The first time I lost an easily won game due to score fiddling, nothing happenned. I thought, ok, maybe that’s how it works and tried it once myself upon which I got a severe warning. Since then I have encountered several players who try to cheat on the machine scoring. Usually a warning is enough to dissuade them. But today I played [redacted] (yes, I’m deliberately naming and shaming) who tried to cheat SEVERAL TIMES DURING THE SAME GAME. I warned him yet he continued, repeatedly and deliberately on several passes. I had to raise 3 reports to ensure he was caught on the act (it was a fast game so timing was of the essence). I think he may even have tried it when the morerator had arrived. What’s more, when people do that you are stuck on the clock and game while time/moves are running out. It really frustrates and puts you off playing. I don’t think people like that should get a simple warning - they should be banned!
The player has been banned. In the future, please don’t “name and shame.” It’s not the culture that we want to foster, and we have enough moderators that “self-help” isn’t necessary.
It’s not my style to do so but in this case I had to do something since on one else was. Here’s a question: if I hadn’t created this post would that player have been banned?
Yes, actually. Another user reported them for the same thing right after our warning. So we would have caught them.
Well, it was not just that he cheated but the despicable deliberate repetitive manner that he did so in the face of my warnings, and even in the presence of a moderator eventually, that got me really upset. And the fact that he went on and did it again right after the altercation with me and the warning from you proves my point. Extreme measures for extreme circs. And by the way, I probably encounter a cheat on average about once a day! At least the rest have the decency to conform once I’ve warned them. So don’t worry, I’m not on a rampage, and I certainly appreciate this site’s code of conduct
IMO, if he got fact to back it up, “name and shame.” is perfectly legitimate.
The absolute number one problem we have with tracking down and appropriately dealing with cheats on a case by case basis is that a lot of people choose not to report them. We don’t need naming and shaming on the forums, we just need reports to our private moderator service so we can appropriately investigate each case.
good thing you’re not a mod. this isn’t up for a vote. naming and shaming is not ok
One thing we occasionally get is impatient people saying “I reported this person, you did nothing, they should have been banned”.
These are ironically the same type of people who complain that they didn’t get warned (when they did) after a ban.
We have a very solid system of warning before banning, and I can assure you that when you report, action is taken. Depending on the moderator, you’ll get told exactly what action was taken. It won’t necessarily be instant ban, because that might not be appropriate yet.
As Bhydden said, the limit to fixing up bad behaviour here is getting it reported properly in the first place.
Three reports have no more effect than one. Indeed, they often cause confusion and slow down a resolution if multiple mods take separate reports. We urge players not to report the incident multiple times. Score cheating gets the highest priority here because time is so crucial. On many occasions I have stopped working on a case in progress (such as an escaper) the moment I see a score cheating case turn up. BTW, there are a few cases where a noob accidentally clicks something and doesn’t know what to do to fix the mistake. Hence the single warning we give.
I suppose I should add that I often monitor games in progress from thumbnails on the overview page. I have witnessed and stopped dozens of score cheaters in the act. So look out, score cheaters, I’m invisible.
If you’re playing on a mobile, it is almost impossible to use the tool correctly. At least that was my experience a couple years ago when I played heavily from my mobile.
Correct, we are a volunteer team and unfortunately we do not have total 24/7 coverage… sometimes real life is just more important… but every report gets looked at as soon as a mod is available.
reporting each case of abuse exactly once is the best way to keep the site an amazing place for everybody (except trolls) 
I explained in my original text why in that instance i raised 3: I wanted the moderator to catch the guy red-handed within the confines of a fast clocked game.
Guys, I understand all that. You are volunteers and we are certainly glad you do this. But then which is it: you don’t have the time but then we should raise a report for every incident??? And since you are volunteers how can you then say: oh, only the mods are allowed to handle this. Surely a bit of cooperative effort from everyone is better!?
more reports make our job easier. one of the time sinks is that we have to look at a lot of a player’s history to see if the behaviour is repeat or once off since we can’t assume that they’ll be reported as we’d like. Even if it sounds counter intuitve, more unique reports (not copies) actually makes less work for us overall.
Also, we have enough total time… we just can’t guarantee a response time of 5s at any given hour of any given day. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t, but the report always gets addressed.
Lynch mobs only make more work for us. We have access to information that normal users do not, which allows us to make a more informed decision. Also, players being allowed to publically accuse other players for anything they want with little to no presented evidence is an insanely dangerous precedent to set.
If someone creates multiple reports for one incident, I don’t bother to work on them until they’re several days old.
I’ll stop you there:
- “Lynch mobs”?
- accuse… “for anything”?
Aren’t you over-dramatizing and generalizing a very specific situation???
As for reporting: fine! From now on I’ll simply follow your instruction and report every single cheat I come across. (I do see the point about maintaining accurate reporting but again: overkill? Common sense?)
It seems almost everything has been said already, but let me also chime in with a little reminder.
Given the current world situation we have much more new registrations than we used to as people are trying to find new hobbies to fill time. That by turn means that some of those new players are not (yet) serious about Go and they can mess around. BUT, many of those new players are just misinformed or honestly do not know what is happening.
Bots (that most new players start on) do not require the stone removal phase so suddenly when playing a human people do not know what is happening and why the game is not ending so they “click around”, a good portion of our new accounts are probably kids, and there are other common scenarios where I believe there is not really a bad intention.
What I am saying is, whoever encounters such a case, try not to let it ruin your day. If you have the patience, try asking politely whther there is some problem with the scoring, if not, just report - if I am online I will try explaining for you - and just move on. After all it is just a game. Your rank will grow either way, and once you are out of the completely beginning ranks, score cheating becomes very rare in my experience. It is unfortunate, but I am afraid unavoidable. Some people just mess around, don’t let them get to you 
We will do our best to minimaze the problem.