The mystery within the mystery - Page 10

On June 07 2012 04:16 CrazyF1r3f0x wrote:

Aliens.
Are serious business.

On June 06 2012 00:01 RaGe wrote:
I'd like to note that his IP actually does match other TL accounts. NrGMonk is still an inexperienced banling and didn't really use the full IP matching functionality we have.

The mods have a decent idea of who it is, and are discussing whether or not to reveal this information. It's likely we'll make a statement on the entire situation (not just the drama itself, but also the way it was handled) in the coming days.

On June 07 2012 04:56 TheToast wrote:


I sincerly hope you all don't do so. There are very strong laws proteting the rights of whistleblowers for very good reasons. Blowback from the allegations can put the whistleblower at risk and strongly discourage anyone from doing it again.

If this guy is anyone of note, revealing (or figuring out) his real identity would undoubtedly result in widespread harassment by Spade's fans and those individuals who believe Spade's is innocent. That type of activity could potentially disuade anyone from coming forward in the future with information concerning maphacking or dishonest behavior in the pro scene. These were not baseless claims, they were well founded accusations that this individuals brought forward with convincingly good intentions.

Whether they are true or not, that type of activity should not be discouraged, if someone believes very strongly they have evidence of wrong-doing, that information should be brought forward for everyone to see. Whether that person's reputations is forever harmed or not is the fault of the community at large and not this individual; as the cleche goes he is only "the messenger". What the community decides to do with that message is what give rise to the "witch-hunt" mentality. Though there are still plenty who are going to blame this guy for "ruining" Spade's career, when in fact all he did was write a short thread and attach some replays.

That's exactly why it's extremely important to protect his identity. I don't want to see a pro-player or veteran member of this community exiled or end up on the recieving end of some vicious hatred because they sought to shed some light on some shady business. That reaction would undoubtably give pause to anyone in the future who is considering publishing evidence of a player cheating. Even if you believe the allegations were wrong this time, next time they may not be--and there may be real evidence of it--and we may never know of it because individuals in the community are too afraid to share it. Let's not foster that environment.

Gheed, mods, everyone else: let's keep this guys identity a secret. He doesn't deserve what would be coming to him should his real identity be exposed. I realize that there is an impulse of curiosity here, a puzzle that needs solving. But it's best to leave this one a mystery. Whistleblowers are good things, what the community chose to do with the information published was the problem this time, nothing more.

On June 07 2012 05:00 Felnarion wrote:


Quite frankly, i'm doing it for my own curiosity. While I do think it is distasteful to hide your identity when throwing a large accusation; that is not my motive here. My motive is to simply know.

Honestly, there was little reason for him to hide. If correct, he was a hero. If wrong, he was among a sea of people accusing others of hacking.

On June 07 2012 05:14 TheToast wrote:


You know what they say about what killed the cat? :S

Obviously there's nothing I nor anyone else can do to prevent you from e-stalking this guy. But nothing good can come out of revealing his real identity, but I can think of about half a dozen ill outcomes. Not the least of which is a new witch-hunt against someone else and a whole dredging up of all this drama again. Just remember that.

Realistically, the identity of the OP has nothing to do with the issue, which is whether Spades hacked or not. Was his post controversial? Yes. But it wasn't baseless mud slinging either, whether the accusations are true or not the OP did do a decent job of backing up his claim. He then left completely, leaving everyone to judge for themselves. It was not the OP that pushed the matter into a witch hunt and it was not the OP driving the underlying drama--the rest of the community is responsible for that. He should not be made out as a scape goat.

He had evidence that he believed proved grossly dishonest behavior of a pro player. Whether or not Spades did it, the OP made that information public for everyone to judge for themselves. There's nothing wrong with that, and releasing his identity will only serve to encourage people to keep quiet when they believe the see dishonest behavior. It's time to put the whole mess behind us, if there are unanswered questions so what? The issue was about Spade's maphacking, that can be determined without any additional information about the OP.

-edit: Btw, let's be honest. When you say you are doing this for "curiosity" what you really mean is you're doing this for fun. Which is pretty much the same reason why everyone gets involved in these which-hunt threads in the first place, it's fun and full of juicy edrama. Well, take some time to judge the consequences of what your actions could have.

On June 07 2012 05:14 TheToast wrote:


You know what they say about what killed the cat? :S

Obviously there's nothing I nor anyone else can do to prevent you from e-stalking this guy. But nothing good can come out of revealing his real identity, but I can think of about half a dozen ill outcomes. Not the least of which is a new witch-hunt against someone else and a whole dredging up of all this drama again. Just remember that.

Realistically, the identity of the OP has nothing to do with the issue, which is whether Spades hacked or not. Was his post controversial? Yes. But it wasn't baseless mud slinging either, whether the accusations are true or not the OP did do a decent job of backing up his claim. He then left completely, leaving everyone to judge for themselves. It was not the OP that pushed the matter into a witch hunt and it was not the OP driving the underlying drama--the rest of the community is responsible for that. He should not be made out as a scape goat.

He had evidence that he believed proved grossly dishonest behavior of a pro player. Whether or not Spades did it, the OP made that information public for everyone to judge for themselves. There's nothing wrong with that, and releasing his identity will only serve to encourage people to keep quiet when they believe the see dishonest behavior. It's time to put the whole mess behind us, if there are unanswered questions so what? The issue was about Spade's maphacking, that can be determined without any additional information about the OP.

On June 07 2012 05:23 Promethelax wrote:


There is an ethical issue involved if he is who we think he is, conflict of interest one might say since the original replays gave no hard evidence of cheating. It was only with another ~120 replays provided by Spades and others that it became clear to most of the people who are qualified enough to have an opinion that he was indeed cheating.
I can't speak to the truth of the allegations, although I do think they are true based on what I have heard from the pros. Instead I can look into the possible reasons that Drolets posted what he did. I am doing that with some help from others in the community. If I do discover the identity of Drolets I plan on confronting him through private pathways (PM or email) and getting an explanation of why he posted what he did. If I am satisfied, or not, I do not plan on revealing his identity to the community as a whole. I will however release his reasoning so that we can all understand the background to this mess and make it clear that there is some accountability within this community.

On June 07 2012 05:14 TheToast wrote:


You know what they say about what killed the cat? :S

Obviously there's nothing I nor anyone else can do to prevent you from e-stalking this guy. But nothing good can come out of revealing his real identity, but I can think of about half a dozen ill outcomes. Not the least of which is a new witch-hunt against someone else and a whole dredging up of all this drama again. Just remember that.

Realistically, the identity of the OP has nothing to do with the issue, which is whether Spades hacked or not. Was his post controversial? Yes. But it wasn't baseless mud slinging either, whether the accusations are true or not the OP did do a decent job of backing up his claim. He then left completely, leaving everyone to judge for themselves. It was not the OP that pushed the matter into a witch hunt and it was not the OP driving the underlying drama--the rest of the community is responsible for that. He should not be made out as a scape goat.

He had evidence that he believed proved grossly dishonest behavior of a pro player. Whether or not Spades did it, the OP made that information public for everyone to judge for themselves. There's nothing wrong with that, and releasing his identity will only serve to encourage people to keep quiet when they believe the see dishonest behavior. It's time to put the whole mess behind us, if there are unanswered questions so what? The issue was about Spade's maphacking, that can be determined without any additional information about the OP.

-edit: Btw, let's be honest. When you say you are doing this for "curiosity" what you really mean is you're doing this for fun. Which is pretty much the same reason why everyone gets involved in these which-hunt threads in the first place, it's fun and full of juicy edrama. Well, take some time to judge the consequences of what your actions could have.

On June 07 2012 05:34 TheToast wrote:


So you've nominated yourself judge and jury? And what if you're wrong? You get to cause a bunch of edrama and attempt to fuck up someone else's career here?

Why would this person even release their reasoning to you? It's highly unlikely that this person would actually respond to you as that's essentially validating you're right. More than likely even if it was the right person they'd deny it knowing there was no way you could prove it was them (without TL's IP records). So we start another witch-hunt arguing over some scraps of information with half the community calling for blood. In what universe does this sound like a good outcome??

I don't know what ethical issues you're talking about, but if you agree that he was really hacking what possible ethical issues could there exist that would justify re-starting all this crap? If it was someone who was slated to play Spades in an upcoming tournament, yeah I could understand why they would want to release the info as they don't want to lose unfairly; even a fellow teammate or pro player I can completely understand their desire to purge hackers from their community. And any issues with timing (such as replacing Spades in a tournament) are all circumstantial evidence that may just be a fluke of timing. Realistically, you have no solid information about their motives and they won't tell you anway. So what's the end game here? To open a new thread that turns into another clusterfuck of edrama that resolves nothing? Because that's the only realistic outcome here.

Let this shit die and let's get on with our lives. There's far more important things going on this weekend than this Spade's crap.

On June 07 2012 05:25 Heh_ wrote:

What the OP did was mudslinging, not whistleblowing. Whistleblowing entails contacting a relevant authority with evidence, and then said authority decides whether to pursue the case. In this case, the OP publicly posted the replays without consulting anyone prior. We know that most of the stuff mentioned were baseless accusations, and Spades was found to be guilty after more replays were dug up and discrepancies found. The OP was fortunate that real evidence got dug up, because if Spades was found innocent the damage has already been done. Public apologies by Catz et al. would be insufficient to repair the damage.

If a person is going to sling accusations without 100% proof, then he better be prepared to face the consequences if he's proven wrong. If you want to remain anonymous, consult a second, third professional opinion and come to a consensus before releasing this information public.

On June 07 2012 05:37 n3uro wrote:


Personally I believe it's not an issue about making information public, but the suggestive methods, and the inconclusiveness of the first provided "evidence" in the OP of the spades-thread, makes me want to get to the bottom of this. I personally believe there's an ulterior motive behind this. As to whether spades actually uses unfair methods to gain an advantage, I cannot answer, since I'm not only unfamiliar with the program, but inexperienced with the game itself. What irritates me though, is that people takes other peoples word for it. "Oh [progamer] says this, then this must be true." Sure, being a professional player gives you experience, but I can't see why words from someone that's not familiar with the programs used should matter at all. If not anything, suggestive methods, and the idea of having experienced players who people looks up to comment on it, makes it impossible for someone fairly interested in the scene to be unbiased, which clouds peoples judgement heavily. Not just that, but like in so many games, going against the general crowd will deem you either a "nap", or they'll simply accuse you of being a fanboy of Spades.

It's common psychology and mob-mentality.

Now, as specified above, I do believe there's an ulterior motive behind this whole witch-hunt. If there is, shouldn't the person behind this take responsibility? My reasoning is that if we won't allow hackers, why allow people to discredit other players with mudslinging and wild accusations? As stated in previous reply on page 9, it will only make things worse for the scene.

Regards // Emil 'n3uro' Svensson, still not anonymous, even though it's only my third post.

On June 07 2012 05:34 TheToast wrote:


So you've nominated yourself judge and jury? And what if you're wrong? You get to cause a bunch of edrama and attempt to fuck up someone else's career here?

Why would this person even release their reasoning to you? It's highly unlikely that this person would actually respond to you as that's essentially validating you're right. More than likely even if it was the right person they'd deny it knowing there was no way you could prove it was them (without TL's IP records). So we start another witch-hunt arguing over some scraps of information with half the community calling for blood. In what universe does this sound like a good outcome??

I don't know what ethical issues you're talking about, but if you agree that he was really hacking what possible ethical issues could there exist that would justify re-starting all this crap? If it was someone who was slated to play Spades in an upcoming tournament, yeah I could understand why they would want to release the info as they don't want to lose unfairly; even a fellow teammate or pro player I can completely understand their desire to purge hackers from their community. And any issues with timing (such as replacing Spades in a tournament) are all circumstantial evidence that may just be a fluke of timing. Realistically, you have no solid information about their motives and they won't tell you anway. So what's the end game here? To open a new thread that turns into another clusterfuck of edrama that resolves nothing? Because that's the only realistic outcome here.

Let this shit die and let's get on with our lives. There's far more important things going on this weekend than this Spade's crap.

On June 07 2012 05:49 Promethelax wrote:


I'm simply the only person interested enough to do the work.

My end game, as you say, is lacking and I don't expect to get a resolution except with the TL IPs. However I believe that I am right; if I get enough proof I will attempt to contact the real Drolets directly, I will not reveal his identity to the TL community, I will ask him to make a statement either to me or to the community about his use of the Drolets account instead of his own.

Unlike him I will take my accusations to the authorities and leave the public out of it. Originally I was going to out whoever it was and gloat about having figured it out but as I dug deeper I realized that I don't particularly want to start another mud slinging event. I want the answers and I think that the community deserves them. I won't force his hand though, I don't want to create more drama. I doubt he will answer me straight but, as long as some people know who he is, there is a level of accountability. It seems as though he was right in his accusations but I don't think he handled it well, if you have that sort of information you should give it to the team, some other players and another team get outside opinions and post all the information. What I want is the next time someone calls someone out for being a cheater they have the common decency to have the trial behind the scenes instead of in the open. The mob hate made it impossible for Spades to prove his innocence and tainted the result of the whole investigation. My hope is that next time someone will take their replays to a group of pro players and have them all analyze those replays and post the collective result of their analysis. Not one man's exaggerated beliefs.