Yeah, that seems pretty shady if WIS lets people get away with that.

I understand Worlds are hard to fill now days. I would not be opposed to a family members playing in the same world as long as it was known by all first. I would also wish that WIS would not let them trade amongst themselves if that was to happen for the reasons state above by Bribar. I have a few close friends that play on here and we all agreed before hand to not be in the same Worlds together. I also think that the World Commissioner's need to have more power to handle situations that are "shady" before it affects the world that they run. But I am still fairly new and still "wet behind the ears" and still don't know as much as I would like to about this game:)

Are spouses playing together any more of a risk than two best friends playing together? I think the issue is more when shady/sketchy behaviour comes into play, which it did in the case Bribar is referencing.

WIS knows that both owners have the same IP address, but is willing to let them come forth after 4 big trades between them and claim that they are spouses. WIS doesn't care, so cheating is now officially OK. (Is a commissioner supposed to travel to their home to see if the spouse truly exists?)

Here is my ticket and the WIS "response":

Bribar: Fair Play Guidelines: "Collusion includes any act that supports ... deceitful ... behavior agreed upon by two or more users." XXX and his "spouse," YYY, were deceitful in not disclosing they were spouses, then proceeded to make 4 trades between themselves. Further, if their scouting budgets have 2 different categories that are high, they could easily be sharing scouting info.

You really need to change the Fair Play Guidelines to prevent this type of undisclosed sleaziness from occurring. They are effectively bragging in the world's Chat about how they got away with it, and their posts have been condescending to others.

BTW, XXX just joined USMLB World, then a newbie named ZZZ joined the same division. Another spousal situation?

One more point: the site cannot rule out that people (whether spouses or parent-child) in the same home aren’t sharing info, aren’t setting scouting budgets to complement each other’s, aren’t readjusting their rotations to knock off the other’s primary opponents, aren’t resting key hitters and SPs when playing against each other, and aren’t vetoing trades as a block. If you leave the Fair Play Guidelines as is … you give cheaters the upper hand.

The only way for owners to monitor situations like this one if you won’t is through trade vetoes, which bring negative micromanaging of other people’s teams into the picture. The least divisive thing you could do would be to disallow 2 people with the same IP address from being in the same world.

I predict that [the World] will see a mass exodus, and have a hard time filling up. (Unless XXX is a Mormon, and has several wives.)


Jholthus: Thank you for the feedback and input. We want users to be able to play with their family and friends if the situation works and the users can keep their play "clean". We have left the situation in [the World] up to the commissioner to either keep an eye on things or find replacements if they feel there are violations occurring between the two users.


Bribar: You used the word “if” twice … in your response. If WIS does not properly define what is considered wrong, there’s nothing a commissioner can do. There is nothing in the Fair Play Guidelines that requires disclosure to the World and commissioner by spouses, family members or friends, so they can cheat secretly.

Well, I understand Admin's viewpoint that "we shouldn't kick paying customers out." However it seems like they are leaving it entirely up to the World Commissioner to police the situation. SO when the Commissioner kicks a cheater out - for WHATEVER reason, because as you noted the FairPlayGuidelines are unclear - and the cheater complains to Admin, Admin sure as hell better not tell the Commissioner "you can't do that."

I am reminded of something I heard of when I joined this site: It only takes ONE blatant a$$hole owner to wreck an entire league/world.

I'm commissioner in ULB, last season I bought a season for my son who's 17 to see if he'd enjoy it. I fully disclosed it to the world, and asked a couple other veteran owners to mentor him, instead of myself. I just helped him on the basics, and we did not have any transactions between us, which is the way it should be. As it was, he was a shiiiiiitty owner, and just played the one season. But the main thing is that it was fully disclosed before I hit the button for the new season, not weeks into the season.

I can see Admin's side though. I get two spouses - in general, not in this specific case - having a team in the same world can appear troublesome, but how is it any more of an issue than two best friends being in the same world? Just because they may live at different addresses, that means they can't share info, manipulate trades and collude together?

It will drive people away from the site if we make things difficult for families to play together. But there does need to be accountability if there is even the appearance of unethical behaviour taking place.

In Bribar's example above, I believe there was reason given to at least question the relationship between these two users. They pretended not to know what was going on and then finally revealed they were (allegedly) a married couple. There is definitely something sketchy going on in this specific instance.

Familial or friendly relationship is irrelevant. We all
know friends, family members, fathers and kids etc. here.

The seeming fact is that there was collusive activity in place before the relationship was disclosed. The issue is collusion, nothing else.

Fair Play language below reads that a trade that clearly favors one side is considered collusive activity. If they have any trades that fit that description, I'd quote the Fair Play rules to Admin and have replacements ready to takeover immediately.

Collusive transactions

Collusion includes any act that supports bad, deceitful or illegal behavior agreed upon by two or more users. Here are a few examples:

• Trades that clearly benefit one side.
• Dropping/waiving a player so that another team may pick him up.
• Using 1 team to scout for another team (i.e. share projected ratings).
• Intentionally throwing a game to ensure another team improves its chances for a post-season bid.
• Intentionally signing questionable players that benefit the former club (i.e. Type-A free-agents.)
• Arranging a trade with another franchise so the other franchise can sign a free-agent resulting in the other franchise receiving compensation picks.

I'd be curious to see the 4 trades they made together.

Reading the WC, I can't imagine these two players aren't the same person. To what end..... who knows?

The situation that Bribar is talking about is extremely shady. After this player was called out he made a post bragging that he had "built his dynasty, mission accomplished". My ticket also said they were leaving the decision up to the commissioner and ours has chosen to protect the two connected teams with the risk of many of us leaving after this season.

Ultimately that's the democratic solution to this. You vote with your feet. The cheater has built his dynasty, mission accomplished. He'll be sitting in a world with ten openings indefinitely. The commish of a dead world can sit there with him and his patsy. A dynasty with no Ws to be had, no games to be played.

I'm in Yogi too. A lot of blame is (justifiably) being placed on this troll owner who may well have just come back to HBD to burn a few leagues down. But we as a league failed to keep close enough watch until it was too late. There was one lopsided trade with "the spouse" and one lopsided trade with another relatively new owner (for the prior season's 1.1, no red flags there either) that both went through without being called out at all in world chat before someone finally saw he traded a 4th time with "the spouse". We got lazy as a league and could have prevented much of this.

I agree with damag in a way, there is a democratic solution but mine to stick around and vote down all of Each1Teach1's future trades. He's a known quantity now, he's shown his true nature. There's not much more damage he can do, especially now that he's under the microscope. I'm not gonna let one idiot ruin a world I've been in for 10 seasons. If everyone jumps ship we're just feeding his fragile ego and incentivizing him to burn down the other three leagues he just joined (Edit: up to four other teams he's picked up now - funny how all but one are public leagues).