I think the whole point of letting him play is he was already in the tournament and I doubt they would let him join any other tour but I agree with your post 100%
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Official Smogon Tournament XIII - Round 2
- Thread starter teal6
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I think the whole point of letting him play is he was already in the tournament and I doubt they would let him join any other tour but I agree with your post 100%
The above post in indeed correct, it is an Entry Ban rather than a Participation Ban. For a quite similar scenario in very recent memory you can look toward Get this Money who was allowed to complete participation in OLT despite receiving an Entry Ban for X amount of time for other tournaments (I don't remember the length off-hand).
Should anyone have any questions regarding this decision or the adjudication that went into it, please feel free to talk to me about it any time, as transparency is absolutely vital and I'd be more than glad to discuss at the very least the input I made into the decision. While I cannot speak for all of my colleagues, I've no problem talking at length at the various factors that went into my decision and would explain them all with patience and understanding.
edit: It's also probably prudent to use this post to note that Mawilite+Beedrilite is banned for this round, obviously, when it is eventually released. Same situation as the Mew Z Move from last round, this has no bearing on its eligibility for future rounds, but rather has to do solely with the fact that it was released mid-round.
Should anyone have any questions regarding this decision or the adjudication that went into it, please feel free to talk to me about it any time, as transparency is absolutely vital and I'd be more than glad to discuss at the very least the input I made into the decision. While I cannot speak for all of my colleagues, I've no problem talking at length at the various factors that went into my decision and would explain them all with patience and understanding.
edit: It's also probably prudent to use this post to note that Mawilite+Beedrilite is banned for this round, obviously, when it is eventually released. Same situation as the Mew Z Move from last round, this has no bearing on its eligibility for future rounds, but rather has to do solely with the fact that it was released mid-round.
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contacted
My opponent missed scheduled time, activity post.
Activity Win Request
contacted my opp feb 16th on his wall where we agreed a time to meet on smogtours
at the time we agreed I saw him on and asked him if he wanted to do our games then where he replied to me saying he was tired for the day and didn't want to play then
I then came back on about an hour later and saw him on smogtours where I pmd him asking if he was ok to battle then to which I got no reply and he left the server after about 5 mins
after that I then left another vm on his wall asking to arrange a time for this saturday and sunday (25th/26th) to which I haven't gotten a response yet, despite him being active on the forums and me bumping his vm wall to make sure he saw the message
contacted my opp feb 16th on his wall where we agreed a time to meet on smogtours
at the time we agreed I saw him on and asked him if he wanted to do our games then where he replied to me saying he was tired for the day and didn't want to play then
I then came back on about an hour later and saw him on smogtours where I pmd him asking if he was ok to battle then to which I got no reply and he left the server after about 5 mins
after that I then left another vm on his wall asking to arrange a time for this saturday and sunday (25th/26th) to which I haven't gotten a response yet, despite him being active on the forums and me bumping his vm wall to make sure he saw the message
won vs Freeroamer, sorry for crit on gren
Activity, waited over an hour for my opponent at the time they suggested and tbh I don't want to waste any more of my Saturday afternoon sitting around waiting. Will attempt to reschedule.
what are the criteria needed for an entry-ban vs. participation ban? it's interesting that someone who incites his SPL team to cheat while in a position of authority is allowed to join an official tournament with a prizepool, while apparently some people wouldn't.
it's also interesting that the person that decided if he can play is also his good friend, putting aside the fact that the aforementioned person is running the tournament (which I don't think should ever be rationale for that person deciding anyway, ex. bloo).
personally i hope he wins anyway. maybe he'll actually pay us back if he ends up matching with opponents dumber than him, but that's a task in and of itself!
You raise some fair points, and personally when offering my point of view, I hadn't considered the prize pool at all. You are mistaken in one sense though, that I am "the one deciding", which isn't the case, though I did offer my viewpoint as to what would be the most appropriate way to move forward.
The criteria for entry vs participation come down to our scale posted some time back that we used to reevaluate the player punishments handed out in the wake of the WCOP incident. While it leaves room for discretion, the primary bar of measurement is "did this person cheat in this specific tournament" (in this case, did they cheat in OST) with the follow-up being "do we believe they are likely to have cheated or will cheat in this particular tournament". As, again, transparency is always a key issue of mine I'll offer up both viewpoints I had on the previous two questions - those being that no, he didn't, and no, he isn't likely to. Others may disagree, however, and I accept that (as with anyone, as we're all human) I can be mistaken, of course.
With the renewed interest I'll definitely recheck in with the rest of the TD staff to see that we've made no error. I think jumping to an antagonistic point of view isn't particularly helpful, begging the question is misguided as since day one I've done my utmost best to explain each and every administrative decision I have ever made in its fullest and hope to continue this practice as best as possible moving forward, as well. I do think there are times where someone in a leadership position should be willing to overrule council given to them, but in a situation where one making a judgment call is particularly close to the call being made, I don't think that is one of them (aka, here). What I am trying to get at in a fairly non concise way is that, if I was advised to make a different call strongly, I'd likely listen to it (as I did when the issue was presented in SPL, as well).
I'll end by saying it is entirely possible my reading of the situation and subsequent judgment could be erroneous - to be adamant otherwise would be a fault of anyone in a trusted position, it would mean that I see no room to improve or adjust based on factors that might not fit my pre-decided viewpoint. I'll follow through on my previous words, of course, and would like to reiterate again that any and all concerns, suggestions, even readings into how a particular case was judged or decided are ALWAYS welcome and I think enrich our tournament circuit as a whole. I can offer up the WCOP example again - plenty of uninvolved players asked questions regarding how something was ruled, why something was ruled in a particular way, etc. By discussing what I could with those players I was exposed to points of view that had eluded me on my own, clearly showing the benefit of collaboration, and as such I'm quite a sincere believer in any attempt by anyone involved in our circuit to help contribute to it whether it be through hosting, playing or offering their points of view on administrative rulings such as the one we are discussing now.
fair enough, but what you said in your last post did not imply you had input from others when making your decision.
"did this person cheat in this specific tournament" does not seem relevant to whether or not they should be allowed to play. doing so implies that a cheater has a propensity to cheat only in the tournaments in which he was previously caught, not considering the possibility that the same person was cheating in other tournaments in the past. i could easily argue that the individualistic nature of this tournament coupled with the prize pool would give a cheater more incentive to cheat even if he/she wasn't caught cheating in this particular tournament before.
"do we believe they are likely to have cheated or will cheat in this particular tournament" seems unreasonably subjective and difficult to interpret. what determines whether a person is more likely to cheat or not? a player knowing that this factor comes into play when TDs decide an entry vs. participation ban would gladly say whatever or do whatever necessary to convey the notion that they see the err in their ways, irrespective of whether or not they actually care. if a player knows this information, how are TDs to determine whether someone is lying or not when they claim to feel bad for what they've done? making this judgment call seems almost impossible even in real-life, let alone the internet without face-to-face interaction or even interaction beyond text messages.
not to be a contrarian asshole, but i have a lot of problems with that criteria. given the subjective decisions that would lead to an entry ban v. participation ban, as well as the seemingly flawed logic with regard to the first piece of criteria makes me think there shouldn't be a distinction between "entry" and "participation," but rather a participation ban being the only option.
Don't worry about being a contrarian, I fully believe in the sincerity of your posts and welcome the sort of attitude that would spur me and the rest of the team to create a better atmosphere and environment for tournaments. The goals for us all are the same here, so no apologies necessary at all.
I agree that it leaves subjective room, but this is in some way by design rather than a flaw. We stick to our formula as posted as best we can, but cases on an individual basis do indeed, at least from my viewpoint, deserve individual response. One of the chief concerns when implementing the formula was that we would be handcuffed to it, which could present undesirable situations. I hate to keep bringing it up but one where I think we found a really good middleground for everyone involved (so TD team, the player, and the rest of the community) was GTM in OLT - I trust in my judgment that following my conversations with him he wouldn't repeat his offense, it was relatively minor to begin with, and it was not effecting the particular tournament that he was intending to compete in (though I note your objections to that being involved in the decision making at all, as well).
Determining whether a player is lying or not is indeed one of the bigger challenges of the TD role when it comes to these unfortunate incidents. It's something that we've struggled with in the past, but, generally, I trust our abilities to figure it out and read between the lines to determine sincerity and truthfulness. In the past we had Ciele as well who still acts as an advisor, someone who has a great gift at conceptualizing situations and coming to (what usually end up being) the correct reading of a situation. I think I'm fairly adept at it, and several of the other TDs that have participated in the "investigations" have their nous as well.
With regard to this specific case I can say from start to finish it was, by far, the most upfront one I've ever been involved with. Every contacted player immediately provided all requested information in timely manner complete with logs, screenshots, etc. We didn't have to dig far. That upfront nature helps a great deal when piecing together the "what happened", which leads then to our application of our formula, which is then tweaked typically by individual judgments as necessary. That room for manuever may grate a bit when not participating in it but, having unfortunately dealt with several of these incidents since the beginning of my tenure I do indeed think its important to keep. I've learned quite quickly you'll never make anyone happy but you should absolutely try your best regardless to come to the most fair decision you can see possible - too lenient in the application of the law, people are upset, too strict, people are upset. Community engagement and happiness is vital to me, but it does not remain the #1 goal of what I see my position as, rather I think application of fairness and justice is. I happen to think that applying justice, though, calls for some degree of ability to exist within the rules, if that makes any sense.
I'll admit that as a TD/Head TD I am probably a bit more lenient in terms of severity of sentence compared to several of my colleagues (though I am probably the most strict or 2nd most when it comes to what constitutes an offense). The spectrum allows us to have multiple viewpoints which it is then my responsibility to synthesize into one coherent action. I hope to do my best in this and to remain consistently upfront and transparent with why I make the individual decisions I do, which is why it does sadden me a bit for the conversation to begin with the question of suspicion, though to some degree I understand some members of the community may have felt jaded in years past.
I do need to end that in my last post, I didn't misspeak so to say, but rather did not elaborate enough and for that I apologize. There are degrees of severity that put a person firmly in one camp or another when it comes to P vs E bans. Some incidents exist in the middle, the grey area which asks us to take a step back and apply our best abilities at critical thinking. I can only hope that I come to whatever the ethereal "best decision" is time and time again, and ask that the community not give me any more things to think about for the next year or two until I hand the torch yet again.
this is the last time i'll post since this is probably in the wrong place and i'm not involved on this website anymore. i appreciate you being so transparent in instances where most TDs would normally respond with pretension, but i still don't think your response is addressing any flaw i brought up with this process, and also brings up more faults in logic.
arguments aside, what's the point in even having the distinction in tourbans? what does the community stand to gain by having some banned players be able to participate in specific tours while others don't? the only person that this distinction seems to benefit is the cheater that gets an entry ban instead of a participation ban, eliminating players that didn't break the rules. anyway...
if you or the TD team is to argue that having a formula is the best way to determine guilt, then it would make more sense to have variables of that formula to be easily defined rather than muddled in interpretation and subjectivity. this notion sort of segways into your next point about determining guilt nicely.
I think it's extremely ignorant to assume that TDs can correctly interpret whether someone is lying or not. To accurately assume whether someone is lying or not is to also assume you've been able to consider all information related to the instance of the person ghosting, when that's obviously not true. you explained that in val's case of ghosting, all players involved were very upfront about giving information related to ghosting. I think that's completely wrong, especially when one isn't considering the perspective of others when they give you information related to someone else ghosting. Among the people that helped incriminate val, are you to assume they left out no information? why would someone involved in this situation ever willingly give out information that:
1. incriminated themselves
2. incriminated their friends
3. incriminated someone they agreed to not incriminate
4. personal information they didn't want to share
5. information that wasn't thought to be true by TDs but is still incriminating
because, obviously, why would they ever give information that fits any of that criteria if it hurts themselves or others? while they may claim to give you everything, the nature of this electronic forum dictates that you can't blindly assume they did. it seems very difficult to assign guiltiness or genuineness when it's also safe to assume that the majority of information that fits the above criteria was likely omitted. even if TDs have an infallible sense of judgment, i think it's very safe to argue that the omission of information like the above could sway a TDs decision about entry vs. participation.
while the TD team's differing opinions should be valued, I don't see what they add in this situation that can't be better dealt with through more objective rules. what i'm getting at is that maintaining the "entry vs. participation" rule brings about subjective and grey areas that cannot be determined absolutely, because this is the internet. it would make more sense to instead just have a hard participation ban for those that are tourbanned, rather than a distinction from the two defined by subjective interpretation.
arguments aside, what's the point in even having the distinction in tourbans? what does the community stand to gain by having some banned players be able to participate in specific tours while others don't? the only person that this distinction seems to benefit is the cheater that gets an entry ban instead of a participation ban, eliminating players that didn't break the rules. anyway...
if you or the TD team is to argue that having a formula is the best way to determine guilt, then it would make more sense to have variables of that formula to be easily defined rather than muddled in interpretation and subjectivity. this notion sort of segways into your next point about determining guilt nicely.
I think it's extremely ignorant to assume that TDs can correctly interpret whether someone is lying or not. To accurately assume whether someone is lying or not is to also assume you've been able to consider all information related to the instance of the person ghosting, when that's obviously not true. you explained that in val's case of ghosting, all players involved were very upfront about giving information related to ghosting. I think that's completely wrong, especially when one isn't considering the perspective of others when they give you information related to someone else ghosting. Among the people that helped incriminate val, are you to assume they left out no information? why would someone involved in this situation ever willingly give out information that:
1. incriminated themselves
2. incriminated their friends
3. incriminated someone they agreed to not incriminate
4. personal information they didn't want to share
5. information that wasn't thought to be true by TDs but is still incriminating
because, obviously, why would they ever give information that fits any of that criteria if it hurts themselves or others? while they may claim to give you everything, the nature of this electronic forum dictates that you can't blindly assume they did. it seems very difficult to assign guiltiness or genuineness when it's also safe to assume that the majority of information that fits the above criteria was likely omitted. even if TDs have an infallible sense of judgment, i think it's very safe to argue that the omission of information like the above could sway a TDs decision about entry vs. participation.
while the TD team's differing opinions should be valued, I don't see what they add in this situation that can't be better dealt with through more objective rules. what i'm getting at is that maintaining the "entry vs. participation" rule brings about subjective and grey areas that cannot be determined absolutely, because this is the internet. it would make more sense to instead just have a hard participation ban for those that are tourbanned, rather than a distinction from the two defined by subjective interpretation.
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For a more concise post for a change, pretty much anyone that has dealt with me re: a punishing situation knows that I tend to err on the side of leniency and prefer to allow people to play if at all possible. If I don't think they present a major threat to the tournament structure as a whole, I prefer Entry bans almost unanimously. Of course, you are right, there are a thousand factors that I can never know, and there are some I can "know" but can't prove. This is evident in many cases, how many people that have gotten caught after all have had rumors for X amount of months..
Well, to keep it short, I think we just end up at a different idea of what constitutes an effective, fun and productive environment. I had a good experience the first time I erred toward entry ban, and I thought the player appreciated the leniency showed and reformed their behavior and attitude quickly and appropriately. What they added that made it worth it was the same thing that all of us do, high level play and good games, which I think was the primary benefit. I could be entirely wrong, my judgment could be incredibly off, but my personal viewpoint having considered the mountain of evidence given in this and previous cases is that 1. the tournament circuit is not at risk allowing this player to participate and 2. the offenses were not so severe that I need to make a judgment so punitive as to end participation. Others can disagree and contest and I'll listen to it and conglomerate my opinion from there all day, I've no problem with that, absolutely.
As per the "rigidity" argument - like I tried to get at in the last post (but likely was not eloquent enough), you end up with folks that are unhappy in either direction. When we applied quite strict interpretations of it, I received 1 billion PMs about how so-and-so didn't break the spirit of the law, they shouldn't have X punishment, etc. I'll receive another 1 billion when I apply them leniently. It's a balancing act and affording ourselves that room to make those judgments, rather than sticking to a very black-and-white tournaments mentality I think provides for the best results taken en masse. It's very, very thankless stuff - any former TD will tell you that immediately. Almost every single decision has half the community mad, half of them happy. While we developed the formula to make things easier on ourselves (it allows for a quick "starting point" for any given punishment), my personal viewpoint is that too strict of an adherence to the letter of the law can put you in situations where your mandated decision is not what is truly just. I understand that from now, for the last few months, and for the months to come people will disagree with how I personally see a situation and I'll have to accept that, it comes with the pixels, but I do hope at the very least that the community at large understands that few decisions (if any) are made lightly, and that my sole and only goal is to provide for the best environment possible.
Funny I said concise at the top but it became anything but, I've PMd Henry to continue the conversation at his leisure for anyone interested. I apologize should I miss certain points of an argument, it's quite tough at times to keep up with everything, but I am trying my best! If anyone would like to be invited to the PM to continue any sort of discussion please let me know and I would be glad to add, as he is right, the direction in which we went is fairly off-topic and would likely be suited to a different venue. Thanks though Henry for keeping a civilized demeanor throughout, it makes things way easier, because in this position you are often asked to deal with quite belligerent folks and conversations in those manners are impossible to become productive at all.
Well, to keep it short, I think we just end up at a different idea of what constitutes an effective, fun and productive environment. I had a good experience the first time I erred toward entry ban, and I thought the player appreciated the leniency showed and reformed their behavior and attitude quickly and appropriately. What they added that made it worth it was the same thing that all of us do, high level play and good games, which I think was the primary benefit. I could be entirely wrong, my judgment could be incredibly off, but my personal viewpoint having considered the mountain of evidence given in this and previous cases is that 1. the tournament circuit is not at risk allowing this player to participate and 2. the offenses were not so severe that I need to make a judgment so punitive as to end participation. Others can disagree and contest and I'll listen to it and conglomerate my opinion from there all day, I've no problem with that, absolutely.
As per the "rigidity" argument - like I tried to get at in the last post (but likely was not eloquent enough), you end up with folks that are unhappy in either direction. When we applied quite strict interpretations of it, I received 1 billion PMs about how so-and-so didn't break the spirit of the law, they shouldn't have X punishment, etc. I'll receive another 1 billion when I apply them leniently. It's a balancing act and affording ourselves that room to make those judgments, rather than sticking to a very black-and-white tournaments mentality I think provides for the best results taken en masse. It's very, very thankless stuff - any former TD will tell you that immediately. Almost every single decision has half the community mad, half of them happy. While we developed the formula to make things easier on ourselves (it allows for a quick "starting point" for any given punishment), my personal viewpoint is that too strict of an adherence to the letter of the law can put you in situations where your mandated decision is not what is truly just. I understand that from now, for the last few months, and for the months to come people will disagree with how I personally see a situation and I'll have to accept that, it comes with the pixels, but I do hope at the very least that the community at large understands that few decisions (if any) are made lightly, and that my sole and only goal is to provide for the best environment possible.
Funny I said concise at the top but it became anything but, I've PMd Henry to continue the conversation at his leisure for anyone interested. I apologize should I miss certain points of an argument, it's quite tough at times to keep up with everything, but I am trying my best! If anyone would like to be invited to the PM to continue any sort of discussion please let me know and I would be glad to add, as he is right, the direction in which we went is fairly off-topic and would likely be suited to a different venue. Thanks though Henry for keeping a civilized demeanor throughout, it makes things way easier, because in this position you are often asked to deal with quite belligerent folks and conversations in those manners are impossible to become productive at all.
won, ggs
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