EPTWhere is the evidence, where is the justice?
People in jail that killed other people get more pardoning than this...
Blizzard statement and ruling on WCS win-trading - Page 15
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LastWish
2015 Posts
Where is the evidence, where is the justice? People in jail that killed other people get more pardoning than this... | ||
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oGoZenob
France1503 Posts
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Sejanus
Lithuania550 Posts
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On April 15 2016 05:56 NonY wrote: Even if Blizzard has good reasons for keep things private and it's not feasible for them to do otherwise, it doesn't mean we should have blind faith in their competence and fairness. Whatever arguments people make about "This is why they are so vague" are fine. But that just means we're trusting people with no record of competence and no record of fairness to make these decisions and we should be aware of that. On one hand it's nice that the people running the esport have connections to the company that runs the game so they obviously have access to resources that are very useful for doing their jobs well. But when that connection comes with limitations like this, then it becomes clear that it's not such a perfect situation. Personally, if someone I don't know says "trust me, I looked into it, here's what really happened" then that means almost nothing to me. If a bunch of people want to believe they're infallible when they haven't proven that they are, then they're going to earn a reputation for being infallible when they don't deserve it. So I feel more comfortable preaching skepticism and wanting to see the evidence for myself. It is more than "trust me". Blizzard stated the offences. In which detail should Blizzard provide evidence? If they make the stats available for download, they still could have manipulated them if you don't think you can trust them. Or they could be so incompetent that they forgot to upload some stats which would question the conclusion Blizzard drew. Should they invite you and a team of IT guys to fly to the Blizzard HQ and check all the logs? Using another (shared) account which pushes one's ladder standing, that things which can hardly happen through an accident. | ||
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TomInKorea
Korea (South)39 Posts
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NonY
8751 Posts
On April 17 2016 19:32 [F_]aths wrote: It is more than "trust me". Blizzard stated the offences. In which detail should Blizzard provide evidence? If they make the stats available for download, they still could have manipulated them if you don't think you can trust them. Or they could be so incompetent that they forgot to upload some stats which would question the conclusion Blizzard drew. Should they invite you and a team of IT guys to fly to the Blizzard HQ and check all the logs? Using another (shared) account which pushes one's ladder standing, that things which can hardly happen through an accident. Judging whether a player is win trading brings up a lot of questions. If chat is used as evidence, what is the content of the chat? Is it something unambiguous like "Here's your free win for the season. I expect the favor returned on NA ladder in season 3"? Or is it vague or ambiguous? If it's not completely clear, how much significance is it given and on what basis is it interpreted? If gameplay is used as evidence, then what qualifies as deliberately not winning? Players make huge mistakes in major tournaments that instantly throw the game all the time. So much so that there's a catchphrase that SC2 anti-fans repeat to each other: going full foreigner. Is a similar mistake in a ladder game evidence of deliberately losing? How much do the people judging this know about the game at the level of these players? Do they know how to analyze a replay for patterns in commands and camera movement? What is considered a normal pattern of playing ladder for a particular player? Most players do not try their hardest to win in every ladder game. In this case, what is Major's history of ladder play in the months and years previous to this? Has he left games without any discernible reason before? Account sharing is done so frequently simply for convenience or harmless reasons, which Blizzard has had a clear history of tolerating and even encouraging/approving, that merely proving account sharing happened is not really proof of anything. Yes it's something that Blizzard can ban you for itself when they choose to enforce it, but considering that they don't do that, then it's only relevant here as evidence of some kind of foul play. In this case, account sharing is only relevant to the extent that it was necessary or builds a case toward win trading occurring. The account sharing, like the chat and the gameplay and the ladder records, is just another thing that can contribute to building the case that win trading was taking place. So, how often has Major shared accounts without being involved in win trading? How often have the other players shared accounts? Is there any reason other than win trading that they'd be sharing accounts now? Major was specifically accused of win trading but there were no references to wins he received that benefited him. What wins did he receive? What was Major getting out of it? Or what was he promised? -- It's possible that the evidence Blizzard reviewed painted a very clear picture and they did not make a mistake. However, it could be that the case is much trickier and the process and reasoning of the Blizzard esports team were erroneous in one or more ways. If this case was not tricky, I can certainly imagine cases that are. But if all we're going to get is Blizzard's judgment and vague references to some of the evidence they reviewed, then we'll never know how good of a job they're doing. I'm not comfortable with that. I remember viewing some of the discussions for misbehavior in the past, and we had some of the smartest and wisest and most experienced people in the community all working together to figure things out (top players analyzing gameplay, bwchart experts analyzing replay patterns, etc), and things were still very hard to figure out. So when I read this from the Blizzard esports team basically saying "trust us" in a situation that could potentially require a TON of expertise and experience and still come down to judgment calls, I'm uncomfortable. The whole thing about technical data providing evidence of account sharing is such a minor thing that has almost nothing to do with what I'm saying that I'm surprised so many people bring it up. That's actually an example of something I do perfectly trust Blizzard to acquire and interpret that data accurately. I'm not concerned about that at all. edit: Actually the thing that is concerning about that is that so many players are guilty of account sharing, that if any vague situation arises in which they can also prove account sharing, and their move is to say "Well at the very least we found direct evidence of account sharing and that's against the TOS so we're banning him" then that'll be really unfair. Blizzard ought to be clear about this right now if account sharing is going to be an issue. If it's not going to be tolerated, then go ahead and eliminate all the instances in which it's allowed just for convenience or whatever. Get black and white on account sharing immediately or all these judgments are gonna be potentially really unjust. | ||
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ZerglingSoup
United States346 Posts
How can Blizzard effectively share what they have without exposing the names of possible pros or community members who benefited from the alleged free wins and who may or may not be innocent of wrongdoing, but might look bad regardless? How should they handle this aspect? It seems like they could open themselves up to a deeper round of second-guessing "why him, but not this other guy" if they say more than they have.. | ||
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papaz
Sweden4149 Posts
However, after you have caught and announced who the cheaters are there is no reason not to release the replays used for the judging. I can only assume they are doing that because there will be a shitstorm regardless on the guilt of the players. I still believe it would be good practice to at least present the evidence after you have already convicted a player. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On April 19 2016 10:11 NonY wrote: edit: Actually the thing that is concerning about that is that so many players are guilty of account sharing, that if any vague situation arises in which they can also prove account sharing, and their move is to say "Well at the very least we found direct evidence of account sharing and that's against the TOS so we're banning him" then that'll be really unfair. Blizzard ought to be clear about this right now if account sharing is going to be an issue. If it's not going to be tolerated, then go ahead and eliminate all the instances in which it's allowed just for convenience or whatever. Get black and white on account sharing immediately or all these judgments are gonna be potentially really unjust. This last paragraph is a really great point that transcends the issue at hand. Because this an approach we see ever so often in all kinds of rules: let us make a rule that is often broken so that we can enforce it when it suits us. Sadly even a lot of "real-life" law looks lite that nowadays ... This should definitely be criticized at every instance. | ||
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babobbyj
636 Posts
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On April 19 2016 19:40 opisska wrote: This last paragraph is a really great point that transcends the issue at hand. Because this an approach we see ever so often in all kinds of rules: let us make a rule that is often broken so that we can enforce it when it suits us. Sadly even a lot of "real-life" law looks lite that nowadays ... This should definitely be criticized at every instance. Yes, it's pretty worrying that that's their stance. "You may all break the rules, go ahead. As soon as we want, we'll use it as an excuse to punish you. " Like, totally and ridiculously unprofessional. | ||
munch
Mute City2363 Posts
"We know account-sharing does occur at the highest level of ladder, but we want to make clear that it is against the End User License Agreement for StarCraft II, and will not be tolerated during ladder competitions run or sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment" The issue they're concerned with isn't account sharing; it's doing it during ladder competitions | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On April 19 2016 21:17 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Why can't people read. "We know account-sharing does occur at the highest level of ladder, but we want to make clear that it is against the End User License Agreement for StarCraft II, and will not be tolerated during ladder competitions run or sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment" The issue they're concerned with isn't account sharing; it's doing it during ladder competitions Only enforcing a rule when you feel like enforcing it makes no sense. Basically it's not a rule anymore, is it? There's also the fact that it's ridiculous to impede professional players from their practice during ladder competitions. "There's a ladder competition going on, so you can't ladder for practice, ok?" Overall, the ladder qualifier is just bad and the way Blizzard runs it is also not very good. | ||
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RichardNPL
185 Posts
On April 19 2016 21:04 babobbyj wrote: lol @ all the salty ppl defending cheaters I know right? Blizzard should rule with an iron fist! off with their heads! | ||
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munch
Mute City2363 Posts
On April 19 2016 21:21 Incognoto wrote: Only enforcing a rule when you feel like enforcing it makes no sense. Basically it's not a rule anymore, is it? There's also the fact that it's ridiculous to impede professional players from their practice during ladder competitions. "There's a ladder competition going on, so you can't ladder for practice, ok?" Overall, the ladder qualifier is just bad and the way Blizzard runs it is also not very good. I agree with the fact that the ladder qualifier needs reworking, but "There's a ladder competition going on, so you can't ladder for practice" is overstating it surely. The whole system came out of the opinion that ladder needed to mean something, and that it's nice to have a ranking of who the top 16 players in the region are sans barcodes. While I don't think that this system delivers at all on that promise, how are shared accounts meant to help with that? Is it too much to ask that for the competition period, players use their own accounts / smurfs? | ||
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Quineotio
Australia128 Posts
On April 19 2016 10:11 NonY wrote: Judging whether a player is win trading brings up a lot of questions. Indeed. How can we know that this isn't part of an evil government conspiracy? After all, we don't know EVERYTHING, so ANYTHING could be happening. What are you actually asking for? They provided their reasoning in the initial post, where they also explained why they wouldn't make the replays public - to protect privacy. Why do you deserve to see the proof? Do you think the public are better positioned to make a decision than Blizzard? Should there be a detailed public review of every decision made by Blizzard, or is this a special case? Are you asking for a public trial instead of an internal investigation? If so, how would you conduct this to make sure it's fair? How do you ensure player privacy? Should private chat logs and match history be released to the public whenever anyone is accused of something, or only when "convicted"? If you are releasing private chat logs, how far back do you go - a month? 6 months? If there are confidential, personal elements to the communications between players, should the incriminating parts be cut out and presented out of context (i.e. private sections removed)? If you are censoring private information, who is responsible for the censorship? Or do you feel that you personally should be involved? Do you have evidence that Blizzard doesn't have that proves innocence? On April 19 2016 10:11 NonY wrote: Account sharing is done so frequently simply for convenience or harmless reasons, which Blizzard has had a clear history of tolerating and even encouraging/approving, that merely proving account sharing happened is not really proof of anything. From the initial post: We know account-sharing does occur at the highest level of ladder, but we want to make clear that it is against the End User License Agreement for StarCraft II, and will not be tolerated during ladder competitions run or sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment. Rule-breaking or other malfeasance that occurs on shared accounts will be taken as evidence against all parties with access to the account, regardless of who directly took the action in question. We take this stance to prevent pro-level players from ranking up accounts and then distributing them to third parties to manipulate the standings. Blizzard Entertainment will continue to monitor all esports competitions, especially ones we sponsor or run directly. As a core part of the StarCraft II experience, we take behavior on the ladder very seriously. We reserve the right to escalate our responses to these issues in order to discourage future ladder manipulation. Ladder-integration into the World Championship Series this year has had many positive effects for viewers and players alike, but in order to keep the ladder as a method of qualification, we must remain vigilant against unfair manipulation. Of course it's possible that Blizzard made a mistake, just as it's possible to be falsely convicted of murder. Perhaps, as a precaution, don't share your account and don't win-trade. | ||
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NonY
8751 Posts
On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote: What are you actually asking for? To see all the evidence they considered and all the interpretations of that evidence and the arguments made about the meaning of the evidence. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:They provided their reasoning in the initial post, where they also explained why they wouldn't make the replays public - to protect privacy. This doesn't help me accept the situation at all. Their decision to keep some things private to protect privacy is just as suspect as their decision to punish people. What if there's evidence of guilt and they hide it by saying that they'd rather protect privacy? On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:Why do you deserve to see the proof? I want to do my part to make sure they're doing a good job. I have experience with these investigations and I think there are some things about the case that I'd understand better than anyone on the Blizzard esports team. Similarly there are many people in the community that can bring greater value to working the case than the people on the Blizzard esports team. Public scrutiny would lead to a better result. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:Do you think the public are better positioned to make a decision than Blizzard? I don't think the public should be part of the decision-making process, but their awareness of the case would make sure Blizzard is not being blatantly unfair. Additionally, the contributions the community could make would be a valuable resource for the Blizzard esports team to make a correct decision. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:Should there be a detailed public review of every decision made by Blizzard, or is this a special case? Yeah I think there should be, but since it's not the public's job I don't want to place too much obligation. I'd say there's some kind of duty. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:Are you asking for a public trial instead of an internal investigation? Yes. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:If so, how would you conduct this to make sure it's fair? Blizzard presents the case in its totality but without issuing a ruling. The public can review it and contribute to it. Blizzard can choose to process the case again or simply take the contributions of the public under consideration. The ruling would be given with an opinion, not just a sentencing. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:How do you ensure player privacy? You don't. Players don't have privacy in the first place. It's a public competition. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:Should private chat logs and match history be released to the public whenever anyone is accused of something, or only when "convicted"? Everything on b.net should be public, yeah. If someone else turns over chat logs from a different source, then that's their decision to have done so. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:If you are releasing private chat logs, how far back do you go - a month? 6 months? If there are confidential, personal elements to the communications between players, should the incriminating parts be cut out and presented out of context (i.e. private sections removed)? If you are censoring private information, who is responsible for the censorship? Nothing should be censored at all. Everything could be relevant to judging what actually happened. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:Or do you feel that you personally should be involved? Do you have evidence that Blizzard doesn't have that proves innocence? Of course the accused should be able to defend themselves. Absolutely absurd that people were banned before they even got to say a word. Yeah, this is such a joke. They don't take the ladder seriously enough. The amount of hacking, account-sharing and generally anti-competitive behavior that occurs on their ladder makes this statement from Blizzard a bunch of bullshit. Even if they want to take it seriously, they do not have the ability or the resources to do so. If they are actually going to start being serious about account-sharing, then I'm expecting a bunch more bans coming soon. If no one is getting banned now, then it's like I said: they're saving it as an ace up their sleeve to ban people for other reasons. On April 19 2016 21:37 Quineotio wrote:Of course it's possible that Blizzard made a mistake, just as it's possible to be falsely convicted of murder. Perhaps, as a precaution, don't share your account and don't win-trade. That's good advice to players. But even without account-sharing and win-trading, there are still many cases with large gray areas in which a player could be punished without just cause. Your advice does not address nearly all of my concern either. ---- TBH I can't tell if you're arguing against what I'm saying or not because by asking all these questions, you're actually beginning the project with me of how Blizzard could handle this better. I sort of 80% feel like you're asking me all these questions to prove that since I can't immediately tell you during my 10mins of forum browsing how Blizzard eSports should handle these cases with absolutely zero downsides then my all of my ideas should be disregarded. IDK if you're just going to make us regress to talking philosophy about privacy vs justice, etc. If that's all that you're willing to accept are changes that are 100% improvements with zero downsides, then I guess we can start there. Personally as a player, I'm willing to say that my SC2 life is all public and professional and I don't expect privacy in any of it if that would minimize the chance of something unjust happening to me. | ||
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Quineotio
Australia128 Posts
On April 19 2016 22:11 NonY wrote: stuff Wow... User was warned for this post | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On April 19 2016 21:32 thecrazymunchkin wrote: I agree with the fact that the ladder qualifier needs reworking, but "There's a ladder competition going on, so you can't ladder for practice" is overstating it surely. The whole system came out of the opinion that ladder needed to mean something, and that it's nice to have a ranking of who the top 16 players in the region are sans barcodes. While I don't think that this system delivers at all on that promise, how are shared accounts meant to help with that? Is it too much to ask that for the competition period, players use their own accounts / smurfs? I can certainly see that it'd be nice to have a meaningful ladder, there's nothing wrong with that notion. Nor is there anything wrong with Blizzard enforcing their ToS. What is questionable though is arbitrarily enforcing some of the rules from the ToS whenever Blizzard feels like it, rather than whenever those rules are broken in the first place. Especially when Blizzard feels like enforcing the rules when they want to justify banning players from the ladder. "There's a ladder competition going on, so you can't ladder for practice" is overstating it a little, but not all that much. Players are no longer allowed to treat ladder games as mere practice during those times, they need to play to win. Trying out a new build or cheese, or rage-quitting, or leaving because you messed up, is forbidden during a ladder competition since doing those things will mess up the meaning of the ladder. If you would like to have a meaningful ladder, then perhaps what should be considered is to both enforce the ToS to be respected and also allow professional players to hide information about their builds or hide replays, as well as anything else which puts their repertoire of strategies at risk before a tournament. That is why barcodes exist in the first place, as far as I know. Anyway, it's not like I would know, I am merely pointing out the inherent flaws of both the ladder qualifier and the way Blizzard runs it. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
C'mon, this is not good and you know it... (at least I hope) | ||
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