Not even remotely collusion. But - I'll never schedule that way.  Having teams you play year after year is a big part of the fun of staying at a school long term.

Posted by point_piper on 9/13/2012 5:22:00 PM (view original):

Collusion contains fraud and secrecy. Where are those in either of these cases?

Whatifsports' definition leaves out secrecy:


Collusive transactions

Collusion includes any act that supports bad, deceitful or illegal behavior agreed upon by two or more users.



I can't see how either of the examples above are acts which support bad, deceitful, or illegal behavior. Who is being deceived?

In the case of the recruiting, it would seem to fit whatif's definition of collusion only if the PAC-12 coaches went ahead and tried to deceive Utah (or whomever) by actually agreeing on a strategy against Utah and implementing it with regard to specific recruits. Chatting openly about how each coach's recuiting practices affect Utah and the conference as a whole does not approach that level of conduct.

In the case of the scheduling, I don't see any problem with it even if they go ahead and carry out the strategy. There is just nothing deceitful, bad, or illegal about it; it's not "collusion" according to a dictionary, a legal dictionary, or whatifsports.com's fair play guidelines.
 

It says bad, deceitful OR illegal behavior, not and, so it only takes one of the three to make an action collusive.  An action can be bad, though not deceitful, and still meet the definition.  I think the recruiting post really gets right to the edge of collusion, but probably falls just short.  Alot of people feel, rightly or wrongly, that in conference recruiting battles should be avoided in favor of fighting other conferences.  Suggesting conference mates fight Utah, instead of each other, is borderline, but it seems that discussion happened after recruiting ended and didn't say something like....go after a specific recruit....during recruiting, which would clearly be bad.

Thescheduling thing to me is a non-issue.  Advising other players how to schedule better to maximize their post season chances is no different than going to the forums for lineuo help.  It's just a way we help each other get better.  Now, if a conference started to coordinate schedules to weaken another conferences rpi that there are in competition with, that would be a problem

Posted by ll316 on 9/13/2012 5:31:00 PM (view original):
Not even remotely collusion. But - I'll never schedule that way.  Having teams you play year after year is a big part of the fun of staying at a school long term.

Agreed, where's the fun in playing ten teams you know you're gonna beat?

Posted by tianyi7886 on 9/13/2012 12:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by coach_billyg on 9/13/2012 12:36:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tianyi7886 on 9/13/2012 11:55:00 AM (view original):
I love how this is considered collusion by the "BCS" coaches while the following is not:

http://whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=459413&TopicsTimeframe=30

i dont see how this is not collusion. on one hand, you could say, nobody has colluded yet because every single poster basically disagrees with doomey. however, CS seems to have taken the standpoint (and i strongly agree), that suggesting collusion is collusion by the person suggesting - it does not necessarily require an explicit agreement from the other person. you have no way of knowing who agrees without saying anything, and to try to push people in that direction is over the line. i would expect seble to just give a warning in that case, but i do believe he would give the warning.

I just find it interesting that thor is the one who accused the A-10 of collusion with their scheduling idea when he (along with a few other coaches) proposed the same thing as doomey did in ACC Phelan. 

And oh yea, I play in ACC Phelan and I believe what was proposed in the PAC 10 and ACC was attempted collusion. 

what was proposed in the acc? i guess i should go read, but man, that pac 10 conf board was a tough one to get through

Posted by mrg1037 on 9/13/2012 7:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ll316 on 9/13/2012 5:31:00 PM (view original):
Not even remotely collusion. But - I'll never schedule that way.  Having teams you play year after year is a big part of the fun of staying at a school long term.

Agreed, where's the fun in playing ten teams you know you're gonna beat?

I can think of several situations where it would be beneficial to schedule ten non-conference opponents that you know you can beat.  One, for instance, would be when first taking over a bottom of the barrel BCS team.  You know you're going to getting smacked around in conference play until you can get your prestige up and better recruits signed, so in order to do that, you schedule as many wins as you possibly can before you hit the conference bloodbath.  There are certainly other situations, but this is one of the more common ones.

Posted by point_piper on 9/13/2012 5:22:00 PM (view original):

Collusion contains fraud and secrecy. Where are those in either of these cases?

Whatifsports' definition leaves out secrecy:


Collusive transactions

Collusion includes any act that supports bad, deceitful or illegal behavior agreed upon by two or more users.



I can't see how either of the examples above are acts which support bad, deceitful, or illegal behavior. Who is being deceived?

In the case of the recruiting, it would seem to fit whatif's definition of collusion only if the PAC-12 coaches went ahead and tried to deceive Utah (or whomever) by actually agreeing on a strategy against Utah and implementing it with regard to specific recruits. Chatting openly about how each coach's recuiting practices affect Utah and the conference as a whole does not approach that level of conduct.

In the case of the scheduling, I don't see any problem with it even if they go ahead and carry out the strategy. There is just nothing deceitful, bad, or illegal about it; it's not "collusion" according to a dictionary, a legal dictionary, or whatifsports.com's fair play guidelines.
 

here's the real problem - WIS does not use the dictionary definition of collusion, neither do the users, and neither do we (or WIS)  use WIS's own definition of collusion.

this is how i see it, and the actions/reactions by WIS, and statements by admin/seble very much support this view:

WIS's listed definition - Collusion includes any act that supports bad, deceitful or illegal behavior agreed upon by two or more users.

WIS's real definition - Collusion includes any act that supports bad, deceitful or illegal behavior agreed upon by two or more users, AS WELL AS ANY ACTION OR SUGGESTION BY A USER THAT ATTEMPTS (INTENTIONALLY OR OTHERWISE) TO INCITE SUCH BEHAVIOR. 

its basically like how in the american legal system, its wrong to shoot somebody in the face. but if you pull a gun, shoot at their face, and miss - you still did something wrong. its not as bad, because the end result was not as bad. but the possibility of the end result, based on your actions, was there.

there is a school of philosophy that suggests that the outcome of actions has no bearing on the morality of such actions, and there is a lot of sense in it. if you try to shoot someone in the face, is it really less of a crime because you missed? your intention was there, and not knowing the outcome of your action, you can still judge if that action was just or unjust, and to what magnitude.

so, by your interpretation here - if one coach sitemails another coach, and tries to get him to collude against another coach in the worst of ways - coordinating to poach recruits off the same coach in the final cycle - and the second coach says no - i think everyone here agrees that is collusion (or at least, cheating, or at absolute least, wrong, and should not be allowed). would you agree? that said, the definition listed by WIS does NOT imply such behavior is collusion OR cheating OR prohibited. however, all actions by WIS/CS suggest the opposite.

so, the reality is, their definition is not good. seemingly, they use the definition i listed - which is basically their definition, plus any attempt by a user to achieve such behavior is also collusion. under that definition, the pac 10 example falls into collusive behavior, and that is why people have a problem with it.

Posted by emy1013 on 9/13/2012 8:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mrg1037 on 9/13/2012 7:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ll316 on 9/13/2012 5:31:00 PM (view original):
Not even remotely collusion. But - I'll never schedule that way.  Having teams you play year after year is a big part of the fun of staying at a school long term.

Agreed, where's the fun in playing ten teams you know you're gonna beat?

I can think of several situations where it would be beneficial to schedule ten non-conference opponents that you know you can beat.  One, for instance, would be when first taking over a bottom of the barrel BCS team.  You know you're going to getting smacked around in conference play until you can get your prestige up and better recruits signed, so in order to do that, you schedule as many wins as you possibly can before you hit the conference bloodbath.  There are certainly other situations, but this is one of the more common ones.

absolutely. another case is when you have low prestige in ANY conference, any division, and want to get your prestige up. another case still is when you are in a very very difficult conference.

in my case, we've been the predominant d2 conference in HD for at least 3 years. one conference now may claim to be #1 in the short term, but not the long term, and being easily #1 or #2 in all of HD for 45 seasons (with being clear #1 for the majority of those), our conference members have been shafted in the seeding process so bad, its not even funny. when you go 10-6 in a beast conference, pull an 11 rpi, and grab a 6 seed - its pretty damn annoying. im sure slamming 10 easy opponents in non conf is not that fun, but is it more unfun than getting repeatedly slammed in seeding, potentially ruining the whole season? i dont think so - and that was my motivation for prompting my conference (glv tark) to schedule to win. that, and my desire to experiment, and to push the boundaries of conference accomplishments in HD history.

IMHO the points by milkamania and coach_billyg are well taken; it appears that whatif intended to avoid a narrow and legalistic definition so they threw the word "bad" in there, which is not only broad but also not susceptible of objective interpretation. Using the disjunctive "or" with "bad" renders the definition fungible, they are essentially saying "you know it when you see it, so don't do it."

But the element that is consistent among all definitions of collusion is plurality, "agreed upon by two or more users" as whatif puts it. If there's no agreement between parties there's no collusion. So while many of us see even improper suggestions as collusion, IMHO that is not a good reading of the fair pay guidelines. E.g. In coach_billyg's example, you have one coach trying to collude by site mail and another refusing. There are no consequences of those actions, except that the second coach now knows the first is a dick.

Should we include *attempted* collusion in the definition? That's a new topic, and potentially a much broader one about intent as billyg suggested. As applied to whatif, if we *already* are including the attempt in the definition of collusion, then we are jumping the proffered definition a bit. So maybe this is all a debate about whether the definition needs updating.

Posted by coach_billyg on 9/13/2012 8:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by emy1013 on 9/13/2012 8:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mrg1037 on 9/13/2012 7:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ll316 on 9/13/2012 5:31:00 PM (view original):
Not even remotely collusion. But - I'll never schedule that way.  Having teams you play year after year is a big part of the fun of staying at a school long term.

Agreed, where's the fun in playing ten teams you know you're gonna beat?

I can think of several situations where it would be beneficial to schedule ten non-conference opponents that you know you can beat.  One, for instance, would be when first taking over a bottom of the barrel BCS team.  You know you're going to getting smacked around in conference play until you can get your prestige up and better recruits signed, so in order to do that, you schedule as many wins as you possibly can before you hit the conference bloodbath.  There are certainly other situations, but this is one of the more common ones.

absolutely. another case is when you have low prestige in ANY conference, any division, and want to get your prestige up. another case still is when you are in a very very difficult conference.

in my case, we've been the predominant d2 conference in HD for at least 3 years. one conference now may claim to be #1 in the short term, but not the long term, and being easily #1 or #2 in all of HD for 45 seasons (with being clear #1 for the majority of those), our conference members have been shafted in the seeding process so bad, its not even funny. when you go 10-6 in a beast conference, pull an 11 rpi, and grab a 6 seed - its pretty damn annoying. im sure slamming 10 easy opponents in non conf is not that fun, but is it more unfun than getting repeatedly slammed in seeding, potentially ruining the whole season? i dont think so - and that was my motivation for prompting my conference (glv tark) to schedule to win. that, and my desire to experiment, and to push the boundaries of conference accomplishments in HD history.

That's how the ODAC is for me.  We're #2 RPI once in a while, but never for more than a season.  I still have 4 teams that I schedule year after year, regardless of their or my talent.  I just find it more fun that way.  But that's the fun (not to get repetitive) of What If...different strokes for different folks.

thor's beef: obviously not collusion. Silly to even call it that. 

doomey: collusion. 

A-10 board:

9/14 3:54 AM	dacj501	Valdosta St. (Heartland)	I imagine I'd feel like I wish I'd have scheduled better. Did you send a ticket yet thor? What did WiS say? Is it collusion according to them? No offense. but your opinion on it doesn't really matter in the overall scheme of things, only WiS' opinion...
9/14 3:44 AM	thorknight	Kansas (Big 12)	Imagine how you would feel lets say you are in any conference, you do everything yourself and then you are the first one out. The team that barely makes it comes from this A-10 and benefited from the rpi boosting scheduling you guys are doing. ...
9/14 3:44 AM	thorknight	Kansas (Big 12)	...Another example is seeding. Someone can get a lower seed because they got 10 losses but have a better rpi then someone here but get a seed lower and have theoretically a tougher road in the NT. If I would know that the other team benefited from ...
9/14 3:44 AM	thorknight	Kansas (Big 12)	...organized collusion of scheduling I would be pretty ****** about it (I know it's purpose because guess what, I did it way before you guys were even thinking about it). And if you guys would try to then hide it, then that would be even worse. ...
9/14 3:44 AM	thorknight	Kansas (Big 12)	...There are two sides to this issue. You can ignore reality or you can realize what is fair play.

Big 12 Board:

9/14 7:58 AM	chapelhillne	St. Louis (A10)	I do want to post an apology to the Big 12 for my original post in your coach's corner about having a better Conference RPI than the Big 12. I was posting that in all of the conference corners to try to attract a coach to replace the one we lost, but ...
9/14 7:58 AM	chapelhillne	St. Louis (A10)	...I should have taken that sentence out in your coach's corner because it probably came across as taunting, which was not my intent. We have worked so hard to build up a very strong mid major with excellent coaches, and I knew it was going to be ...
9/14 7:58 AM	chapelhillne	St. Louis (A10)	...very hard to find a coach for a B prestige school. Fortunately we did get one. But after reading Thor's post, I sense it might have rubbed some of you the wrong way. So, that's why I am posting this.
9/14 5:17 AM	mm_harmon	St. Joseph's (PA) (A10)	"People not filling up Mizzou and ISU have hurt us. Lets try to step up recruiting a new coach or two." -- BINGO !!
9/14 5:12 AM	mm_harmon	St. Joseph's (PA) (A10)	Thor - submit a ticket or STFU - TIA
9/14 4:18 AM	pepwaves007	Xavier (A10)	I hope you don't think I'm trying to pick a fight, thor. I'm just a bit dumbfounded about why you are choosing to argue this point so strongly on our CC. Do you feel threatened by the minor success of A-10? If you care so much about this issue, go ...
9/14 4:18 AM	pepwaves007	Xavier (A10)	...state your case on the forums. A thread was started by ryrun to discuss it. Also, I do encourage you to submit a ticket as others have mentioned. What WIS believes matters a whole lot more than your minority opinion.
9/14 4:12 AM	pepwaves007	Xavier (A10)	"ANY agreement to better yourselves among yourselves IS collusion." No offense, thor, but this is a ridiculous statement. I suppose a simple agreement among conference mates to "recruit better players" or "gameplan ...
9/14 4:12 AM	pepwaves007	Xavier (A10)	...better" would be collusion, eh? How about this sort of agreement- "People not filling up Mizzou and ISU have hurt us. Lets try to step up recruiting a new coach or two." Guess what...you said that on your own CC. That's attempted ...
9/14 4:12 AM	pepwaves007	Xavier (A10)	...collusion by your definition.

It seems like if someone is worried that some people agreeing on how they will schedule is hurting his chances of an NT slot, he would be better served in getting that slot by spending the time he spends whining about it combing over recruits or spending some time on his strategy. Or even on his scheduling.

"or even his own scheduling"

Posted by mullycj on 9/14/2012 11:35:00 AM (view original):
"or even his own scheduling"

*gasp* never...

Posted by point_piper on 9/14/2012 3:56:00 AM (view original):
IMHO the points by milkamania and coach_billyg are well taken; it appears that whatif intended to avoid a narrow and legalistic definition so they threw the word "bad" in there, which is not only broad but also not susceptible of objective interpretation. Using the disjunctive "or" with "bad" renders the definition fungible, they are essentially saying "you know it when you see it, so don't do it."

But the element that is consistent among all definitions of collusion is plurality, "agreed upon by two or more users" as whatif puts it. If there's no agreement between parties there's no collusion. So while many of us see even improper suggestions as collusion, IMHO that is not a good reading of the fair pay guidelines. E.g. In coach_billyg's example, you have one coach trying to collude by site mail and another refusing. There are no consequences of those actions, except that the second coach now knows the first is a dick.

Should we include *attempted* collusion in the definition? That's a new topic, and potentially a much broader one about intent as billyg suggested. As applied to whatif, if we *already* are including the attempt in the definition of collusion, then we are jumping the proffered definition a bit. So maybe this is all a debate about whether the definition needs updating.

i pretty much agree with you. but in the last paragraph, when you say its a new topic - it really isnt. WIS has treated attempted or implicit collusion (implicit as in someone may have implicitly agreed, and you never know) as collusion for years. it just carries softer penalties - namely, a warning. ive yet to see a coach fail to wise up after a warning, so we could see the penalty for repeated offenders, but i suspect repeated transgressions would result in the same penalty as straight up collusion. but as seble/CS has demonstrated, repeatedly, attempted collusion is crossing the line.

in the sitemail example, that coach would absolutely get a warning and maybe more, theres no question that is not allowed. again, i would agree the fair play guidelines are not clear on that, but it doesn't really matter, CS would consider it an infraction regardless, and i think there is very very little doubt there. the HD community would probably call for the guy's head, CS probably wouldn't give it to them, but it is what it is.