#$ as evidence, especially when all it points to is IC collusion/corruption).

[fodder]

you do realise tom stuck a clan warning in Arcachon and apparently Aurvandil before this happened?

i suggest you read all realmwide messages sent in Arcachon since.

---

Clan Notice   (2 days, 11 hours ago)
There has been a complaint to the GameMasters about a group of players who seem to be running a clan in the way that they attempt to control a realm through it.
My official position has always been that clans are fine, excluding or taking the fun away from other players is not.
I think you know who you are, so please examine your playing style and make sure that your clan doesn't get its fun at the cost of other players.
I hope we can leave it at that and I don't need to take any serious actions. If I have to waste my precious time on investigating this complaint and doing in-depth checks on the clan activities, I'll be quite angry by the time the results are in. None of us want that.

-- Tom

[Chenier]

If I read that correctly, though, he did not make any verification to check if the allegations had any truth behind them.

[fodder]

yes, but that's entirely not the point of my post.