Posted by shoe3 on 11/30/2019 6:28:00 PM (view original):

Posted by thewizard17 on 11/30/2019 4:26:00 PM (view original):
I just don't know if I would be willing to say it's cheating. They haven't broken the 1,000 mile rule. It's really on seble/WIS to make the rules clear without room for interpretation.

I will say there is a coach that deliberately cheated by claiming he had a mentally disabled brother that played and shared his username and had 2 D-1 teams within the same world, however he was caught lying when I questioned him. He was playing the victim card, where nobody would question him and if you did, you came off looking like a complete a-hole, because his brother is ahem "mentally disabled". Long story short, I caught him with multiple teams within a 1,000 mile radius. Funny part was when he asked " why haven't I won a championship then" when I made the accusations and my response was "because you suck at cheating".

From the Fair Play Guidelines:

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

• Sharing Future Stars Scouting (FSS) information between multiple teams”

Seble doesn’t need to make anything more clear. It’s clearly a violation. The problem is that it can’t be enforced, as long as they allow multiple ids. They could disallow that, and they could likely enforce it with a structural IP and/or credit card based limit; but they have not wanted to do that, because 1) there are legitimate cases of multiple family members running teams, and 2) there are legitimate reasons for wanting to keep a lower level team one has built up, but also move on in the same world.

As has been said, there isn’t a ton of value from cheating in this way in the new system. It’s quite a bit of work (and probably more money, for lots of folks) for an occasional small advantage. I have no doubt some folks use and try exploit this, some probably successfully. I do keep tabs on a couple myself.

This is the whole list under "collusive transactions. The part where you highlighted(below) "or attempted by a single user" listed several examples., but not just one specific example. The main problem I have is with the word "sharing information between multiple teams" The word "sharing" refers to other users besides yourself, because by the glossary term's definition, it clearly states that. In my opinion, there is definitely room for interpretation there.By the glossary definition, it is not possible to share something with yourself. They need to take the word "sharing" out of it.

Collusive transactions

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

• Discussing the pursuit of a recruit with another coach, including who is pursuing him and money that might have been spent.
• Sharing Future Stars Scouting (FSS) information between multiple teams
• Scheduling a non-conference game against an alias team (i.e. team owned by same owner in a different conference and more than 1,000 miles away). Exhibition games are permitted in this situation, however.
• Any clear throwing of a game (normally indicated by massive lineup changes or settings changes)
• Specifically targeting another coach is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, focusing on recruits a particular coach is pursuing in order to steal them or force the coach to overspend.
• Attempting to persuade another user to participate in a collusive effort (only the initiator would be at fault unless agreed upon by other user)

Sharing Future Stars Scouting (FSS) information between multiple teams

When I read this, it is assumed that you aren't allowed to share the FSS information with other players. Keeping the information between yourself amongst multiple teams is not sharing. Another issue I have is, it's no longer called Future Stars Scouting(called Scouting Service), so a new user that agrees to the fair play guidelines isn't really in the know.

“Or attempted by a single user”. Don’t be obtuse. A single user can attempt to share scouting information between multiple teams. That’s exactly what we’re talking about. It’s explicitly cheating. It’s not ambiguous, it’s not borderline, it’s not gray. It’s explicitly against the rules. It isn’t going to be more clear. The only way this is not clear is if you’re actively and specifically looking for ways to spin rule breaking behavior.

It would certainly be better if there was a structural barrier to doing it. But a good one doesn’t exist that doesn’t also disallow multiple IDs for one user, or attached to one credit card, or in one location, and they don’t want to do that. So here we are.

Posted by thewizard17 on 11/30/2019 9:52:00 PM (view original):
Sharing Future Stars Scouting (FSS) information between multiple teams

When I read this, it is assumed that you aren't allowed to share the FSS information with other players. Keeping the information between yourself amongst multiple teams is not sharing. Another issue I have is, it's no longer called Future Stars Scouting(called Scouting Service), so a new user that agrees to the fair play guidelines isn't really in the know.

Dude. No.

Sharing information between multiple teams includes all your own teams.

Anyone who does this KNOWS they are breaking the rules. They just dont care.

Posted by oldave on 11/30/2019 9:35:00 PM (view original):
hmmmm..
I feel like there was always an advantage to multiple teams ?
but i will admit my memory what HD1.0 and 2.0 was like is fuzzy at best.

hmmm..
maybe the more i think about it there was a time when there really was no scouting and you could see all recruits? i guess if thats true then there was a time when multiple teams did not afford an opportunity for advantage . that was 1.0... right? then there was scouting n 2.0, but you just had one big budget for scouting and recruiting?

someone should write a history and timeline of how HD has changed along with commentaries of how the various changes have worked out.

you are pretty much on the money there oldave.

in 1.0, there was no potential to discover - growth was based on practice time, playing time, work ethic, and current rating (the closer you got to 0/100, the slower the growth - this mostly was an issue in the 0-10 and 90-100 range). all recruits were visible to everyone and there was no discovery process.

back then, there was one coach in particular who had at one time, i believe, 27 teams across the 8 worlds. he was a friend to tarek (original admin, creator of whatifsports and HD) in real life. tarek openly confirmed that multiple teams were not a problem.

there were numerous coaches who had multiple teams in a world back then, who had a major impact on that world. often, these were the guys doing the extracurricular stuff, like alblack's rankings for that world he had two d2 teams in, or conference challenges or mini tournaments - and people loved that stuff. having coaches so invested in a world they had multiple teams wasn't viewed negatively, it was viewed as a benefit to the community. also, as tark was the only 'new world' in HD history, AND the only 2/day, there were a freaking ton of people with multiple teams there. and it was great! tark was the place to be.

was there some potential imperfection with the multiple teams - sure - especially in the same division. many folks did not recruit nationally, because filtering through every player in usually 2 different divisions took me like 10-12 hours per d2/d3 team, it was brutal. but if you did, there was obviously some overlap. having teams in different divisions was fine as the players you'd target had no (or negligible) overlap, and multiple d1 teams were generally only going to overlap on internationals.

the other thing is, back then, player development was huge. without potential, numerous players could be molded into the player you wanted. getting a specific guy was way less important, instead player development was hugely important. it made these recruiting issues less serious.

last thing i'll say, the cheating talk of the day back then was centered on 'drafting', where a conference or group of coaches would get together and straight collude on who to recruit. this was generally frowned upon by most of the community but collusion was relatively common, in a couple cases on a very grand scale, but in many cases on a minor scale 'are you serious about recruit X?'. it wasn't even clearly stated this was cheating until shortly before i started (in 2008 or something, i think). when i started, it was still rampant. i would guess i got at least 30 collusive sitemails over the first few years. i don't know if it stopped because 'collusion is cheating' slowly became ingrained in the collective consciousness, or if its because i mostly coached in tark and over time had turned down the entire pool of folks who engaged in that activity there. or because i was one of the 'anti collusion warriors' on the forums, if you will.

kind of ironic to be on the other side of that 5 years later, when the multiple team thing blew up. i was pretty dogmatic about the anti-collusion stuff as a young coach, probably should have had a little more compassion for the alternate viewpoint (or really, for the coaches who genuinely didn't see a problem with it). definitely paid for that one!

Posted by thewizard17 on 11/30/2019 9:52:00 PM (view original):
Sharing Future Stars Scouting (FSS) information between multiple teams

When I read this, it is assumed that you aren't allowed to share the FSS information with other players. Keeping the information between yourself amongst multiple teams is not sharing. Another issue I have is, it's no longer called Future Stars Scouting(called Scouting Service), so a new user that agrees to the fair play guidelines isn't really in the know.

it probably would be good if they clarified the FSS thing especially - the only issue is, they try to spend as little time on this kind of stuff as possible, which is totally understandable. i guess i disagree 'sharing between teams' implies those have to be coached by different coaches, but i can see how one could take it that way, i suppose. i doubt many folks fall into that camp though, at a minimum it is clear in the collective consciousness what is meant.

Posted by Benis on 12/1/2019 1:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by thewizard17 on 11/30/2019 9:52:00 PM (view original):
Sharing Future Stars Scouting (FSS) information between multiple teams

When I read this, it is assumed that you aren't allowed to share the FSS information with other players. Keeping the information between yourself amongst multiple teams is not sharing. Another issue I have is, it's no longer called Future Stars Scouting(called Scouting Service), so a new user that agrees to the fair play guidelines isn't really in the know.

Dude. No.

Sharing information between multiple teams includes all your own teams.

Anyone who does this KNOWS they are breaking the rules. They just dont care.

Like I said, it's open for interpretation and it's not even called FSS anymore. So how is a new user supposed to know?

I'm not saying you're wrong or shoe is wrong. Everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of the rules. You have yours. I have mine.

This is 100% on seble. It's his responsibility to clear up any confusion of the rules.

Why not just disallow teams in the same world and keep it simple?

Anger comes out when someone is trying to gain what is considered to most "an unfair advantage" except to the person that's playing within the rules and not breaking them. It's not real basketball, it's a simulation game.

It’s not open to interpretation. You are mistaken, and your spin is not valid.

How is a new user supposed to know not to share scouting information between teams, whether it’s multiple users or a single user, as noted in the FPGs? They’re supposed to be able to read. No one who is not actively and specifically looking for ways to cheat is going to think it’s fine.

Posted by gillispie1 on 12/1/2019 3:07:00 PM (view original):

Posted by thewizard17 on 11/30/2019 9:52:00 PM (view original):
Sharing Future Stars Scouting (FSS) information between multiple teams

When I read this, it is assumed that you aren't allowed to share the FSS information with other players. Keeping the information between yourself amongst multiple teams is not sharing. Another issue I have is, it's no longer called Future Stars Scouting(called Scouting Service), so a new user that agrees to the fair play guidelines isn't really in the know.

it probably would be good if they clarified the FSS thing especially - the only issue is, they try to spend as little time on this kind of stuff as possible, which is totally understandable. i guess i disagree 'sharing between teams' implies those have to be coached by different coaches, but i can see how one could take it that way, i suppose. i doubt many folks fall into that camp though, at a minimum it is clear in the collective consciousness what is meant.

That's really the whole point of this discussion, at least on my end. As you stated, you could see how someone could read the rules differently, even though you disagree(and shoe and Benis), if there are a few out there, that's on seble to clean it up so there is no confusion on the fair play guidelines.

So what if I had teams 1,000 miles apart, not in the same conference. Let's say UCLA and Kansas. I don't know if it's 1,000, but it's close enough. And let's say I wanted to scout Utah for both of my teams? Is there any rule against that? Sharing isn't really the proper term, you're really not sharing, it's just two different teams by a single user scouting one state.

Posted by shoe3 on 12/1/2019 4:37:00 PM (view original):
It’s not open to interpretation. You are mistaken, and your spin is not valid.

How is a new user supposed to know not to share scouting information between teams, whether it’s multiple users or a single user, as noted in the FPGs? They’re supposed to be able to read. No one who is not actively and specifically looking for ways to cheat is going to think it’s fine.

So they are supposed to read seble's ambiguous statement?

Just so you understand, I don't know if I'm making myself clear:

Future Stars Scouting is the term used for HD 2.0. If I'm a new user playing HD 3.0, say I started a week ago. You understand that it's no longer called "Future Stars Scouting" and it's called "Scouting Service" in 3.0. You do understand that, correct? Doesn't seem very clear to me. Just saying.

Forum rumor or gentlemen's agreement doesn't mean that's the rule. Just because you or others don't agree doesn't mean it's true.

It's easy read something and go oh that's what it probably meant, but we're not sure, but since everyone in the forum says that's what it is, then that's what it is, so now it becomes a forum rule.

Posted by thewizard17 on 12/1/2019 4:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 12/1/2019 4:37:00 PM (view original):
It’s not open to interpretation. You are mistaken, and your spin is not valid.

How is a new user supposed to know not to share scouting information between teams, whether it’s multiple users or a single user, as noted in the FPGs? They’re supposed to be able to read. No one who is not actively and specifically looking for ways to cheat is going to think it’s fine.

So they are supposed to read seble's ambiguous statement?

Just so you understand, I don't know if I'm making myself clear:

Future Stars Scouting is the term used for HD 2.0. If I'm a new user playing HD 3.0, say I started a week ago. You understand that it's no longer called "Future Stars Scouting" and it's called "Scouting Service" in 3.0. You do understand that, correct? Doesn't seem very clear to me. Just saying.

Forum rumor or gentlemen's agreement doesn't mean that's the rule. Just because you or others don't agree doesn't mean it's true.

Even your supposed loophole is mistaken. It is still called FSS. The logo is there and everything. It’s not ambiguous in the least.

Its not a rumor or gentlemen’s agreement or “forum fact”. It is explicitly stated in the guidelines, the principle applies to multiple users and a single user with multiple teams.

The idea that a new user is going to understand that getting scouting information from another user is cheating, but think it’s fine to create an alt ID to get that same information for herself is absurd. No one is going to think that’s ok, unless they’re trying to cheat, and then spinning it to not get banned.

Posted by thewizard17 on 12/1/2019 5:36:00 PM (view original):
Like I said, you're entitled to your opinion. I just don't have time to go back and forth on it. I'll agree to disagree.

Translation:
"I'll agree to continue cheating. And I don't have time to discuss."

Posted by npb7768 on 12/1/2019 6:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by thewizard17 on 12/1/2019 5:36:00 PM (view original):
Like I said, you're entitled to your opinion. I just don't have time to go back and forth on it. I'll agree to disagree.

Translation:
"I'll agree to continue cheating. And I don't have time to discuss."

i don't agree with this at all, i don't think he's trying to justify his own actions here. i don't agree with his reading of the rule but i do think his reading is sincere, and i'm not aware of any reason he shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt.