WCSdetecting maphackers can be a fickle routine. what seems like a lucky coincidence in an isolated replay (referred to as A) can produce a damning pattern if observed in several (referred to as B). all you need to find them is a decent understanding of the game (leaving decent vague like this means i don't have indirectly comment on my perception on my own understanding, avoiding potential embarassment).
more specifically a submission of A from some user should lead the community (the playing community) to pay extra attention the next time around the play the 'suspect', or rewatch their older replays against 'suspect'. if this does not produce B, you move on. no accusations were made (i'm purposefully leaving implications out for the sake of simplicity, but there is a debate to be had regarding this statement).
if however B is produced you have reached a point where you have a good basis to make a reasonable judgement.
in its current state the GL / Master Hacker Thread does not provide such an environment.
to produce this environment we need:
- reasonably low barriers of entry for submitting replays
- a clear distinction between submitting a replay and making an accusation.
an easy first step towards removing the stigma associated with having a suspicious replay uploaded and producing a clear distinction between submitting a replay and making an accusation is working on how we as users submit replays.
it could be simple things like always erring on the side of caution, never making an accusation without strong proofs. for this you need to know what constitutes a strong proof and a weak proof, refer to TL Hacker Database for a tentative but maybe slightly outdated list.
another step could be to define stricter form on submissions that leaves little room to put your foot in your mouth, maybe in it's own thread, with discussion seperate, but freely available for anyone to read and get replays from. maybe akin to the way the ban-thread works.
doing so you could produce an efficient system for rooting out maphackers, because i have noticed that the problem is more often than not getting enough replays to produce a pattern than finding out if a replay is suspicious is not.
feel free to discuss how you would like to see the GM / Master Hacker Thread be implemented come HOTS (if it even will be, or to what end, but keep this constructive).
