What to do against score cheating

Support
79

We have a system that makes it actively easy to cheat, but we aren’t going to change it to a system that makes it hard to cheat - because there might still be some way?

I feel like a crucial point is missed in this discussion. There is a perfectly easy and if done proper on lower levels undetectable way of cheating - using an Ai. It’s not about wether there might be some difficult form or way to cheat with a different system. We all know the perfect way to cheat.
Score cheating is like the kindergarden way of loosing a board game, being mad, throwing it away and saying: “What? I didn’t loose. Prove it.”
I’m pretty sure the majority of score cheaters aren’t perpetual cheaters that don’t want to play a fair game (they simply would use ai). It’s mostly people that are using the extremely easy way given by the website to have an outlet for their grief.

And it’s happening way to often and regularly on lower levels to not do anything about it. It happened 4 times in 15-20 games* to my gf when around 15kyu and it recently happened to me in an, no kidding, unranked match by a 20 kyu.

Yes there might be an exploit with a different system, this is not about finding a system without an exploit, it’s about not having a system that makes it especially easy.

We need to think about the possible exploits of a different system, no doubt. But the current one - and I can’t stress this enough is hurting people that are new to Go and possibly their interest in the game.

*Possibly some of them really had no clue after 100 matches that something without any eyes is dead, but even then, the current system leads to a lot of matches with wrong result on lower levels

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80

Can we get some of the griefers to chime in on what could be done to reduce griefing? “Moar technology” usually doesn’t fix social problems (quite the opposite).

Maybe we need OGS social workers. :slight_smile:

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81

Are you saying that removing the easy way to cheat, will lead to more cheating - so we should keep the easy way to cheat?

You can’t change that people are disappointed when they loose, but can try to prevent them from letting it out on their opponent

82

Just so we’re clear. Your proposed solution was to

  1. let anoek rewrite the backend code to allow for game results to be changed after the fact
  2. let the mods handle it.

Sure, that would be very convenient, but sounds quite unfeasible.

But nevermind that, my ‘technology doesn’t solve social problems’ comment is about forced AI scoring. After all, your proposed measure, as we can see above, is only partly technological and relies heavily on human resources.

You can’t change that people are disappointed when they loose, but can try to prevent them from letting it out on their opponent

How does your proposed measure prevent any of these annoyances, again?

83

There are ways to gamify this, like the “overwatch” system in Dota 2. Put the games that were marked in a specific way into a pool and then let people who are stronger by X ranks to vote whether the scoring was wrong (the griefer punished) or right (nothing happens). If the minigame by itself doesn’t provide enough gratification you can hand out the supporter tag that would last one day, or something along the lines.

It’s way too grandiose and cumbersome, so I’m just going to leave it here for the brainstorming purposes.

1 Like
84

So in your opinion all proposed ideas here are bad. I’m okay with that.
But still, there is a problem, where the community would benefit greatly from, if we were to find good ideas and with that a solution.

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87

I believe the blue timer wasn’t resetting to indicate this in the
relevant game I had today, so I’m mentioning here that, to preserve a win,
one apparently does need to come back each 5 minutes to fix the scoring:

Keeping the tab open is (from what I recall) not enough, even if the blue
timer is at 0.0 and one fixed the scoring once after that timer reached ​ 0.0 .

1 Like
88

IMHO I wouldn’t consider playing live games on OGS at all.
Because OGS doesn’t have any way to unilaterally end the game, and there is no way to freeze the game and wait for Moderator.

For me, the only reason to play on OGS is that OGS is the only platform with corresponding games.
In the corresponding game of Go, stall and score cheating are impossible, unless the platform does not have a Moderator.
When these two happen, I just need to calmly press the Call Moderator, and then go to play other games.
(Alright, alright, unless you play games where absolute time or step time and main time are less than 1 day. But it’s stupid to play such a game, it’s your problem.)

But in live games, the OGS system does not provide any protection against stalls and score cheating at all!
There’s no way to stop these two without the Moderator stepping in immediately!
You will waste a lot of time just playing clicker games with cheaters.

The cheater just has to wait until you have to leave and he wins.
If you can wait until the cheater leaves, the cheater has achieved his goal. Because he succeeded in wasting your time, and you just got what you deserved, which is really stupid.

And in many cases, even if you have time to play clicker games with cheaters, it won’t help.
Cheaters can also press Resume!
He can keep filling your or his territory with stones until you time out, especially if this is an absolute time or biltz game.
Even if it’s a lot of time, it’s tiring to check the atari and prevent the opponent from doing double eye on your territory.
You blunder, you lose.
You defended successfully, you thought you won?
No! Cheaters can also Pass, Resume, Pass, Resume, Pass, Resume!

You might say that cheaters will be punished by Moderator.
Yes, cheaters will be penalized, they will be banned.
But then what?
Your game was cancelled, the win you deserved was not given to you. (Unless you spend a lot of time defending games you should have won.)

This is so stupid!
If the Moderator cannot change the result of the game afterwards, will it be difficult to add a mechanism to force scoring or freeze the game to wait for the Moderator?
I don’t understand, really.

For live games.
I only play on Fox.
Fox is not only the moderator processing speed is very fast, even if the moderator does not intervene, I can press the mandatory score after 350 moves, or the smart referee.
Either way, the problem of cheating can be solved.

There’s another reason I love playing live games at Fox.
That is, I don’t really need to close the border and fill dame.
I can press the request to score at any time, as long as the opponent agrees, confirm the score, and then it can end.
This approach can also let the opponent know that I don’t want to play anymore and I want to end the game.
If I have to waste time in every live game of Go just to close the border and fill dame, or finish a game where I have already led by 50 or even 100 points, then I would rather never play live games.

89

Is that strictly true though?

I haven’t played on Fox, but I’m come across people on WBaduk that

and then did this every single move when they were losing, so you had to keep closing this dialogue box to reject scoring or wait for it to disappear.

I think if you actually rejected it enough times the game was just adjourned for moderator decision.

That said maybe it should be a consideration to be able to freeze the game in scoring anyway. During the game, possibly also.

I suppose once it’s implemented in a good way, hopefully it can minimise ways that it can be abused, because there’s no point in just replacing one problem with another.

There’s always the resign button as well in cases when someone just doesn’t want to play anymore.

This is only important in area scoring rules, so you can skip that on OGS too. Closing the borders is kind of part of the game of Go. Sometimes you need additional defensive moves after the borders are closed, sometimes there’s sekis or kos that people don’t realise when they fill dame.

90

No, you only have three chances to ask for a score calculation.
Once you run out of three chances, you can only finish the game using Smart Referee or Forced Scoring.

If both players pass, the score is also forced.
By the way, you only have 3 chances to pass.
I remember that both players have used up 3 passes, even if the passes are not consecutive, the score will be calculated.
In short, there is no way to permanently delay the game.

If I lose, I will resign.
But the problem is when I’m already ahead by 50 or even 100 points, it’s a real waste of time.
It doesn’t make sense to ask me to resign ahead, right?
OGS even prohibits this behavior (sandbagging).

OGS requires players to close the territory before they can score, and before that you can’t even ask the opponent to resign.
Even if the opponent fills the dame and invades your territory after closing the border, you cannot ask the opponent to pass.
That’s right, I know it’s the player’s right to finish a game, and it’s rude to even ask an opponent not to continue.
But, I really don’t want to waste tens of minutes just clicking, clicking, clicking like a robot.
I want to play the game, not be played by the game.

91

You could also play unranked games, when you don’t want to play a game out to the end and resign it whenever you want.

This still sounds like it can be abused though, if you run out of passes, if the position can’t really be scored accurately because of open borders. I don’t know that there should really be a nuclear option to force your opponent to stop playing just because they’re losing, otherwise you can probably do it when you’re just 10 points ahead, not 50 or 100.

I mean I do understand it. I just think there needs to be a right way that can’t be abused.

Probably the option to freeze the scoring, pause the game for a moderator to decide could be a good starting point.

92

First, requiring scoring requires the consent of the opponent.
If the opponent agrees to score when the territory is not closed or the dame is not filled and the score is wrong and the game is lost, that is his problem.
Because agreeing to score and confirming the score requires the opponent’s consent.

Secondly, it is also his problem to pass without closing or filling dame in the territory.
Even on Fox, there is no need to use Pass at all.
Even waiting for 350 moves to force scoring doesn’t give any reason to use the Pass.
I don’t think it’s a problem, I never press the button.
It is more used by cheaters.
Because he doesn’t want to end close games (especially 0.5 points), and wants to force the opponent to play and change the result.

Finally, I admit that automatic scoring is definitely going to be problematic.
Smart Referee is available after the territory is closed and the dame is filled.
Even so, it may have a misjudgment of life and death. (Though I haven’t encountered one.)
After the smart referee is started, the game is forced to end, and the player has no chance to prevent the wrong score.
But Fox’s Moderators have the right to change the outcome of the game, and they act very fast.
So, I don’t need to play clicker games with cheaters at all.

Secondly, even if Moderator is like in OGS, it cannot change the result of the game, it can only cancel it.
Such an automatic scoring system is also far better than the current situation of OGS.
I’m not asking for automatic scoring, but at the very least, there should be a way to end the game at the last minute.
If I make the points where the opponent can lay down stones, all of which are Suicide (well, don’t tell me the New Zealand rules, it’s absolutely not recognized as Go), can I end the game?
still can not!
As I said, the opponent can pass and resume repeatedly, and the game will never end.

If I were asked to make a suggestion, I would say that if both players pass after Resume (that is, four consecutive passes), automatic scoring is forced.
If you insist on saying that there is a problem with automatic scoring, well, we score according to the Tromp-Taylor rule, so there will be no controversy, right?

Of course, such extremes cannot solve the problem.
Practically speaking, I hope at least like Fox, after 350 moves, players can press the mandatory score.

93

I guess that is quite a big difference overall.

I wouldn’t trust our current autoscore to decide results of games without the players being able to accept or reject it, when we can’t change the results.

I think it’s only far better when you can make it agree with what an observer might expect the result should be. I’m not sure what that automatic scoring system should be in the middle game, endgame without borders closed, while it might be clearer at the scoring stage, even now our autoscore would do with being patched up a bit.

It doesn’t really work at all with Japanese rules. You lose a lot of points having to capture dead stones.

94

I know, I’m just kidding.
There are always people who say there is something wrong with automatic scoring.
Well, I said simply calculate the score according to the Tromp-Taylor rule, there is absolutely no dispute, haha.

For now, I hope that the automatic scoring system of OGS can at least fight against cheaters, without the intervention of Moderator.
Automatic scoring can be scored without closing the territory and filling the dame. I hope there will be in the future, but it is not now, and it is not the main topic of this post.
I wish there was at least a mechanism where say 350 moves would press an auto-score.
This is far better than players not being able to find a Moderator to deal with, and having to cancel the match afterwards.
Players can move 350 times while waiting for the Moderator.

As for the autograding errors…
Anyway, you need at least 350 moves to press auto scoring.
350 moves can definitely define life and death.
Why can’t life and death be confirmed after 350 moves? I can’t imagine it.

Of course, Japanese rule moves cost you points.
However, Pass and Resume will also accumulate the number of moves, and can still trigger automatic scoring at 350 moves, so it is not a problem at all.

2 Likes
95

I’ve been using this button:

Screenshot_20230826_075340_Firefox

1 Like
96

There’s no reason for me to resign while leading, especially in ranked games.
OGS even forbids you to resign while leading because you will mess with the ranking system.

Of course, you will say that you don’t have to play rankings, but this sentence is obviously unreasonable.
Because I just want to play ranked, it’s better to say that you don’t have to play on OGS.
Yes, I do not play live games on OGS.

97

Reason: you don’t have the patience to continue.

Or yeah don’t play live I guess. All I’m saying is we have similar dispositions (I don’t like playing “decided” games out either) but I still play plenty of live here.

98

It’s not entirely clear to me what you’re asking for.
Is this issue about opponents who refuse to score or attempt score cheating (and moderators not responding in time to adjudicate it as a win for you), or is it about asking for a feature to claim victory while the game isn’t quite finished yet (to avoid wasting time on a boring endgame)?

1 Like
99

Firstly this is off topic and secondly I’m just echoing what he said.
The premise of this sentence goes to the top: IMHO, I don’t play live games at OGS at all.
The reason for this sentence is because when the Moderator cannot intervene immediately, OGS cannot prevent score cheating and stalling.
This is why I mentioned why I choose Fox for live games, and why I like Fox.
(Because their system can force scoring even without Moderator intervention, only needing to move 350 times.)
You’re only quoting one paragraph, which is taken out of context.

100

As usual in the Forums, this thread rehashes problems and arguments already discussed many times in the past. Indeed, many of the points raised here recently were already answered earlier in this thread (a couple of them by me). Instead of contributing to this repetition, I will lay out some likely facts concerning the nature and scope of score cheating. This is based on my experience moderating as well as my continuing reportage of score cheaters (over 100 per year).

The most important unstated fact is that most score cheaters are at the DDK-TPK levels. Some “cheating” by beginners is accidental because they haven’t read the documentation and don’t know what they are doing. These are instructed by the mods. Others are malicious and get warned. Half or almost half reform themselves after getting warned.

Most of the unreformed cheaters drop out; a few are manic cheaters who continue to cheat and get banned. The drop-out players and the maniacs may come back and make new accounts; however, I am convinced that almost all of them eventually get bored and go away for good. These hardcore cheaters are not interested in improving by deepening their understanding of the game, only in winning by any means because of their low self-esteem, so they go away when repeatedly thwarted.

Most score cheats do not cheat in their first few games (those who do are usually children in a class, often recognizable by their school-style names). Instead, beginners start cheating after a long string of losses due to frustration, and/or after being score cheated by an opponent. I see this pattern constantly. It is important because it suggests the idea of socialization methods that might be used to reduce the problem.

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