It's unfair to do bans for cl 8 now. You better make point deductions for that season. That would make this decision as meaningful as the punishment that farce ended up with. Saying you were lenient for those who came forward is plain ridiculous. I don't accept that ethics panel.

What scum.

Injustice!

Power to the people

I call upon the audit panel to ban Jeff and Rak

Edit: R.I.P. Not Jeff

Edited 11/19/2018 17:27:37

Thanks for the well explained post. I am not going to debate any of the conclusions one way or another (I will leave that up to the parties involved).

I just wanted to say I appreciate the transparency and all of this being out here for us to see. I also appreciate the effort of the entire panel (looks like a pretty exhaustive effort).

Might be good to have a listing of the slot reductions at the end as a summary, just so we can see who is restricted where, for each season. Maybe organized by season, then by division (where the team WILL be)?

Edited 11/19/2018 17:36:21

@ChrisCMU

If your banned for 4 slots, you are banned entirely for the next season. Than you are banned for only one the next season after.. 3 + 1 means the 4 Slot Penalty.

Edited 11/19/2018 17:37:26

I already deleted that question when I reread that :)

@Toua Tokuchi

Can it be posted on forum? or should I write mail for that?

We want to keep that decision to the involved players. If they appeal their punishment or ask for all the evidence, we can show it here.

@89th

It was Malakkan who made the ONE! case public. Not sure if that'll change things, but I hope that is the only "mistake".

From the evidence we have, this is incorrect. In our evidence it is shown, that Beren came forward with the case along with Deadman in their retirement statement from the 27th june 2018 in the official CL 10 discord server. malakkan made his statement 1 day later in the forums.

@mod

It's unfair to do bans for cl 8 now. You better make point deductions for that season. That would make this decision as meaningful as the punishment that farce ended up with. Saying you were lenient for those who came forward is plain ridiculous. I don't accept that ethics panel.

It was not easy for us to come to the decisions we did. First of all we had to take into account the rules for CL8 that were very fuzzy and vague (as the administration team for it changed) and originally they were set as follows: https://www.warlight.net/Forum/141458-clan-league-8-preparation-thread which asks for a minimum of a season ban for rule breakings.

But then you had rulings like : https://www.warzone.com/Forum/169294-clan-league-group-c-mhunters-gl-team-ruling

So the question was how do we as a new panel decide on an old rule-break like this? We decided that our verdict is fair based on all the nuances.

We also want to remind you, that the Masters case happened after the MH ruling, while Tacky and Zero's actions happened prior to that date, which we factored into our decision as well.

Last but not least we want to remind you, that Deadman and Farah didn't received their bans only for their actions in CL 8, but their 2nd rule breaking case in CL 9 factored into the overall punishment as well.

Hopefully that makes it more understandable the predicament we were in and how we have tried to solve it looking back and how we are looking to solve it going forward.

It is hard to manage to keep all the best players (which many sadly gained an unfair advantage) whilst keeping it fair for people who didnt do anything. It goes without saying that we arent happy to ban or punish people but we found it necessary and found our approach in the end to be balanced.

I am not advocating for/against a particular type of punishment (slots vs points). Everyone should keep in mind that one of those punishes clans while the other punishes players. Perhaps that was factored in here?

Hahaha this will be a good thread.

Cheers for creating and running the clot deadman. But clearly we don't need you anymore so looks like you're banned m8

From the evidence we have, this is incorrect. In our evidence it is shown, that Beren came forward with the case along with Deadman in their retirement statement from the 27th june 2018 in the official CL 10 discord server. malakkan made his statement 1 day later in the forums.

This is false. That post in the discord server does not implicate anyone specifically. And even if you claimed that you could figure out who was meant there, it was Deadman who said that not me anyway.

In any case everyone in our clan knew this substitution was made, so feel free to punish us all for not disclosing it at the time.

I also agree that the whole clan should be banned.

Btw, here's my suggestion: ignore these nobodies' rants and move on.

I've said this before the whole ethics panel thing happened, but I think we're focusing on the wrong issue here.
In almost all of the cases covered here, people have broken the rules to avoid boots or non-joins, not to gain an unfair advantage.
If they had been given an option where they could avoid the boot and replace their teammate without breaking the rules, I'm sure most of them would have taken it.

CL10 was a big improvement in that area, with the CLOT that allowed substitutions, but I think we could go even further in CL11. Perhaps let someone log in for his disappeared teammate to play his moves, or activate a vacation? Or allow a substitution in-game, as long as the other team is warned beforehand? The rules can be more flexible and still fair at the same time.

I play CL for fun, and in my opinion, there's nothing that sucks more than a player disappearing mid-game. You play 10 great turns on a 2v2 or a 3v3, and all it takes is someone booting (on your team or on the other team) to ruin your fun.
Rather than play a 3v2 and gain a meaningless victory, I'd like it better if the other team had an option that allowed them to keep playing and give me a real fight.

The fact is, Clan League is played over a really long period of time, and we all know some players will disappear at times during that period. The current rules are quite strict, and only allow for three options:
1) Let them boot and ruin the fun for everyone involved. (Like all those Bonsai boots during CL10, I don't think it made anyone happy, teammates and opponents alike.)
2) Break the rules, replace them, confess and get punished.
3) Break the rules, replace them, say nothing and get away with it.
I'll be honest: if one of my teammates boots during CL11, as it stands I'm pretty sure I'll choose 3). But if I'm given a fourth option where that teammate can be replaced without breaking the rules, I'll gladly choose it.

So I don't know who is making the rules now, the administrator or the ethics panel? But I hope that before CL11, they can make the rules more flexible, so we can all avoid boots without resorting to cheating.
I find it sad that the only people punished here are the people who came forward and/or were stupid enough to get caught, while the ones who kept quiet got away with it. And by that, I'm not saying I want everyone punished... I'm saying let's make rules that keep the fun and give people no incentive to break them.

CL9 allowed subs. It wasn't automated, but was allowed. In fact the announcement thread says a player MUST be subbed if they leave the clan mid season (I don't recall if that happened or changed). I don't remember having subs in 8 (we didn't state it as a rule, and I don't remember doing it).

People also did makeup games prior, though they were on the honor system and there were issues with that not being consistent. For that reason we outlawed it in CL8.

I agree scenario 1 is the worst (just have boots happen and ruin games).

However, there was a mechanism for replacing people in CL9, it just wasn't as good as CL10. I am not saying that should/should not absolve any or some actions of people above. But they probably had the option to take the boot, stall a turn while arranging a sub, and just live with the AI for a turn. Most games the AI for a turn won't swing the outcome of a game I hope.

Rak, are you actually my alt ?

@Rak-

The panel could have decided to agree with you and throw out subbing/extending vacations and such (which is a plausible conclusion any person could come to).

These are the cases:
Case 1 - issue was helping each other, not just subbing
Case 2 - makeup games were outlawed
Case 3 - complete shared turns
Case 4 - straight subbing
Case 5 - 3rd party discussion in addition to just avoiding boots.
Case 6 - only boot avoidance
Case 7 - only boot avoidance

In your world, that means that only Case 4,6,7 would not be punished (people would get warnings perhaps), No competitive advantage was gained. The other cases would still be punishable as there were clear rule violations (knowledge share, makeup games).

It is reasonable to want no punishment on 3 of the cases (two of which were not punished at all BTW). But it is also reasonable to see why the panel punished the other cases. So really you only disagree on case 4, where someone subbed without prior permissions.

Edited 11/19/2018 21:18:06

Huh, how many rule violations! :O
Well, perhaps it means that the problem is with the rules themselves, no? ;)

For example, I fully agree with rakleader, the boots kill the fun a lot, so rules which not maximally let avoid the boots maybe not enough good rules.

Btw, the good rules are what no one wants to break.
And the best rules are what no one able to break ;)

I mean, the current CL rules can easily be broken and the risk of falling is not high either. And even the punishment (slot reductions), if one falls, is not so high to deter people (imo). And the other issue: when I don't want to break the rule but any of my opponents can easy break them without any risk, so why I do not do that (also) then? (because if I do not, then they will have an advantage over me) etc. etc. etc.

So again, the best rules are what no one able to break.

Ok, to create these rules in an online game almost impossible, I know :P

But here are an idea for an alternative Clan League:
There would be 6 1vs1, 3 2vs2 and 2 3vs3 tournaments as earlier.
But instead of filling slots by clan members, every clan should create (and leveled up) six shared clan accounts which joined to those 6+3+2 tournaments. And after that every clan can organize how they will play on those accounts. So boots are prevented (boots = bad organizational skills which an important skill for the clans), and no one can break these rules ;)

This is just a quick idea but seems provide solutions ;)
And would be fun if the private chats would be shared in the end :D

Edited 11/19/2018 22:44:30

I considered commenting on this, but rak said it all so precisely that I don't have anything to add :)