So is there not an option of just creating an account type, which teachers must apply to get, that makes all games unranked, but appear to be ranked in the game settings.
In other words, special accounts that always appear to be playing ranked games, but that actually exist outside the ranking system? It might be mildly annoying to a player that wins a “ranked” game and doesn’t gain points. But at least people won’t be losing points to sandbaggers… I mean teachers.
Certainly not yet. There has been a lot of banter about special “teaching tools/accounts” with lots of great ideas. I too would like to see such features one day, but the list of planned features and improvements is long 
He has played a few unranked games in, I think, the Basics series. I distinctly remember his comment that he didn’t usually do that because it was hard to get unranked games in the range he typically plays in (say 11k and stronger).
I also think this would be the ideal solution.
I would disagree that having a setting that tricks people into playing unranked games is good. I don’t think it would really look good for the server either. (While the glicko system can be confusing as apparently it takes a few games to adjust rank/rating, I’ve seen forum posts where people say their rating didn’t change after a game. That can confuse people as is without secret unranked games…)
Regarding the problem of opponents playing differently - I think in part, this is highly subjective. I agree that it is possible that if you know someone is making a series/streaming where they either pretend to be a weaker player or won’t punish mistakes too severely, then maybe you’ll play differently. Or for instance if you’re playing unranked maybe you try some things that are unusual or out there and hence don’t play ‘normally’.
For the first part if you know the account/stream you can probably know what to expect, making a teaching account with hidden unranked games or freezing/resetting a ranking won’t fix that. That’s just an inherent problem with being popular.
However the second part I think is highly subjective: whether you think an opponent you probably don’t know is playing ‘properly’, ‘usually’ or ‘normally’.
Dwyrin had a video recently ( here) where he mentions he was getting annoyed by what he thought was a player who knew Dwyrin was playing for his basics series, and was intentionally not protecting his groups. Then upon further reflection and looking into that players past games realised that said player had lost games due to life and death situations.
My point would be you don’t really have to be well rounded as a player to be an amateur.
So whether you call a game normal based on some notions you have of how an x kyu or y dan should play probably isn’t a good basis to trick people into unranked games.
I think this is especially true if there’s an intended outcome from the games, that surely random pairing and playing with people on the internet can’t always fulfil.
I for one am totally against luring honest and trustful (= naïve?) players into such games.
So as not to come off sounding completely negative, here’s a few suggestions off the top of my head.
What about some sort anonymous pairing/hidden rank system, where you don’t see someone’s rank (or name?) until after the game. I’ve seen games like fortnite allow streamers for instance to come up as anonymous so they’re not stream sniped/targeted. Obviously in this instance it’s more so you wouldn’t say “oh that’s one of dwyrins accounts, I’m going to play something crazy for fun” and maybe you’ll just play as usual? You can keep the usual rank options/settings/restrictions etc in place.
To attempt to improve/solve the whole ranking up past the x kyu teaching account you want to keep problem ; potentially making new accounts or asking for ranks to be reset.
How about making a special streamer/teacher/content creator class for approved users. I mean there’s professional ranks that are purple right? 1p 2p etc like for the transatlantic go tournament, and haylee plays on here etc. Maybe this could be editable so that it appears as 14t or 14s etc (some special letter). I don’t exactly know how the pro rankings work on here, but maybe there could be a way that you can’t gain or lose rating with this class, but if you wanted could still award players who play against it the appropriate ranking change provided the account was at the correct settings. The ideal situation being that teachers can play ranked games and not worry about inflating the rank, and players can get deserved win/loss. Or maybe they only stand to win points for instance since it probably is a stronger player pretending to be a lower rank.
Seconded.
Here’s what I think.
I think that the original poster is correct, and that Dwyrin would be welcome to play his teaching games here as ranked.
I don’t think it’s an actual problem if he were to do so.
As I said, when it was happening, it was a known exception to the sandbagging policies, and it was an exception because the benefits outweigh the negatives.
He rarely plays here anyhow. What - maybe once a month?? One game a month where a person gets to play against one of the best teachers around, and suffer a loss. Big deal?
If it were me, and I discovered I had been duped into playing Dwyrin, I would first feel very embarrased to have my play on show, then I would get over it and learn learn learn from that game and the associated lesson dedicated to my play.
We have never (to my knowledge) had a person apply for a Dwyrin game to be annulled because it was “not fair”. If we did get such a request, I have no doubt we would act on it.
If any other person wants to make a case for their sandbagging being for the greater good, they are welcome to do so. I have not seen any other person in a similar position to Dwyrin, where such a case would be accepted, but it would be a welcome thing if there were such another resource available to the community.
Of course, right now even this is academic because Dwyrin is currently chosing to play unranked to avoid this very issue.
If it were up to me, I would do as the original poster said, and welcome him to get more games here by playing ranked.
EuG
Well to OP’s defense “people” are now getting tricked into ranked games they cannot win. Given the two options I would argue this way would be slightly better 
But indeed it feels dishonest, and I think once we really start considering teaching accounts and tools we could come up with better solutions. But that might be way down the road still
I wouldn’t even think the OP needs any defense, it makes sense to accommodate dwyrin and similar.
I mean the issue of sandbagging is a wider problem which will possibly happen independent of this situation, so some people will still be tricked into ranked games against stronger opponents.
However I think the better solution is like with the recent discussion of ai deciding correspondence games:
have the person who has asked to play a ranked game only stand to gain points if they beat someone pretending to be at their level and not lose points if they lose. Why should they stand to lose something when they’re playing an intentionally under-ranked player who is being accommodated. If this can happen in a way that the teachers account doesn’t rank up with a win all the better. So if one could make an account type as Double Sente mentioned (minus the tricking people) so that the teacher doesn’t rank up all the better.
I think this is better (if implementable) than tricking them into an unranked game. It solves the problems of
(4.) if you can do a ui implementation that hides/anonymises a player rank and/or name until the end of the game, then this would solve the problem that you might know during the game that this person is some content creator and hence play differently.
I also agree with Eugene’s points, I wouldn’t have a problem if I found out after that I was playing Dwyrin albeit the potential embarrassment of being beaten and have a video made pointing out all my flaws to help people learn more about the game 
I’m sure I’d learn lots too. Not all people might appreciate this, but maybe that’s another discussion.
Uhm … teaching/learning from a teacher is an agreement between teacher and student, right? And usually it includes mutual respect …
And where, resp. whom, does Dwyrin really “teach”? Yeah, I know that he shows his audience things by beating up unsuspecting players (or sometimes getting beaten up) … do you really call this “teaching”?
And what he seems to lack (as far as I can tell, haven’t seen many of his videos) is the “respect” part.
I share your feelings, but we seem to be in the minority. I should say he is without question the undisputed #1 rated English speaking go teacher… regardless of whether I like or agree with his content, that seems to be the community consensus. I can’t think of anyone who could even be considered close.
Maybe undisputed #1 Go-stream-to-youtube uploader.
I don’t describe what he does in the way that you do, and absolutely yes I call it teaching.
It taught me a lot.
I might say that thin-skinned people appear to be unable to appreciate his dry sense of humour, by way of response in the same tone of voice as your observation… 
I disagree that this is a suitable replacement statement.
But I would love to be corrected by learning who is the undisputed #1 rated English speaking Go teacher. Who did you have in mind?
Probably Yang Yi-Lun but you could argue in favor of Mingjiu Jiang as well.
Nice!
I guess the quibble is reduced to removing the label of “teacher” then.
If you had said “Maybe undisputed #1 Streaming Go teacher” that would be easy to agree with.
Maybe the one with the most followers … and, well, yeah, I also remember that bully in school who used to say “C’mon ’ere, I’ll teach you.” And I saw a few times how he “taught”. Still not a teacher in my book. Had quite a following, often gleeful with schadenfreude. Still not a teacher.
BUT yeah, I honestly appreciate a few of his real teaching videos (i.e. lessons), this here is just about the attitude of creeping in under camouflage and … s a n d b a g g i n g … but no, for me it’s rather about supporting this by giving him special privileges while at the same time deceiving unsuspecting OGS users by making them think it’s a ranked game etc., etc. … PARDON ME?
No, please … let’s think in some other direction.
For example (just pipe dreaming) something like … y’all know video games? “Boss“ levels? Where you meet a special super-strong meanie?
So… maybe …
Make some deal with Dwyrin,
implement a new feature: Boss Level.
– a new game challenge option: “Allow Boss Level”, and the same “Allow Boss Level” option in player preferences
– so that the stranger whose game challenge a user accepts, or who accepts their challenge, could be Dwyrin in disguise but they may not realize this during the game.
Communicate this w/ banners and forum announcement and all, make it transparent for users, i.e. tell them clearly what this means: that their opponent may be “The Boss”.
Make it optional, and make it disabled per default, i.e. only with informed consent
Give Dwyrin a new random username for every of his sprees.
Otherwise, IMHO, we make ourselves accomplices in a setup that could cause a faithful OGS user embarrassment and/or annoyance, and I do not want to be an accomplice in this.
Maybe I have misunderstood some of the suggestions I’ve read further above, in which case just forget all that you’ve just read 
Sorry for the perhaps somewhat chaotic text, it’s late, and I jumped back and forth while editing and thus may have
BTW I’d still prefer the word “game invitation”.
FWIW I’m with you on this one.