I hope due diligence was done here. would be wild if kolby/fluff/scheyer had 3 accounts in same world.

fluff deserves to tell his side

Actually I just remembered, when I was very new to WiS and only played Hardball Dynasty, my friend and I were accused of collusion after we made a few deals (we had no clue how to evaluate players and made a few deals heavily benefitting each other, which doesnt make sense they thought we were colluding if a few deals heavily beneffited me and a few heavily benefitted him but don't even get me started lol) and Seble looked at IPs, credit cards, and whatever else and confirmed we weren't the same person. This leads me to believe its not a guess.

im not buying a coach who can seemingly competently coach would think that strategy was a good idea lol, i'm going to err on the side of assuming seble got that part right.

but straight up banning the dude? i would hope that can't be a first offense punishment, that is pretty serious. playing yourself in the NT is pretty rare and pretty neat, i feel like we should only be dictating what a coach does there if its REALLY important. i'm just not buying it is, especially where d2/d3 world are so empty. if you need the rule to stop someone from exploiting at the high end, i sort of sympathize - i have no problem being governed by that rule. but for some random dude, i'm honestly not sure how *anyone* else seems to think such a severe punishment is justified? the whole point is to prevent future behavior. how often do people play themselves in the NT? i mean seriously is this the kind of stuff that keeps you guys up at night... thank god we got this dude who was half way decently coaching two teams in our almost-dead game and replaced them with sims, now we only need to get 3 more cheaters on his level and we'll have balanced out all the bad from corona virus. LETS GO WE CAN DO THIS!!

Posted by gillispie1 on 8/27/2020 4:09:00 AM (view original):
im not buying a coach who can seemingly competently coach would think that strategy was a good idea lol, i'm going to err on the side of assuming seble got that part right.

but straight up banning the dude? i would hope that can't be a first offense punishment, that is pretty serious. playing yourself in the NT is pretty rare and pretty neat, i feel like we should only be dictating what a coach does there if its REALLY important. i'm just not buying it is, especially where d2/d3 world are so empty. if you need the rule to stop someone from exploiting at the high end, i sort of sympathize - i have no problem being governed by that rule. but for some random dude, i'm honestly not sure how *anyone* else seems to think such a severe punishment is justified? the whole point is to prevent future behavior. how often do people play themselves in the NT? i mean seriously is this the kind of stuff that keeps you guys up at night... thank god we got this dude who was half way decently coaching two teams in our almost-dead game and replaced them with sims, now we only need to get 3 more cheaters on his level and we'll have balanced out all the bad from corona virus. LETS GO WE CAN DO THIS!!

I agree. Ban seems harsh up front *if* this was a first offense.

It's a clear violation of the fair play guidelines but I think it warrants a warning and possibly probation / a major reputation hit (would help if reputation meant more...) and at most removal from the team.

Would be nice to hear from seble/CS more on this one. Even if it's just a broadstroke explanation like "Yes we used multiple points of validation in identifying these accounts were operated by the same person and based on our investigation there were multiple offenses in breach of fair play which warranted a full ban."

“based on our investigation there were multiple offenses in breach of fair play which warranted a full ban."

Agree. If this is the only or most egregious thing that’s happened, anything more than say vacating credits earned for the season as a warning wrist slap is overdoing it. But going in and finding evidence of scouting/recruiting collusion (for example) would certainly be grounds for expulsion, I think.

One season under my belt. Is this stuff, along with the other post by ab, commonplace? Competing against D3 teams with D1 rosters is daunting enough (until you learn recruiting) but when you have people gaming the system or bending rules it's a bit frustrating.
I've not been around long enough to know anything, really, but it seems the Fair Play Guidelines have been taking a beating lately.

Posted by buddhagamer on 8/26/2020 10:17:00 PM (view original):

Posted by darnoc29099 on 8/26/2020 10:11:00 PM (view original):
I'm in the same conference as Fluff and noticed that box score this morning and thought it was odd. I've chatted with fluff via site mail before and I will say this, the writing styles/diction between Kolby and Fluff are vastly different. Could be something to throw us off, but I felt it was worth pointing out.

Maybe its his brother/father or someone who lives in the same household. But what he did is paramount to throwing a game (a NT one at that). All these people who want to exploit against the Fair Play guidelines need to realize that if they were not so blatantly egregious when they do this, they just might continue to not get noticed.

i personally have a lot more empathy for some dude i've never seen around the forums on these issues, because those of us who have been around the forums regularly have almost certainly seen dozens of threads on fair play and have an understanding of 1) what the rules are and 2) how seriously people around here take them.

i do not think either of these are intuitively obvious to someone who isn't on the forums, and there's pretty many coaches who don't come around here very often. i agree with your point - and i look at how blatantly obvious some of these folks are in their rule violation as not evidence but a fairly meaningful suggestion that they don't know its wrong or don't know its wrong enough to worry about. perhaps they are just idiots - that is a distinct possibility. but perhaps they are just ignorant, and severe punishment tends to be an unproductive form of education.

moving on - my main source of comfort on this subject is that seble almost definitely either talked to this guy before about this or his 1000 mile teams or something, or found severe, systemic cheating, because generally seble is pretty empathetic in these situations. the community however is not. look on the first page - multiple people asking to permaban the guy before there's any suggestion its more than a first offense. seble follows your lead - our lead - not the reverse. even if he is making this decision, his decision is largely influence by the prior years of these conversations, and his decisions down the road are influenced by conversations like the one here today.

if we do not bring empathy, neither will he, and that cycle (with an extra step) is the exact same cycle that has happened in this country for decades and leaves us to our status quo where petty offenses are severely over policed (the police do not set standards for what should be policed or how, elected officials do, and they take their lead from the community on the values inherent in those decisions - by and large - just like seble but with an extra step). the resulting friction is an integral part of all the chaos happening around policing today. just keep in mind what a role empathy plays in all of this. those on the left are upset minor offenders are not being treated with empathy or dignity, and those on the right are upset the police officers - who do not set the standards for policing - are being treated without empathy. yet somehow we are all incapable of recognizing our own lack of empathy when the shoe is on the other foot. if we don't bring empathy to our daily life, our institutions won't either, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves (not to suggest it won't stop us from blaming everybody else anyway - its just that such blaming will be incorrect and unproductive).

Posted by gillispie1 on 8/27/2020 4:09:00 AM (view original):
im not buying a coach who can seemingly competently coach would think that strategy was a good idea lol, i'm going to err on the side of assuming seble got that part right.

but straight up banning the dude? i would hope that can't be a first offense punishment, that is pretty serious. playing yourself in the NT is pretty rare and pretty neat, i feel like we should only be dictating what a coach does there if its REALLY important. i'm just not buying it is, especially where d2/d3 world are so empty. if you need the rule to stop someone from exploiting at the high end, i sort of sympathize - i have no problem being governed by that rule. but for some random dude, i'm honestly not sure how *anyone* else seems to think such a severe punishment is justified? the whole point is to prevent future behavior. how often do people play themselves in the NT? i mean seriously is this the kind of stuff that keeps you guys up at night... thank god we got this dude who was half way decently coaching two teams in our almost-dead game and replaced them with sims, now we only need to get 3 more cheaters on his level and we'll have balanced out all the bad from corona virus. LETS GO WE CAN DO THIS!!

I think maybe you are overthinking this. No, this type of stuff doesn't keep me up at night -- it's just annoying and easily preventable. I mean, the NT bracket isn't as easy of a fix, but the dude scheduled himself in nonconference as well. Plus, he's in this thread blatantly lying trying to make it seem like he didn't do anything wrong and that he's not actually a multi (if it comes out that he actually ISN'T a multi, I'll print this post out and eat it).

It's just annoying, and it is a violation of the fairplay guidelines imo. But, again, maybe even worse than that is that the guy is in here lying and trying to make it seem like he actually MEANT to run a strategy in which he started his worst player and gave him 100 distro. It's just blatant and dishonest and aggravating. Idk if a lifetime ban is worth it or not, who am I to say, but I think for sure he should lose control of those teams if that's how he is going to behave.

I am not sure I understand the bit at the end of the post about coronavirus? Read it like 5 times and can't make heads or tails of it.

Posted by PAnthony28 on 8/27/2020 11:25:00 AM (view original):
One season under my belt. Is this stuff, along with the other post by ab, commonplace? Competing against D3 teams with D1 rosters is daunting enough (until you learn recruiting) but when you have people gaming the system or bending rules it's a bit frustrating.
I've not been around long enough to know anything, really, but it seems the Fair Play Guidelines have been taking a beating lately.

Very uncommon to see threads like this in the time that I've been back playing for almost 6 seasons, these are the 1st 2 that I have seen.

Most of the time its just "How the hell did I lose against this sim?" and "This is now the 9th time in a row I've lost an 80% - 20% draw."

Those were the good old days.

Posted by PAnthony28 on 8/27/2020 11:25:00 AM (view original):
One season under my belt. Is this stuff, along with the other post by ab, commonplace? Competing against D3 teams with D1 rosters is daunting enough (until you learn recruiting) but when you have people gaming the system or bending rules it's a bit frustrating.
I've not been around long enough to know anything, really, but it seems the Fair Play Guidelines have been taking a beating lately.

I don’t know about commonplace, but it’s probably naive to think this kind of thing rarely happens (forum posts aside). I think you’re probably always going to have some guys thinking about ways to get ahead quickly. Multiple account abuse has always been a concern, as long as I’ve been here; it was one of the hot button debates raging when I first stepped fingers in the forum 7 years ago. There are legitimate reasons for it, and legitimate ways to use it, but again, it’s naive to think it doesn’t get abused. On one hand, this is a dumb internet diversion most folks just do for fun; but of course, never underestimate the lengths certain types of guys will go to in order to feel like their d!ck is a little bit longer than the next guy’s. Some folks just never feel whole unless they feel like they’re dominating something, or intimidating someone.

All that said, this is a pretty good community, all things considered, and worth the effort and frustration. Most folks active in the forum are willing and able to help, and there are a lot of good ways to have fun. Always happy to chat via sitemail if you’d like.

Posted by PAnthony28 on 8/27/2020 11:25:00 AM (view original):
One season under my belt. Is this stuff, along with the other post by ab, commonplace? Competing against D3 teams with D1 rosters is daunting enough (until you learn recruiting) but when you have people gaming the system or bending rules it's a bit frustrating.
I've not been around long enough to know anything, really, but it seems the Fair Play Guidelines have been taking a beating lately.

the sad thing is, no not really... its pretty rare and basically has very little consequence on the overall winning and losing of games and tournaments. i often think these threads do more harm than good and folks just have a lot of time on their hands :)

Posted by gillispie1 on 8/27/2020 11:48:00 AM (view original):

Posted by PAnthony28 on 8/27/2020 11:25:00 AM (view original):
One season under my belt. Is this stuff, along with the other post by ab, commonplace? Competing against D3 teams with D1 rosters is daunting enough (until you learn recruiting) but when you have people gaming the system or bending rules it's a bit frustrating.
I've not been around long enough to know anything, really, but it seems the Fair Play Guidelines have been taking a beating lately.

the sad thing is, no not really... its pretty rare and basically has very little consequence on the overall winning and losing of games and tournaments. i often think these threads do more harm than good and folks just have a lot of time on their hands :)

“basically has very little consequence on the overall winning and losing of games and tournaments”

Yeah, although I suspect it happens more frequently than you might, I agree the actual effect of these kinds of FPG “violations” is (generally) vastly overstated.

Posted by A_B_G on 8/27/2020 11:31:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 8/27/2020 4:09:00 AM (view original):
im not buying a coach who can seemingly competently coach would think that strategy was a good idea lol, i'm going to err on the side of assuming seble got that part right.

but straight up banning the dude? i would hope that can't be a first offense punishment, that is pretty serious. playing yourself in the NT is pretty rare and pretty neat, i feel like we should only be dictating what a coach does there if its REALLY important. i'm just not buying it is, especially where d2/d3 world are so empty. if you need the rule to stop someone from exploiting at the high end, i sort of sympathize - i have no problem being governed by that rule. but for some random dude, i'm honestly not sure how *anyone* else seems to think such a severe punishment is justified? the whole point is to prevent future behavior. how often do people play themselves in the NT? i mean seriously is this the kind of stuff that keeps you guys up at night... thank god we got this dude who was half way decently coaching two teams in our almost-dead game and replaced them with sims, now we only need to get 3 more cheaters on his level and we'll have balanced out all the bad from corona virus. LETS GO WE CAN DO THIS!!

I think maybe you are overthinking this. No, this type of stuff doesn't keep me up at night -- it's just annoying and easily preventable. I mean, the NT bracket isn't as easy of a fix, but the dude scheduled himself in nonconference as well. Plus, he's in this thread blatantly lying trying to make it seem like he didn't do anything wrong and that he's not actually a multi (if it comes out that he actually ISN'T a multi, I'll print this post out and eat it).

It's just annoying, and it is a violation of the fairplay guidelines imo. But, again, maybe even worse than that is that the guy is in here lying and trying to make it seem like he actually MEANT to run a strategy in which he started his worst player and gave him 100 distro. It's just blatant and dishonest and aggravating. Idk if a lifetime ban is worth it or not, who am I to say, but I think for sure he should lose control of those teams if that's how he is going to behave.

I am not sure I understand the bit at the end of the post about coronavirus? Read it like 5 times and can't make heads or tails of it.

fair enough. the corona virus bit was just me being stupid, i just feel like people get a little overexcited about this stuff... a little too enthusiastic about the pending justice being rained down on some other dude, like it really makes a real positive difference in the world or something. safe to ignore.

i get your point that its annoying that folks aren't following the fair play, but i also think awareness on the part of another party is a pre-requisite to us expecting actions from that other party, and i think that gets taken for granted - a lot of folks don't get into the nitty gritty of this game like some of us do. i also agree about him coming and lying being ******, but i sort of think he has few cards to play at this point - hes desperate. who knows what his personal circumstances are, maybe hes half losing it at home with this covid stuff and this game was one of his few outlets. i guess i tend not to judge folks too harshly once they are cornered, and regardless of his circumstance - at this point, he's cornered. i think we would get more productive results by having dialogue with folks in these circumstances - although that obviously needs to end somewhere, if it comes down to repeated intentional violations. which maybe this is. but the rush to judgement in the early parts of this thread is very much lacking those caveats.

also... playing yourself in non conference... i mean come on - can violations get more petty? competitive coaches would not want to play themselves from a NT seeding standpoint, its not advantageous to play games where you lose half when you are a highly competitive coach who wins far more than half of almost all other matchups. playing yourself is interesting and fun - this is 99% of why people play themselves. CAN someone find a way (carrying a troll team, etc) to exploit it, if this was allowed, to eek out a very small advantage? i'm sure they could. but in general, this is not an advantage, and even when it is abused and is advantage - it just feel so minuscule, so insignificant - do we really want to police others to this level of detail? do we really want others to police us to this level of detail? maybe some of you guys say yes, but god damn, that is a really ****** answer. or maybe some of you can point to some significant harm i am missing - i am certainly open to having my mind changed on that front. as it stands, this seems to me the equivalent of someone not belting up to drive two blocks to the gas stations. is it a violation... technically, of course it is. but seriously can we chill out and give people some damn space to live? just because we have a technical right to intervene, doesn't mean it is the right thing to do. there has to be a moral imperative to protect the rights of someone else - otherwise we are just being ******** on a power trip.

just to be clear - im not arguing all of this should be allowed, in the fair play guidelines. i'm taking exception to the enthusiasm for punishing this guy in what seems to be a pretty not that serious situation (i mean seriously... he went on to play a freaking sim...), and taking exception to the notion that we need to police this stuff just because its technically not allowed. some of these guardrails are needed to prevent someone who comes in and really works to abuse the system to the max, but that doesn't mean we have the turn the guns on every guy who wanders across the line in the sand.

Posted by shoe3 on 8/27/2020 12:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 8/27/2020 11:48:00 AM (view original):

Posted by PAnthony28 on 8/27/2020 11:25:00 AM (view original):
One season under my belt. Is this stuff, along with the other post by ab, commonplace? Competing against D3 teams with D1 rosters is daunting enough (until you learn recruiting) but when you have people gaming the system or bending rules it's a bit frustrating.
I've not been around long enough to know anything, really, but it seems the Fair Play Guidelines have been taking a beating lately.

the sad thing is, no not really... its pretty rare and basically has very little consequence on the overall winning and losing of games and tournaments. i often think these threads do more harm than good and folks just have a lot of time on their hands :)

“basically has very little consequence on the overall winning and losing of games and tournaments”

Yeah, although I suspect it happens more frequently than you might, I agree the actual effect of these kinds of FPG “violations” is (generally) vastly overstated.

thats fair, i definitely allow that i might be naive about how rare this stuff is - but i also sort of don't count technical violations that are only a violation in letter, not in spirit (the NT game throwing is definitely a problem, i 100% agree with that... i wouldn't count for example someone playing themselves fairly in non conf with two teams). i get other folks do count those, and don't object to that. i think the important thing is what we agree on, the actual net effect of all cheating is low... new coaches should be able to take solace in knowing at least 99% of their losses are attributable to fair competition (and the RNG or whatever), not cheating.