c4countdown

Just to start a new thread that overlaps with the 'brag' thread about new anonmous players on Apterous. I don't particularly like it, not so much the anonymity but the style of, completely bizarre made up names like Ecclesiastes Myanmar (sp?). From the Internet Scrabble Club I know it's very easy to cast aspersions about cheating without having any concrete evidence whatsoever, but there's a certain sense of taking the piss going on here. Even if you don't want to use your real name, why not log on as John Smith? And the way that these players say things like "does thou desire a game with me" - it's not by accident IMO it's just taking the piss.

As I pointed out before, I prefer to play people I know, preferably people who've actually been on the show. I'm not saying ever player that we don't recognise is cheating, but in this case there's clearly something fishy going on.

Since they're obviously trying to wind you up, I suggest you're rather playing into their hands by starting a topic about it!

One of these players was trying to get Kirk to play a game with 'him', while I was on apterous the other day. I must say, that the conversation was rather unpleasant (not on Kirk's side, I hasten to add!). I'd have felt very uncomfortable if it had been me he was talking to.

IMHO, maybe you should give some of the players a warning about netiquette, Charlie. I know that we're all grown-ups, but that's no reason to put up with people being bullies.

Julie T wrote: IMHO, maybe you should give some of the players a warning about netiquette, Charlie. I know that we're all grown-ups, but that's no reason to put up with people being bullies.

Well, that's a different matter. If they start being idiots then I'll just ban them. It's probably Richard Brittain anyway.

I was just starting a thread to see if people had the same impression that I did, it's very easy to be wrong about this sort of thing and I wanted to see if other people are thinking the same thing, or not.

Charlie Reams wrote:Well, that's a different matter. If they start being idiots then I'll just ban them. It's probably Richard Brittain anyway.

I think I mentioned previously that it might be the same person using two connections to play against himself.

Julie T wrote:One of these players was trying to get Kirk to play a game with 'him', while I was on apterous the other day. I must say, that the conversation was rather unpleasant (not on Kirk's side, I hasten to add!). I'd have felt very uncomfortable if it had been me he was talking to.

IMHO, maybe you should give some of the players a warning about netiquette, Charlie. I know that we're all grown-ups, but that's no reason to put up with people being bullies.

Sorry about that Julie. I was stressed from work and I took it out on him. He was starting to annoy me. It's all my fault and he wound me up. Apologies once again

I agree with Julie's comment. It wasn't pretty especially as i was, hopefully jokingly, labelled a murderer.

I played, and lost to, 3 of the 'names' and all were pleasant enough and as Charlie says don't let it get to you.

Cheers

Keith

Keith Bevins wrote:I agree with Julie's comment. It wasn't pretty especially as i was, hopefully jokingly, labelled a murderer.

I played, and lost to, 3 of the 'names' and all were pleasant enough and as Charlie says don't let it get to you.

Cheers

Keith

Oh. I thought I said something bad, not him.

Keith Bevins wrote:I agree with Julie's comment. It wasn't pretty especially as i was, hopefully jokingly, labelled a murderer.

Cheers

Keith

Eeeeek! Even worse than the bit I saw!
Glad it didn't get to you.

Hi, Keith, BTW!

Martin Gardner wrote:I think I mentioned previously that it might be the same person using two connections to play against himself.

You were right. The relevant accounts have now been banned.

Charlie Reams wrote:You were right. The relevant accounts have now been banned.

Lol, who got banned?

roko roko, John Groats, Ecclesiastes Myanmar, Terrick Tarvius, Mishkin Zion, John Stevenson and Steve Jones were all the same person. Some people have way too much time on their hands...

Charlie Reams wrote:roko roko, John Groats, Ecclesiastes Myanmar, Terrick Tarvius, Mishkin Zion, John Stevenson and Steve Jones were all the same person. Some people have way too much time on their hands...

Lol, any idea who?!

Have their games been expunged from the records (and the damage done to my rating reinstated) ?

Jon Corby wrote:Have their games been expunged from the records (and the damage done to my rating reinstated) ?

I'm not really sure how to handle that. I don't want to delete all their games because that affects legit players too, although I might delete the games that were just one person playing himself.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:Have their games been expunged from the records (and the damage done to my rating reinstated) ?

I'm not really sure how to handle that. I don't want to delete all their games because that affects legit players too, although I might delete the games that were just one person playing himself.

I was only kidding, I couldn't give a rat's about my rating. In fact I wish it were lower, I'm positive it puts people off playing me. It's either that or my personality.

Roko's on this forum isn't he? Any comment, or has he been kicked from here too?

How did you tell it was the same guy IP? Because myself and CF occasionally play against each other (although I suppose you know that we exist, well, sort of, you know that I exist, I'll shut up now).

Michael Wallace wrote:How did you tell it was the same guy IP? Because myself and CF occasionally play against each other (although I suppose you know that we exist, well, sort of, you know that I exist, I'll shut up now).

Funnily enough I did actually run a more general query to see which accounts shared an IP and was quite surprised when you popped up, but then I saw your duplicate and it made sense.

You mean Ecclesiastes Myanmar isn't a real person?

Its a wonderful moniker though, which oddly enough converts anagrammatically into SARCASTIC NAME, SEEMLY.

I feel so cheated.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:I think I mentioned previously that it might be the same person using two connections to play against himself.

You were right. The relevant accounts have now been banned.

Great, Charlie!

Personally, I couldn't give a rat's whatsit whether the person had a few different personae.
Except that it bothers many of you, and that he/she used the anonymity to be rather unpleasant to people in aptochat, to say the least.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:How did you tell it was the same guy IP? Because myself and CF occasionally play against each other (although I suppose you know that we exist, well, sort of, you know that I exist, I'll shut up now).

Funnily enough I did actually run a more general query to see which accounts shared an IP and was quite surprised when you popped up, but then I saw your duplicate and it made sense.

I was gonna mention that if you ever install that French dictionary on there (not that anyone cares, I admit) I was gonna make an account for Christine then I can play against her from my mum's house, or whatever. But it would be two different people, not one person with two accounts.

Julie T wrote:Personally, I couldn't give a rat's whatsit whether the person had a few different personae.

It was more that he was playing against himself in order to boost his rating artificially. And, given the mysteriously incredible quality of those games, I suspect there was a fair bit of cheating involved too. There's no particular rule against being annoying.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Julie T wrote:Personally, I couldn't give a rat's whatsit whether the person had a few different personae.

It was more that he was playing against himself in order to boost his rating artificially. And, given the mysteriously incredible quality of those games, I suspect there was a fair bit of cheating involved too. There's no particular rule against being annoying.

Problem is, there's presumably nothing (unless you've IP banned) to stop them signing up again with different names, or other people doing the same thing, or people just generally being twats. You can't keep managing it on an incident-by-incident basis if the site grows as I'm sure you'd like it to. Have you considered adding the ability to block other users, so you don't see them in the player list, hear their chat, or acknowledge their challenges?

Jon Corby wrote:Have you considered adding the ability to block other users, so you don't see them in the player list, hear their chat, or acknowledge their challenges?

Yep. But they can still disrupt things like the High Scores/Top Players list, so some kind of administrator oversight is always necessary. If push comes to shove then I'll just pick a few reliable users to act as admins and give them the power to kick or ban as appropriate. But generally, please try not to feed the trolls; if they're annoying, please ignore them and if they persist, please message me privately and I'll ban they ass.

Charlie Reams wrote:please message me privately and I'll ban they ass.

I'd rather post it here if that's alright.

Well, if I was trying to annoy some group of people and they kept talking about how much I was annoying them, that would probably encourage me to keep being annoying.