Posted by almersk on 11/1/2022 4:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tmacfan14 on 11/1/2022 4:49:00 PM (view original):

Posted by almersk on 11/1/2022 4:46:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tmacfan12 on 11/1/2022 4:31:00 PM (view original):
Okay so I just took a look, in ALL of HD, every single world, Hawaii at D1 has won a total of 4 titles. Of those 4 in 10 worlds, 3 have come by Cimmy in the last 20 or so seasons he's played in Allen (From 113-134). So before he took over, 1 title ever. Suddenly in 20 seasons, Hawaii is a 3 time National Champ. They really must be the best coaches on the site or...

Dude, you have to be smarter than this.You just have to be.

This is called proof of abusing a recruiting system to the extreme, stop trying to distract from what is actually happening from calling into question people's intelligence. It is you who has put yourself on trial here, you can just stop posting and go away.

I'M NOT ON TRIAL. It is not my intent to insult your intelligence but you continue to shine a light on your lack thereof. How is comparing a highly successful coach's record at a school with that school's prior success evidence of anything? Seriously. You've been hurt and you have an agenda. I'll come to your conference and smoke you if you keep it up haha.

You aren’t on trial? You play in the conference at the center of this controversy: Smith A10. You were a referral to the site by Cimmy. Not guilty by association, but certainly a person of interest who demonstrates it further by staunchly defending their actions.

Posted by texashick on 11/1/2022 4:57:00 PM (view original):
Recruiting at A prestige in D1 is a significant advantage in that many coaches simply cant (or wont) compete with A prestige teams for recruits. To keep an A prestige, you have to balance chasing the uber-studs with having reasonable back up plans. It's very hard to consistently do both even with A prestige, given how quickly good teams get to the back up level recruits. 40 APs commonly is enough to unlock the non-studs for A prestige teams, so basically coaches exploiting this got free back ups and could commit significantly more resources to the studs. Therefore, the argument that "they didn't use it on the elite players" holds absolutely no merit to me. This was an insanely huge advantage and coaches using even a bit of it had to know they were gaming the system to some extent at the expense of other coaches.

Regardless of this, these are simply good coaches. You cant get to D1 A prestige without knowing how to play the rest of the game. Based on what it presented, at the least for the A10 Smith group, it was found inadvertently and likely originally reported through the right channels. The FPG open with a discussion on sportsmanship as well as discuss loopholes. To me, based on the facts in the preceding paragraph, any good coach would realize they were getting a significant advantage which does not meet the sportmanship baseline. Call it a loophole or a gamble or whatever, but an unbiased observer would recognize they were not playing fairly. I continue to support reverting their accounts back to rookie D3 accounts. I dont really care if their form accolades/credits are stripped, that is what it is to me. Just dont think they should continue to benefit from a loophole I believe they new they were exploiting.

I'd be cool with them going back to rookie accounts if we were sure they were no longer cheating as well. I just do not know how we could be sure of that but I also do not need actual banning here, just the knowledge that there is no cheating.

Well this will teach me to get stoned and play with spreadsheets

Honestly I expected the glitch to be worse. This is still cheating because it still obviously goes against the intent of the inform of non-redshirt option. ?I've always just considered that to be a way to remove an "inform of redshirt" and never considered using it as an offensive recruiting weapon. So that's interesting. While the intent may have been to provide some positive recruiting effort it was almost certainly not intended to help coaches unlock scholarships on two dozen recruits. I have to imagine everyone using this exploit had to know they were doing something wrong.

But I also don't think this warrants a permanent ban unless this is not a coach's first violation.

Posted by Benis on 11/1/2022 5:02:00 PM (view original):
Well this will teach me to get stoned and play with spreadsheets

If you can’t laugh at this, you need to check your pulse.

Posted by mrslam34 on 11/1/2022 5:03:00 PM (view original):
Honestly I expected the glitch to be worse. This is still cheating because it still obviously goes against the intent of the inform of non-redshirt option. ?I've always just considered that to be a way to remove an "inform of redshirt" and never considered using it as an offensive recruiting weapon. So that's interesting. While the intent may have been to provide some positive recruiting effort it was almost certainly not intended to help coaches unlock scholarships on two dozen recruits. I have to imagine everyone using this exploit had to know they were doing something wrong.

But I also don't think this warrants a permanent ban unless this is not a coach's first violation.

That can't be the exploit though, right? Benis caught them unlocking multiple recruits very early. In order to remove a redshirt, you'd have to unlock the scholarships the normal way, and it could only be maybe 1 or 2 players at a time. And then it would take another cycle to inform of redshirt. Something doesn't add up here. I'll wait until there is some clarification before I judge the severity of the crime, but I believe it's probably worse than continually informing of redshirt and then undoing it.

With that said, I think there is enough evidence to warrant a forced vacate of all involved teams and possible a short ban of 1-3 seasons.

Posted by almersk on 11/1/2022 4:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bpielcmc on 11/1/2022 4:49:00 PM (view original):
Hearing the other point of view, I think this thread overdid it.

Fix the logic (maybe you now need APs to unlock inform of redshirt? because I do get how definitely ruling out a redshirt could give you a boost to a recruit) and move on. It seems like CS should have taken the report more seriously when it was first reported and not let it get to this point.

I do not support lifetime bans. Or even removing coaches from their teams. The enjoyment I get out of this game is in no way tied to how draconian the punishment of others is.

Some sort of probation modeled on the NCAA probations could be fine. EDIT: If a punishment is necessary at all.

We have some reasonable posters now. Thank you to RiddleFace and bpielcmc for speaking up. Speak up if you agree that the punishment is out of wack. I am heartened by topdogg and shoe and some others that seem to be applying some reason to the situation, despite their concerns..

Nice attempt, but stop trying to turn the tables to make us the bad guys.

I would agree with Bpiel's framework... NCAA type penalty. Either vacate their titles, or drop them to D3, or both, or make them play with limited scholarships for X amount of years, or some combination.

What do you, almersk, think should happen here? Just continue on, give them a mulligan? Everything moves forward as normal?

And Tmac's point about 3 championships at Hawaii is an excellent one. Dude was pretty much selecting International players like he was at a buffet line.

Posted by mlitney on 11/1/2022 5:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mrslam34 on 11/1/2022 5:03:00 PM (view original):
Honestly I expected the glitch to be worse. This is still cheating because it still obviously goes against the intent of the inform of non-redshirt option. ?I've always just considered that to be a way to remove an "inform of redshirt" and never considered using it as an offensive recruiting weapon. So that's interesting. While the intent may have been to provide some positive recruiting effort it was almost certainly not intended to help coaches unlock scholarships on two dozen recruits. I have to imagine everyone using this exploit had to know they were doing something wrong.

But I also don't think this warrants a permanent ban unless this is not a coach's first violation.

That can't be the exploit though, right? Benis caught them unlocking multiple recruits very early. In order to remove a redshirt, you'd have to unlock the scholarships the normal way, and it could only be maybe 1 or 2 players at a time. Something doesn't add up here.

Trying to figure out the exploit, I went through to check all the recruiting options one could do with no AP and inform of redshirt (and presumably remove inform of redshirt) is the only one that can be done with 0 AP.

“….pretty much selecting International players like he was at a buffet line”

^ this. And 2-3 people can vouch for this happening in real time.

Posted by bpielcmc on 11/1/2022 5:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mlitney on 11/1/2022 5:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mrslam34 on 11/1/2022 5:03:00 PM (view original):
Honestly I expected the glitch to be worse. This is still cheating because it still obviously goes against the intent of the inform of non-redshirt option. ?I've always just considered that to be a way to remove an "inform of redshirt" and never considered using it as an offensive recruiting weapon. So that's interesting. While the intent may have been to provide some positive recruiting effort it was almost certainly not intended to help coaches unlock scholarships on two dozen recruits. I have to imagine everyone using this exploit had to know they were doing something wrong.

But I also don't think this warrants a permanent ban unless this is not a coach's first violation.

That can't be the exploit though, right? Benis caught them unlocking multiple recruits very early. In order to remove a redshirt, you'd have to unlock the scholarships the normal way, and it could only be maybe 1 or 2 players at a time. Something doesn't add up here.

Trying to figure out the exploit, I went through to check all the recruiting options one could do with no AP and inform of redshirt (and presumably remove inform of redshirt) is the only one that can be done with 0 AP.

Welp, shows what I know after so many years of playing this game. lol.

Like many others, I was racking my head trying to figure out what this “thing” was that they were doing to get an advantage. I figured it was some kind of tech savvy thing, and I had a hard time believing this could be anything other than blatant cheating which would be worthy of a harsh punishment. Now knowing what it is… this is far less severe than what I was imagining.

If I were a new user and a mentor had told me of this strategy (which isn’t possible because it has almost zero value at D3 where I play), I probably would’ve used it at the time, not knowing any better. But as I’ve learned more about this game and what the community values, I’ve always shared my knowledge with others about what strategies work well for me. This was a glitch that was never shared outside a select group of people, which is what is most disconcerting to me.

I see no reason to ban them. And I think more conversation is needed (less attacks back and forth) about how to approach the appropriate discipline.

But here’s my thing about a lifetime ban….. I AM in favor of suspending their accounts or their teams they were proven to violate with, but not necessarily a direct lifetime ban. Doing so, my guess would be that all of teams (or worlds they play in), they’ve been exploiting this. I don’t KNOW that of course. But I feel it’s safe to assume that, no? So having said that, vets in this game that have a zillion credits they’ve been wracking up with partial assistance from the loophole, they’re HD old and stubborn and set in their ways. Telling them they can play, but they have to relinquish their credits, that basically IS a lifetime ban. Because they likely won’t continue playing.

in another topic, I remember posting a CC message to cimmy in that A10 conference after he bombed one of my UConn targets while I was still rebuilding. He led on 100 players and I couldn’t believe he actually bombed me in the circumstances. But robinhood laughed, slash, made fun of me for crying about it. Looking back, maybe I had somewhat of a right to complain. He was leading on like 12 players but wanted mine. Can’t sign them all, but he was surely trying!

Posted by CPA_ROD on 11/1/2022 5:24:00 PM (view original):
Like many others, I was racking my head trying to figure out what this “thing” was that they were doing to get an advantage. I figured it was some kind of tech savvy thing, and I had a hard time believing this could be anything other than blatant cheating which would be worthy of a harsh punishment. Now knowing what it is… this is far less severe than what I was imagining.

If I were a new user and a mentor had told me of this strategy (which isn’t possible because it has almost zero value at D3 where I play), I probably would’ve used it at the time, not knowing any better. But as I’ve learned more about this game and what the community values, I’ve always shared my knowledge with others about what strategies work well for me. This was a glitch that was never shared outside a select group of people, which is what is most disconcerting to me.

I see no reason to ban them. And I think more conversation is needed (less attacks back and forth) about how to approach the appropriate discipline.

THE KEY HERE…. You would share this with others!! And so would I! They shared it amongst themselves and kept it a secret and beat the **** out of us with it. That’s the difference here.

Usually when something like this happens, once everybody has heard about it, the consensus is that the right thing happens. Either CS is told and handled it. Of the community as a whole knows about it. 5 guys knowing about it and keeping it in their little A10 group is not ideal

90% of the conversation on here is what i would consider the best of the WIS community. good discussion and thoughts. and then there are a few sympathizers, but they seem impartial so i ignore them. then there's almersk, who's obviously skipping school today... i'm dying to know what CS's plan is, as it really seems this was a known issue that they choose to do nothing about initially. after like 20 years this is the only time i've posted in the HD forums that i can remember, so put me down as one of those guys who showed up in concern for the future of the game.

Posted by jc14 on 11/1/2022 2:52:00 PM (view original):
robinhood410 is my dad. He is one of the people caught up in this ridiculous ordeal. He has taught me a lot of things, including a true love for HD, and, more importantly, he has taught me honestly and integrity not just through his words but by his deeds. He is not a cheater. Neither are Doogan or Cimmy426 (who are my uncles) nor BDash - a good friend of theirs. I don't know this swenske guy or anyone else that was banned (maybe they're terrible people who cheat at everything, I dunno), but I do know those guys, and they were absolutely NOT doing anything that they thought was, in ANY WAY, against the rules or against any fair play.

I have been following this forum since they got banned, and a lot of people have jumped to some wild conclusions. This whole "scheme" as people have so eloquently labeled it, was as simple as this - if you inform a recruit that he will be redshirted and then, in a later cycle, if you inform him that he will NOT be redshirted, you gain some "recruiting credit." My uncle (cimmy426) discovered this, by accident, one day when he changed his mind about redshirting a guy, informed him of no redshirt and noticed that he had improved his status with the recruit just by that action. My uncle (who is also a highly respected HBD commissioner who has ferreted out cheaters himself) thought that it might be a glitch, so he immediately reported it to Customer Service. And, NOT ONLY did CS not tell him that it was against the rules, but they CONFIRMED that it provided recruiting benefits.

So, they figured that it was part of the game, which makes sense to me, too. I mean wouldn't a recruit want to hear that he was definitely NOT going to be redshirted? Of course he would! So, it makes sense that you would gain some recruiting credit by telling a kid "hey, i will NOT redshirt you." And, what also makes sense, is that it wasn't all that much credit - maybe equal to about 30-40 APs, which seems like a lot when used a ton in the first day (to benis's original point), but it wasn't swinging any individual battles by more than a percentage point or two. That said, the point about the perception of effort is a good one. So, for that, I am glad that it is coming to light. Because if people know about it (and, these guys had no reason to think that people did not know about it), then maybe that "perception advantage" wouldn't be an advantage. That's a fair point and reason to change the system, but still shows that they did nothing wrong.

Also, and this is another key point, there are downsides to it. One, you can't "lay claim" to a recruit because it takes multiple cycles to play out (inform of redshirt then inform of no redshirt then use APs). But, that's minor. The major downside is that sometimes, if the recruit was at a level of quality that would never accept a redshirt from your team, he would get very mad at the "inform of redshirt" and no amount of recruiting effort (including "inform of no redshirt") would make him consider you at all. Everything would be 0% even with like a thousand APs or whatever.. Nothing. So, this "trick" or "hack" as you guys call it, or "viable recruiting gamble" as these guys thought of it, was just that - a gamble. It was of absolutely no use in D2. And that is why (before you all ask) I have never used it - not because I, in any way, thought it was cheating (I would never cheat...my dad taught me that) - I have never used it because I have never played in D1 and, in D2, I usually try to recruit D1 guys (another thing my dad taught me) and D1 guys would never accept a redshirt at D2, so this "hack" would have backfired on me. So, these guys looked at it as a viable, legal, open recruiting gamble at D1 that was available to anyone but had to be used strategically. My dad and these guys never used it on their top targets or on anyone they didn't want to risk losing. They only used it for fallback options and rotation pieces and stuff. You all weren't "robbed of championships" because of it, I promise. Also, they never did it in D2. So, for those that want to tear them all down and say that their success was simply due to some ridiculous cheating conspiracy, take a step back and look at their D2 resumes and their resumes before they stumbled upon this thing. They are very good at this game and have tried to teach me the best they could. They do not collude. They do not cheat. They play the game fairly, and they play the game well. Many of you should know that after all the years you've played with them.

So, to me the bottom line is that this became a runaway train that has just run over a couple of really good users and, more importantly, a couple of really good people. It's fine. They all have full lives without Whatifsports, but they have been, from what I can tell, highly respected members of this online community for 18 years...EIGHTEEN YEARS!!! And, now they are getting railroaded out of here for something that they did not even know was wrong AND for something that they brought to the attention of Customer Service when they first discovered it.

I am proud of my dad and my uncles. They handle their lives with integrity and honesty and took this injustice a lot better than I would have. I just really hope you all read this post with objectivity and open minds because they didn't do anything wrong.

Respectfully,
JC14

Finding a loophole and exploiting it without the knowledge of everyone is still exploiting a loophole for personal gain.