Updated Fair Play guidelines: Topic

While simulation games can be an extremely competitive endeavor, it is important to remember that enjoyment of the game is predicated on a certain level of sportsmanship displayed by the participants. Occasionally, some team owners intentionally or unknowingly cross the lines. In addition, participants in WhatIfSports games acknowledge the fact that it is technically not feasible to ensure that each username is controlled by a unique person.
Consequences

At the sole discretion of WhatifSports, any of the below violations may result in sanctions ranging from a warning to an immediate closure of a user's account.

Cheating

All owners must play by the rules and requirements set forth by each game on our site. If an owner discovers a loophole, a way to cheat, or any other method of giving himself an unfair advantage, WhatIfSports reserves the right to take the necessary steps to correct the issue at any time without prior notification. Refunds or roster changes will not be given to any owner in this situation.
Offensive posts

Any post of a derogatory nature is strictly prohibited. This covers any part of the site where custom content may be used -- league forums, world chats, trade chats, trade messages, team names, forums, etc. This includes personal attacks and sexist or racist remarks. There will be a zero tolerance level - if someone in your league or world is violating this policy, please submit a customer support ticket or contact us at [email protected]
Owner interaction

Owners should always be polite and gracious when dealing with one another. Threats and obscenities are not only against the Rules, they are illegal in many jurisdictions. Owners that are found to have made threatening comments to another owner will be warned and/or kicked out of the game completely. This extends to any part of the site allowing custom content.
Impeding other owners

Certain transactions made solely to impede other owners are not allowed. For example, protesting a trade merely to help someone else is strictly prohibited.




Hoops Dynasty & Gridiron Dynasty

More than one team in the same world

One person (regardless of account used) cannot control more than one team in the same world within the same conference or within 1,000 miles or less of one another. Violation of this rule will lead to a forced relocation or removal from one of the teams.

If an owner finds himself in this situation due to accident, he should submit a support ticket and request to have himself transferred to a different school or removed from the world.
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:
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)
Potential punishments

Each infraction is reviewed by customer service with a goal of consistent punishment. Some infractions are more egregious than others and users with a history of violating the guidelines receive stiffer punishment. The below is a list of potential punishments for any of the above infractions:
Warning via sitemail (or conference chat if directed at the conference in general)
Losing recruiting money
Coach reputation hit
Removal of players/recruits (including releasing a signed recruit from a team)
School prestige hit
Removal of coach from team
Banning of user from site
7/2/2012 5:42 PM
anybody see the changes? is it in a different section, like HBD? or is it maybe that be nice to your fellow players and dont threaten them part? i dont really recall that part, but i also wouldnt have really focused on it.
7/2/2012 5:57 PM
There are a lot of changes. There didn't even use to be separate sections for different games.  I'm not sure how I feel about this bit:

Discussing the pursuit of a recruit with another coach, including who is pursuing him and money that might have been spent.

Can't we see who's pursuing the guy from the considering list anyway?  And why can't we tell one another we plan to go after a recruit?  I mean I can see the money bit, and I'm not saying it's ok or even smart to discuss it in great detail.  But is this removing the prerogative for playful banter on the Coaches' Corners?
7/2/2012 6:03 PM
Why would you want to schedule a game against yourself...doesn't seem to make sense.
7/2/2012 6:10 PM
Posted by dahsdebater on 7/2/2012 6:03:00 PM (view original):
There are a lot of changes. There didn't even use to be separate sections for different games.  I'm not sure how I feel about this bit:

Discussing the pursuit of a recruit with another coach, including who is pursuing him and money that might have been spent.

Can't we see who's pursuing the guy from the considering list anyway?  And why can't we tell one another we plan to go after a recruit?  I mean I can see the money bit, and I'm not saying it's ok or even smart to discuss it in great detail.  But is this removing the prerogative for playful banter on the Coaches' Corners?
Telling someone who you are going after serves only to dissaude someone else from going after the same player.  Seems improper to me.

And you can't see who is pursuing, only who is considering. The distinction is meaningful in the context above, where you would be talking about pursuing a player who no one else knows you are pursuing.

I don't think the rule prohibits (or would be interpreted as prohibiting) talking **** to the rival coach who the recruit is also already considering.
7/2/2012 6:14 PM
I wonder if brazenly acting like a rebel gets you on probation out the gate lol...looks like WIS got some duct tape for me ;)
7/2/2012 6:19 PM
Does this mean we cant discuss recruiting after recruiting has ended? 
7/2/2012 7:07 PM
Posted by bscoresby on 7/2/2012 7:07:00 PM (view original):
Does this mean we cant discuss recruiting after recruiting has ended? 
i dont think so. everything ive ever read, from new admin and old, suggests they don't want to hamper the learning process. i think after the fact discussions are allowed, provided no provisions for how to handle future encounters between two schools are included (or anything like that). 

also, the wording there talks in the current tense - the pursuit cannot be discussed, like who a player is pursuing... although they do mention, money that might have been spent. but i think they are talking about, during the active pursuit, you cannot disclose your prior actions. outside of an active pursuit (meaning after recruiting is over, or both schools are clearly finished), i think discussions are totally allowed.

id be curious to know seble's stance on the following though - by the wording provided, you can't discuss a recruiting situation with a coach who is not involved, at least not while its active. i think in a mentor, mentee relationship, this should be allowed, and i suspect WIS was not trying to make that against the rules. but by the wording, it seems against the rules to me.

7/2/2012 7:25 PM
gill, that last issue is the first thing I noticed. A few seasons ago one of my mentees was in his first D I season. In a world where I also had a D I team (although he was in the northeast and I was in the deep south). Working in connection with him, but with lots of input and direction from me, we more or less jointly recruited his first class. I did not share FSS data with him from the south, and he did not recruit out of the basic NE region, while I did not recruit outside of the south (I rarely ventured into the NE area from my southern teams - not really productive...) I'm guessing this would be against the rules? (Hell, maybe some people will say it always was...)
I don't feel that we violated the spirit of the rules, which are meant to foster fairplay and competition. While we did schedule each other for the next few seasons til one of us moved on I don't see that as being a problem. He learned a ton from that experience and went on to recruit his own class (with some Q&A from me, but not the high involvement of the previous season) next time.

So is this kind of thing ok?
7/2/2012 8:06 PM
Based on my understanding from reading this, I would think that even posting on the forums looking for help on recruiting would be considered against the rules. Your thought was my first thought as well upon reading this, dacj501. I talked to a mentor I had a couple seasons ago about recruiting, and his thoughts on potential recruits. He was not in my world, but according to this, this example of correspondence would be considered against the rules. I did notice they added the line in there about throwing a game. Seems that Seble read a recent "hot topic" here on the forums...
7/3/2012 3:15 PM
Posted by gillispie1 on 7/2/2012 7:26:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bscoresby on 7/2/2012 7:07:00 PM (view original):
Does this mean we cant discuss recruiting after recruiting has ended? 
i dont think so. everything ive ever read, from new admin and old, suggests they don't want to hamper the learning process. i think after the fact discussions are allowed, provided no provisions for how to handle future encounters between two schools are included (or anything like that). 

also, the wording there talks in the current tense - the pursuit cannot be discussed, like who a player is pursuing... although they do mention, money that might have been spent. but i think they are talking about, during the active pursuit, you cannot disclose your prior actions. outside of an active pursuit (meaning after recruiting is over, or both schools are clearly finished), i think discussions are totally allowed.

id be curious to know seble's stance on the following though - by the wording provided, you can't discuss a recruiting situation with a coach who is not involved, at least not while its active. i think in a mentor, mentee relationship, this should be allowed, and i suspect WIS was not trying to make that against the rules. but by the wording, it seems against the rules to me.

+1
7/3/2012 3:27 PM
Helping someone recruit in a mentor/mentee relationship should not in any way be impacted here.  I am sure that they are talking about agreements between 2 (or more) coaches and normal recruiting.

Now in the mentor/mentee relationship, if you are helping a new coach on their first couple of recruiting tries, then that should be fine.  If you have been doing it for 3 calendar years for the guy, well then maybe you should stop :)

But during the first season or two for a newbie mentee on every new Division when he gets there, to show/tell him how to recruit should be just fine ... so long as you are not using his FSS data for your team and giving him your FSS data, etc.
7/5/2012 9:16 AM
Posted by colonels19 on 7/2/2012 6:10:00 PM (view original):
Why would you want to schedule a game against yourself...doesn't seem to make sense.
i know a coach that did this every season. easy win for the better of the two teams...not sure about any other benefit.
7/5/2012 10:31 AM
Posted by jtt8355 on 7/5/2012 10:31:00 AM (view original):
Posted by colonels19 on 7/2/2012 6:10:00 PM (view original):
Why would you want to schedule a game against yourself...doesn't seem to make sense.
i know a coach that did this every season. easy win for the better of the two teams...not sure about any other benefit.
i think its 100% for fun. most good coaches would agree, if you had 2 teams, a win and a loss would NOT be in your best interest. i personally see only 1 issue, which is the potential to put a very edge case setup in place with 1 team, to learn with the other, but at 1 game a season - good luck! i don't think that is what CS was after, either. i think they just know some coaches find it shady. but i also don't think those are coaches who have really thought through playing with both teams... ive never noticed anyone NOT try on both teams when they played themselves, so i don't think there is a padding for the better team going on, just something fun to do for some coaches. ive never played myself in the regular season but i have in the NT, and i can tell you, i was quite sad to be doing so. i mean its cool but 50% is not a mark i generally shoot for...   :)
7/5/2012 11:12 AM
Posted by dacj501 on 7/2/2012 8:06:00 PM (view original):
gill, that last issue is the first thing I noticed. A few seasons ago one of my mentees was in his first D I season. In a world where I also had a D I team (although he was in the northeast and I was in the deep south). Working in connection with him, but with lots of input and direction from me, we more or less jointly recruited his first class. I did not share FSS data with him from the south, and he did not recruit out of the basic NE region, while I did not recruit outside of the south (I rarely ventured into the NE area from my southern teams - not really productive...) I'm guessing this would be against the rules? (Hell, maybe some people will say it always was...)
I don't feel that we violated the spirit of the rules, which are meant to foster fairplay and competition. While we did schedule each other for the next few seasons til one of us moved on I don't see that as being a problem. He learned a ton from that experience and went on to recruit his own class (with some Q&A from me, but not the high involvement of the previous season) next time.

So is this kind of thing ok?
posed the ? to CS:

7/4/2012 11:54 AM Customer Support
Darryl,

In the case of recruiting, try to stick with generalizations and high level advice, but what you're describing is unlikely to cross the line. We obviously don't want to discourage mentoring of newer coaches in any way.

We're not out to punish anyone, so it really comes down to common sense. The fair play guidelines were updated to give some examples of the types of actions that can cross the line, but there is always a gray area. If someone complains we'll use our best judgement to be fair based on the specific circumstances.

7/5/2012 11:15 AM
1|2|3...10 Next ▸
Updated Fair Play guidelines: Topic

Search Criteria

Terms of Use Customer Support Privacy Statement

© 1999-2024 WhatIfSports.com, Inc. All rights reserved. WhatIfSports is a trademark of WhatIfSports.com, Inc. SimLeague, SimMatchup and iSimNow are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts, Inc. Used under license. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.