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I have been following the spades debacle with some interest, as I was shocked at how the tl admins and mods allowed it to balloon out of control, When I 1st read that it was closed after Nerchio, the 2nd best player in the foreigner TLPD as of this evening,mentioned that it was circumspect at best, I believed that the matter was dealt with correctly.
When Illusion pm'd the mod to say Nerchio was wrong, I was mildly shocked, but I figured that maybe Illusion had some information to share. When I saw that Spades responded to Illusion and addressed most of his points, or at least how I read it (Spades really could have spent more time on the matter tbh), I figured the thread would be closed. When the previous manager came out and said Spades hacked the thread literally got down right ridiculous. (The manager's posts, as far as I could see, after implicating Spades and Artist , actually almost apologized for saying Spades hacked, when he was more mentioning Artist, yet he did not apologize or correct his previous post. Adding fuel to the flame)
To the mods who could have prevented this, I think you guys need to do some serious work on how to handle matters. Every time an ounce of controversy comes out, it blows out of proportion and people are harmed way more because of this forum than the initial action even. I noticed that the original thread was closed due to a pro's opinion, and opened due to another's. That differing opinion should have hinted that matters where getting out of control, and it should have remained closed. I appreciate the work you guys do, but maybe a bit more thought into the more serious matters, whether its "topical" or not. Trading on cheap tricks to increase traffic to one's site does little to enhance the reputation of one's site.
A player's career has taken a serious knock today because the measures that you were supposedly to have put in place for controversial e-sports matters failed. Whether that player is innocent or not right now is irrelevant, the matter was handled completely incorrectly. When there was such controversy over such a serious matter, I, and I believe I am not alone in this, expected the mods to step up and calm the matters down. Instead there was confusion, and almost an indifference, between the mods, with certain members of the admin team stating that there was no way to identify who it was, and almost immediately contradicted by themselves or by others, when the whole community is waiting on a response from the leaders of this website.
I appreciate all that tl has done so far, and its a great place to talk abut general things as well as research information about the game. But a witch-hunt baying for peoples blood, sweat and tears, is not what I come to this website to look for. I come to read up on the facts, as this website advertises itself for. If you guys want to progress and maintain the standard of excellence that the majority of the community have come to expect from you, there must be serious work put in after this.
I think that teamliquid and the SC2 e-sports scene will never be as bright a place as it was for me after this, knowing that this type of thing can happen unchecked.
(And don't expect sponsors to remain clueless about this either. Not all of them require emails to follow a scene they have invested themselves into).
(To Clarfiy: Yes i spoke about Naniwa's actions in a blog post earlier, but those were fact. Spade's hacking as of the last time I looked is still a hypothesis, and as such should not be discussed as such. To all of you who are calling him a hacker, without any official response from the people who matter (Lucifron's team, Spade's team, or an independent body specializing in hacking who can take into account the varying levels of skills of the player) are premature, and I hope you feel shame.)
  
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I agree that TL.net should take a more authoritative stance on discussions that are potentially harmful to its core values, one of which I believe is professional player treatment inside the house of TL. The Spades thread is a complete fiasco in my eyes, even if the evidence arguably points so far towards a guilty verdict because the risk of wrongful prejudice to Spades is just too much. Furthermore, the images of professional SC2, esports professionalism and this forum in general have been irrevocably tarnished.
I think TL.net should have prohibited discussion or rather speculation on the topic and perhaps come back to us with a private or collaborative investigation. I suppose this all depends on the vision of TL.net's administration - whether it wishes to become a quasi-authority in SC2 esports or an unrestricted public forum.
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Again more deference to authority. Essentially what youre saying is "i am small and stupid, i cannot have my own opinion or examine the replays put together for me. only what an independent body specializing in hacking (rofl) tells me is true. everyone who doesn't listen to what other people think is stupid and should be ashamed"
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Also again, rofl at you guys trying to make TL responsible for investigating hacking. No, you go do it. Spades is innocent you think? Go and argue that he isn't. Except you are in the minority. Too bad for you. He still got thrown off the team because more people think he's guilty than not. That is how it should work. Period.
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In my opinion TL should be completely neutral and unless the thread is breaking rules then there is no need to close it. TL is here for a discussion base and to bring information to light, you cant do that closing every thread because it might hurt a players reputation. Might not be "right" or "wrong" but TL is here as a forum and as long as the discussion is civil and not breaking any of the rules I dont see why a thread should be closed, the mods do a fine job.
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Read the bottom of the website. TL absolves itself of any threads within it because of that neat little thing at the bottom because that's what intelligent business is.
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On June 06 2012 08:01 Jinsho wrote:Spades is innocent you think? Go and argue that he isn't.
This is really messed up. The burden of proof should always be on the accusers, not the accused!
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This whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. Normally TL is somewhat of an e-refuge for me, being comprised of generally pretty great people, but sometimes when this kind of shit happens it feels like an unstoppable wave of morons are propelling things.
Things need to be handled much more professionally in the future, this isn't just WoW guild drama or some dude cheating on ladder, this is a guy's career that is essentially damaged by a malicious thread (Whether he hacked or not there was definitely anti-Spades bias in the initial OP's post)
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Gaming companies and teams look at the content here, not on the bnet forums, and when a case gets into the spotlight, they are forced to handle it accordingly.
If controversial topics in gaming would immediately be closed for the sake of not hurting anyone, things won't evolve and people will have to deal with more racism and hacking issues.
This is really the most powerful tool a single person has got at disposal, and it forces players and teams to keep it professional, which is a good thing imo. They can dick around outside of public perception while playing on smurfs for example.
The reaction of people to witchhunts is another thing, people getting seriously angry just from looking at the matter and then screaming bloody murder is some sort of way to kill time I guess, but the effects are good when the case is justified.
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of course when they do take a more heavy handed approach they piss off the other half of the equation. its kind of a no-win scenario for them.
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I'm glad something like the spades incident happened; it put a fire under everyone currently hacking and making them think twice about it.
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utter garbage. you think the way to moderate discussion is to close threads because you feel that the discussion is done? who are you to decide whether the discussion is over? they should allow it to run its course, which is what it essentially has done at this point. lets not get our panties all in a twist.
Trading on cheap tricks to increase traffic to one's site does little to enhance the reputation of one's site.
what a dick accusation.
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Even if Spades really did hack, this can't be the way we approach such sensitive issues if we believe in "innocent until proven guilty". Allowing lynch mobs like this is one of the least rational and constructive approaches to handling a situation like this. When I was watching Catz and the others stream their thoughts on his replays I realized that they had made up their minds already and were seeing everything as evidence he hacked. If you take a step back and look at his replays objectively, there was nothing conclusive about the evidence presented. Yes, he made some lucky calls, but he also made some calls that cost him games that anyone easily could have avoided if they were hacking. On top of reading too much into the circumstantial evidence from the replays, people were even taking Spade's posts as "proof" he was guilty all along, just because he couldn't somehow prove himself innocent. I can see how he wouldn't want to step foot into the ugly witch hunt that thread had become--every time he replied people found a way to interpret what he said as evidence he was guilty.
Spades is already convicted in the eye of the public but in my opinion people really just let mob mentality and confirmation bias take control of their thought process. I sincerely hope we reconsider this approach to these sorts of matters because it not only potentially hurts innocent people, but is also just an ugly, immature way to deal with problems in our community. I agree with the OP that there needs to be some sort of change of policy. Regardless of whether or not Spades is guilty I don't think it is ethical to condemn someone like this until professionals have had time to calmly and rationally review the evidence. I hope the mods and admins spend some time reviewing their policy towards these witch hunts that have almost become the norm here because in the end they are responsible for unlocking the thread and allowing it to proceed as it did.
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On June 06 2012 08:04 las91 wrote:
Read the bottom of the website. TL absolves itself of any threads within it because of that neat little thing at the bottom because that's what intelligent business is.
This is not really relevant. That's just to forestall any legal liability - the culture of the site is another matter altogether. Putting that disclaimer obviously doesn't mean that nobody should care about what kind of discourse goes on here (and TL pretty explicitly does care, which you should know if you've spent any time at all on the site).
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It always amazes me how people read what they want. I even had a time where I took an, what I thought was an alternative approach to a discussion and asked a very good friend who has reasoned arguements to read it. Within 5 minutes he had replied, and had given a very generic response to the discussion at hand.
On June 06 2012 08:01 Jinsho wrote:
Also again, rofl at you guys trying to make TL responsible for investigating hacking. No, you go do it. Spades is innocent you think? Go and argue that he isn't. Except you are in the minority. Too bad for you. He still got thrown off the team because more people think he's guilty than not. That is how it should work. Period.
The reason why I bring that up is that is exactly what Jinsho did. I never said TL/net should be responsible for hacking. I said the responsibility did NOT rest with the community, but one of three parties.
On June 06 2012 07:59 Jinsho wrote:
Again more deference to authority. Essentially what youre saying is "i am small and stupid, i cannot have my own opinion or examine the replays put together for me. only what an independent body specializing in hacking (rofl) tells me is true. everyone who doesn't listen to what other people think is stupid and should be ashamed"
Lol. This is exactly what I am saying. The fact that you cannot admit it is interesting. Personally, I watched a little bit of Catz's stream, more specifically that damning evidence on cloud kingdom where i saw nothing wrong. I can justify exactly what happened there to be 100% satisfied that he is not cheating at that specific point in time. But then again, who am i? I am not an expert on such things. Are you? Is there any active user on tl.net who is?
On June 06 2012 08:02 Zaros wrote:
In my opinion TL should be completely neutral and unless the thread is breaking rules then there is no need to close it. TL is here for a discussion base and to bring information to light, you cant do that closing every thread because it might hurt a players reputation. Might not be "right" or "wrong" but TL is here as a forum and as long as the discussion is civil and not breaking any of the rules I dont see why a thread should be closed, the mods do a fine job.
Exactly right. We are a discussion thread. There was very little actual discussion. Anyone who said Spades was innocent was shouted down as semi-pro's such as Catz damned him. There have been numerours references to the fact that Catz evidence was badly presented and was wrong (not that I saw the actual posts), which have been largely ignored. There have been reference links to information showing that "This program says he hacks" and the reasoned and logical explanations and even the links to GM players discussing those very program's inaccuracies were ignored. It was repeatedly forgotten that Nerchio for the most part said that he saw nothing wrong, yet people latched onto the fact that he was tired and disregarded everything he said.
Even when tired, I would back Nerchio TvT against Catz, as should most people, based on historic evidence. (Not saying that who ever wins should be right, just food for thought)
There were also top tier players adding fuel to the fire with no evidence "he went from low masters to top GM when he went home" This is NOT CLEAR evidence that he hacked. A good number of Koreans are better players at home than in a team house. I draw your attention to the player formerly known as OGSZenio. By that logic, just as Zenio could not handle a team environment, the second he went home, found his centre, clearly he was hacking. We don't know for sure. So why are WE, the community, lynching him?
On June 06 2012 08:22 Vivax wrote:
Gaming companies and teams look at the content here, not on the bnet forums, and when a case gets into the spotlight, they are forced to handle it accordingly.
If controversial topics in gaming would immediately be closed for the sake of not hurting anyone, things won't evolve and people will have to deal with more racism and hacking issues.
This is really the most powerful tool a single person has got at disposal, and it forces players and teams to keep it professional, which is a good thing imo. They can dick around outside of public perception while playing on smurfs for example.
The reaction of people to witchhunts is another thing, people getting seriously angry just from looking at the matter and then screaming bloody murder is some sort of way to kill time I guess, but the effects are good when the case is justified.
Exactly so, they look here to find out what happens. The 1st page of the Spades post was 18 people agreeing with the OP and one person, one lonely person at the bottom saying "guys just watched the replays, the OP is wrong".
Where are the mods to remove the people who have CLEARLY not watched any replays. I would expect sponsors to read the website, I would not expect them to read 250 pages of back and forth accusations. From page one, Spades was guilty until innocent. Is that how you want to be judged?
Also, as i mentioned in the OP, this isn't resolved and its NOT justified! Spades has not been clearly proven to be hacking (or once again, at least not that i've read yet).
This is one of the most powerful tools in e-sports atm. If people do not want to watch the player he is gone from the limelight. If they do, he is around forever. While this is not a bad arrangement, as most good players want to be watched, as soon as a semi-pro goes onto a tear he has to continually prove that he isn't a cheat? How is that a fair system to live in?
Spades has not been conclusively proven to be hacking by any party that should be the final authority, Lucifron's team, Spade's team, or an independent body specializing in hacking, who can analyze this from the skill level played. The last bit is to show that this ISN'T MVP playing.
On June 06 2012 09:03 Nabes wrote:
I'm glad something like the spades incident happened; it put a fire under everyone currently hacking and making them think twice about it.
Yeah. Play well, get accused of hacking, have your career ruined. The only real way to counter this is to video yourself while playing from home, and upload the video, and then get accused of hacking and uploading a different video, or hacking because you uploaded the video. Spades did the most honourable thing he could when he left WW, as the matter got out of hand, and the 1st 2 pages saw this as guilt, instead of a man taking responsibility for a matter concerning him.
On June 06 2012 09:24 dAPhREAk wrote:
utter garbage. you think the way to moderate discussion is to close threads because you feel that the discussion is done? who are you to decide whether the discussion is over? they should allow it to run its course, which is what it essentially has done at this point. lets not get our panties all in a twist.
They allowed it to run its course, and so far people are convinced of a player's guilt with no proof. This player has had to resign from his team, had his reputation damaged, and tbh, while there is still no conclusive results, he is receiving death threats from a SINGLE POST OP. A coward, as was generally agreed, just ruined a yet to be proven otherwise up-and-coming player's reputation in a single day. That is something that should not be allowed to happen again.
Also, I never said the discussion was done. I said the discussion was too controversial to allow free reign without proof. Two very different things.
I'll respond to more when I get home from work.
But so far, please read the OP and refrain from discussing the guilt or innocence of Spades here. The topic is concerning itself that he has not yet been proven to be guilty, yet people have already assumed so. This is discussion the actions of TL.Net.
Yes there are links to the matters, but when the more positive posters post, they reference it, when the more negative reference it, they seem to think I am defending Spades. I am not.
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