Accused of cheating

Oh I understand now, you wrote “the participants”… Didn’t catch that restrictive meaning.

2 Likes

I think there’s some confusion.

^^ This is not the same as the game was misscored. This is specifically the game was misscored because you cheated, or the game was scored fine in the end but you still tried to cheat.

What I’m saying is that when we’re not sure someone is cheating, even if you just want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the game is very clearly misscored then a softer message of the form

“(It can to our attention that) game #… was misscored. Please take care to score games correctly. If you have any issues with scoring and deciding which groups are dead we are happy to help or link you to somewhere to read further”.

Something along those lines.

Surely this can be seen as an entirely different message and not at all what the other message is addressing?

I’m pretty sure misscored games, like if both players did nothing in correspondence or both left the live game and it ended up in incorrectly score would have to end up in “Score cheating”. Where else would it go?

3 Likes

It says accepting the correct score, not accepting the score. So the option of changing it exists to let you make it correct

1 Like

I see what you mean now - a report that was filed as “score cheating” but really the reporter meant “innocently mis-scored”. In which case the game log will not show an argument about the score.

What would happen with this is that the CMs would escalate it, because there is no suitable message for that case, and a moderator would handle it with custom communication.

We could add a vote-option saying “no fault, this game just needs to be annulled”. I’ll wait to see if there’s any volume of this kind of thing to make it worth it.

3 Likes

For readers who didn’t understand right away, CM means Community Moderator.

For one moment I misunderstood...

Not Conrad Melville

2 Likes

My comment states nothing regarding the “harshness” of that message. The issue I newly added to this thread is that the message is also factually wrong.

The new message is indeed much better than the previous one. You did also indeed act swiftly. These are two good things I applaud you on.

For the new message you implemented one could still argue that the change was not “incorrect”. The decision of Life and Death of groups lies in the hand of the players playing the game, see §7 as well as §9.2 of the Japanese Go Ruleset. This means that the group in question is actually alive because both players agreed that it is, and therefore the scoring was correct.

The only entities violating the rules here are actually the OGS CMs, §10.4 clearly states that it is illegal to change the result of a Go game after both players confirmed it. OGS CMs did “annul” the game after the confirmation which in my opinion constitutes a “change of result” and is therefore a violation according to the official Japanese Go rules.

In the end, the fact that “score cheating” is even a thing on OGS stems from the inadequate UX design (again). These auto-messages are just a weird band-aid trying to shift blame to the users instead of fixing the design.

1 Like

I think that part is kind of debateable. Imagine you were playing on an electronic go board and the go board itself decided on which groups were alive and dead and what the score was - it would be hard to say that the players agreed to it, without knowing more context.

In fact when one player comes to you after and says the score this electronic board decided on was wrong, and I can’t change it. That would be more akin to what it’s like sometimes playing online.

We won’t debate the specifics of the game in this thread, but generally you might even have accepted the score and then suddenly within a second of you seeing something, the state changes and you still click accept without noticing it changed.

I don’t think quoting the Japanese rules really makes sense here.

If you don’t use the rules of Go to play the game of Go which rules do you use then? The action of the player is also not incorrect according to the OGS-ToS, so in what way is it incorrect then?

If the Go board decides on this itself without asking you, then it is violating the Japanese rules of Go by doing that. It is also questionable if you can play Go at all with a “Go board” since §1 states that the game needs to be played by two “players”. Merriam-Webster seems to specify that a player is a “person”. Therefore according to my interpretation you cannot play against an AI using the Japanese rules of Go in the first place.

1 Like

Well what would you quote if the game was played according to Chinese rules, or New Zealand rules oe AGA rules which are also options on OGS?

My point is that I don’t think it makes sense to follow an over the board ruleset for a specific go association to the letter, when discussing an online game.

I can agree the scoring phase needs work, maybe we should even host our own version of these rules on OGS (OGS Japanese rules, OGS Chinese rules etc) with caveats taking into account online play.

1 Like

You seem to be a pretty smart guy, I’m sure you can figure this one out yourself.

Yes and my point is that if you tell players of this platform that they are “doing something incorrectly/illegally” or even “cheating” and even annul their games afterwards, then you should have something to base that on. Seems to me that the “rule” that was “violated” in this case does not actually exist.

Score cheating is described in detail here: Scoring (the stone removal phase)

Players are required to promptly select the correct score.

Please don’t be the person who causes trouble by wrongly marking the board to see if you can trick your opponent into accepting a wrong score. If you see this happening, click the “call moderator” button in the right side panel and report it.

I guess your issue is that there is no mention of score cheating in the ToS. I think I agree with you on that, and we should link to a place that actually mentions score cheating instead in the moderator message.

I have already escalated multiple reports for “annul only” treatment since December. I even brought up the idea of a vote option for that in one CM thread, so I strongly favor the idea.

2 Likes

Miracles do exist! I’m very surprised that you actually agree with something I say for once :slight_smile:

1 Like

:joy: Unfortunately, I’m on record saying the ToS is too liberally cited, I can’t go back on it just to spite you

it’s still pronounced Paduk though :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

2 Likes

Miss Piggy hits kermit

3 Likes

Thanks a lot for the link. I agree with the point you’re making in that thread and heavily disagree with the OGS mod’s point of view. When I wrote in this thread I thought that the mod team just forgot to add clear rules or maybe didn’t know how to specify such rules. But reading through that thread it turns out that this was done on purpose. Quote OGS mod:

The problem with any written document of this nature is that it invites armchair lawyers.

So basically the OGS mod team has kept the ToS as vague as possible on purpose, so that they don’t have to actually base their actions on anything but instead are able to rule arbitrarily with an iron fist. The plan is that the community members cannot argue about something that hasn’t been specified in the first place. Wow, to me that seems to be a ridiculous point of view.

We got off to a bad start with that one. I think it’s great that I’m not the only Korean speaking player on this site and in the end I’m sure we can both agree that it’s pronounced 바둑 anyways :smiley:

2 Likes

This response comes from a place of such “negative intent” that it is hard to know how to respond.

There is no-one in the moderation team who “wants to rule arbitrarily with an iron fist”. The OGS moderation team continuously consults with the community on moderation policy, and implements the prevailing views the best they are able - noting that an actual concensus on many issues isn’t possible in a diverse community.

The TOS is intended to say “play according to the rules and don’t be obnoxious”. It’s not the job of the TOS to say what the rules are - its role is to say that if you participate here you are required participate by them - in whatever form they take.

Contrary to your position above, it is entirely possible to argue about something that hasn’t been specified in a document. We do this all the time - we say “what about this situation, what do you all think?”. In this particular case it’s absolutely absurd to argue that “it isn’t written down you aren’t allowed to score cheat”.

The one thing we can agree on is that perhaps we’re not achieving much by referring to TOS in any warning messages, other than inviting armchair lawyers to argue about them.

As you can see, reference to the TOS has been removed from the message in question.

5 Likes

Reading through my comments again, I have to admit that I worded them quite strongly. I think that overall the moderation team is doing a great job and I will try to be more diplomatic in the future.

Regardless of that, I strongly disagree with your approach for the reasons outlined in my previous comment.

2 Likes

Thanks for that. I really appreciate it when a person can see how they came across and acknowledge it.

Discussing disagreements is something that works well in good spirit - when we assume that each person is here with good intent.

Can you clarify the approach you disagree with, and how you think it could be done better?

At the moment my impression is that you disagree with “general policies who’s details are adjusted in practice”, and want to see “written rules that cover all decisions that need to be made”, whereas (my view of) the current approach is “general policies, with written rules where things are clear, and discussions and policies formed in line with current concensus as best we can”.

1 Like

Based on my experience in the real world outside this forum: if it’s done badly, you say “arbitrarily”; if it’s done well, you say “using judgement”. Leaving the rules vague isn’t the same as having no rules. In fact, setting up a system to be principles-based rather than rule-bound, so as to leave room for good administrators/moderators/judges to actually do the things they do well, is a common strategy. I think it’s a reasonable position for a site like this one.

11 Likes