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[Mischief]

Let me say upfront that I respect the no naming and shaming policy.  This thread isn't an invitation to smear, embarrass, or digitally stock and pillory the unsuspecting.  And if I've posed a bad idea and this thread ends up locked up and trashed with no graverobber or rogue on the board I completely understand.  It probably wasn't a $3-$6 idea anyways.   

However...

Anyone who's spent some time playing Goko knows how easily (and in my recent experience, how often) a player can quit out of a game without it affecting anyone's rating.  Back in the days of rampant bugs and crashes it was harder to tell what was intentional and what was merely an accident.  I myself crashed out of one game the very turn before I would have lost.  And I felt really bad about it too!  But the game's much cleaner now... okay it's relatively cleaner now, and intentional disconnects before an impending loss are pretty obvious. 

The best solution is that quitters lose rank just as if they had formally resigned from the game, and their remaining opponent gains rank as though he had won.  I'm optimistic that Goko will implement this themselves eventually, but not quite optimistic enough to stop me from writing this post.

Any other competitive online game uses an automatic matchmaking system.  But Goko doesn't so I add "4000+" to my games' titles and manually filter my opponents.  This results in a bunch of kicks, but ensures a better experience for us all, I'm convinced.  If a bronze league and a masters league Starcraft player get matched up, no one has fun. 

Any other competitive online game makes an effort to ban hackers, and I'm not suggesting that quitting is a comparable offense to hacking, and I'm NOT suggesting bans, that would be horrible.  But Goko has offered us no solution so far.  So again, I find myself manually screening my opponents, this time with a private list.  This results in more kicks, but ensures a better experience for... well, for me.  But fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...

I was talking to an opponent during a game and it came up that we'd each recently played against the same player who suspiciously quit on us both.  This led to a brief exchange of other names to avoid and we both left our match better informed than before. 

This isn't any different than me logging onto Planetside 2, hearing from a friend that lllIEATBABIESlll is spawn killing in Rashnu Bio Lab, and me just avoiding that place for a while.  Am I somehow morally obligated to visit Rashnu Bio Lab just so I'm not somehow discriminating against lllIEATBABIESlll?  Of course not.  Communication resulted in me protecting myself from undue frustration.

My suggestion is exactly that, communication, but on a larger scale.  Can we, as a mature, trustworthy online community, maintain a simple blacklist?  After maybe two different people submit reports simply documenting the offending opponent's name, the day and time, and if not the log, then at least a brief impression of the game's likely outcome, then we add that name to a list. 

No one wants to hear from anybody how you're gonna **** the other guy's **** if you meet him irl.  We should keep the shame to a minimum without blinding ourselves to the names of habitual quitters.  Wise as serpents, innocent as doves... or was it, wise as spies, innocent as duchesses?

And I believe in second chances too.  Maybe after some good reports we could wipe the name off.  And the ease of changing your Goko name/avatar gives anyone the chance to wipe their own slate clean themselves anyways. 

[Donald X.]

The intention is to let people have friend lists and blocked lists. I don't know when that will happen but it's obv. worth having.

[Drab Emordnilap]

And the ease of changing your Goko name/avatar gives anyone the chance to wipe their own slate clean themselves anyways.

This right here will make any attempt to shame or avoid evildoers moot, I think.

[eHalcyon]

The best solution is that quitters lose rank just as if they had formally resigned from the game, and their remaining opponent gains rank as though he had won.  I'm optimistic that Goko will implement this themselves eventually, but not quite optimistic enough to stop me from writing this post.

I am fairly certain that this is on their radar.  A more enterprising poster will go find a reference post, but I believe that they have stated that they do plan on implementing a penalty for dropping games.  When it will actually happen is a different matter, of course.

[cactus]

I'm still finding Goko freezes up before I get to the end of a game of multiplayer.... so all my quits are unintentional. Please don't blackball me...! (anyway my increadibly low rating should prove I'm not gaming the system)

I wonder how many others are having the same sort of trouble as I've been having...? Maybe a bunch of those quits are actually innocent...? Hard to know for sure until the stability of the platform improves a bit more....

[Jacob marley]

My freezes tend to happen right at the beginning of the game, when I make my first buy, but it seems to happen to me once a session (usually the first game of the session), so I'd say any official action is premature.

[Mischief]

Well, if people are still experiencing occasional crashes then any official action is premature.  And it sounds like the window of time between crashes becoming infrequent enough for us to confidently condemn anyone, and Goko implementing some kind of fix, might be too short to be worth the trouble. 

But it sounds like we could be responsible enough to do what we had to do if need be.  If Goko officially replaces iso and the iso playerbase floods over before any friends/blocked lists or rank penalties to quitters, then this might be our best option.

[Beyond Awesome]

Every now and then, the game freezes and crashes on me. I hate when that happens because I am almost certain my opponent thinks it is intentional. It doesn't happen too often anymore, but enough to make me realize that some of the people "quitting" on me might actually be a Goko thing. Plus, if you visit GetSatisfaction there is still a fair number of people who experience freezing and crashing problems. So, I don't think starting a blacklist thread for players "quitting" is the right thing to do just yet.

[Kirian]

Every now and then, the game freezes and crashes on me. I hate when that happens because I am almost certain my opponent thinks it is intentional. It doesn't happen too often anymore, but enough to make me realize that some of the people "quitting" on me might actually be a Goko thing. Plus, if you visit GetSatisfaction there is still a fair number of people who experience freezing and crashing problems. So, I don't think starting a blacklist thread for players "quitting" is the right thing to do just yet.

Not to mention it sounds like quits will counts as losses (and non-quits as wins) before beta is over, which kinda makes the whole idea useless anyway.

[blueblimp]

Every now and then, the game freezes and crashes on me. I hate when that happens because I am almost certain my opponent thinks it is intentional. It doesn't happen too often anymore, but enough to make me realize that some of the people "quitting" on me might actually be a Goko thing. Plus, if you visit GetSatisfaction there is still a fair number of people who experience freezing and crashing problems. So, I don't think starting a blacklist thread for players "quitting" is the right thing to do just yet.

Not to mention it sounds like quits will counts as losses (and non-quits as wins) before beta is over, which kinda makes the whole idea useless anyway.

I sure hope so! It's unfortunate that quit does not equal loss already. It's the only way to handle disconnects that actually works.

[Neurosearcher]

Hi All,

  I am Jacob Thomas Redmond on goko, and speaking as someone who has had my client freeze a few times, I wholeheartedly support the creation of a blacklist.   

There is NO HARM in creating a list NOW. I've had no problem identifying people who reload their browsers when they are losing, and would like to share some key things that I watch for. The are just observations for the moment, but I'm going to start keeping statistics on all my games now.

Watch Out For Players:

• Who never say anything in the chat window (social interaction makes unethical players aware that they cheat).
• Above the ranking of 5000, because they are 30-40% more likely to have these "lag issues".
• Who only "freeze up" or "lag out" when they are losing, but never when they are winning.
• Who lag out at the start of a game when their opponent starts with 5 copper (This happens a lot in three player games).
• Players who have made up names rather than using their google name or facebook name are more likely to lag out.

  A perfect example of someone who fits the above criteria is "Ruck Sack". I added him to my list last night after encountering him multiple times over the past few days. They are in the top 100 of Pro Rankings, they never talk, and they always freezes when they're losing. 

 We should establish a system whereby players provide the names of other players who fit the above criteria or something similar, and if someone on the list CONSISTENTLY experiences freezing at such convenient moments, then they're blacklisted.

  Players using their real names could petition to be removed from the list by providing screenshots of experiencing such issues when they are winning, as long as the opponent corroborates their story, and is not on the list themselves.
 
While we wait to create a blacklist, unethical individuals continue to exploit and take advantage of the system to increase and secure their position in the 5000 and above rankings. I trust that high ranking players who are honorable will completely support such a system, because a high ranking means nothing if someone can cheat to get it.

  For those of you who have real issues with with the client freezing, I have found that killing extra processes on my computer, and temporarily disabling anti-virus software quickly fixes the issues for me. You may also want to consider the Chrome HTML5 extension from Divx. It seems to be helping. If your game freezes, immediately go find your opponent, TELL THEM, and offer to throw a game if they were OBVIOUSLY winning. If anyone reading this has ever lost points because my game froze during a game, please contact me and I will gladly throw a game to make it up to you.     

I'm easy to locate:
Facebook: Jacob Thomas Redmond
Google+: Jacob Thomas Redmond
Twitter: Neurosearcher
Email:jacob.redmond75@gmail.com

 

[Watno]

I wonder how bad one must be not to make it to the top10 by cheating.

[Kirian]

Watch Out For Players:
Who never say anything in the chat window (social interaction makes unethical players aware that they cheat).

Lots of players don't talk much or at all.  It's annoying but I haven't seen it have an effect on time-outs.

Above the ranking of 5000, because they are 30-40% more likely to have these "lag issues".

This seems unlikely, at least in my experience.  Time-outs come from people of all ranks.

Who only "freeze up" or "lag out" when they are losing, but never when they are winning.

I suppose if you can keep track of the same person multiple times...

Players who have made up names rather than using their google name or facebook name are more likely to lag out.

No.  Just, no.  A lot of people using this forum use their forum screen name on Goko.  There's no reason to believe this would be different from on Iso.

While we wait to create a blacklist, unethical individuals continue to exploit and take advantage of the system to increase and secure their position in the 5000 and above rankings. I trust that high ranking players who are honorable will completely support such a system, because a high ranking means nothing if someone can cheat to get it.

Man, that sounds like it'll really increase the forum discourse and not cause any incivility here.

No, wait, it doesn't sound like that at all.

Look, this discussion has been had multiple times in multiple threads.  Blacklists are not something we do here.  Blacklist threads get locked by theory and rrenaud, and I agree with them on this.

[theory]

Yes.  Let's keep this on the topic of whether Goko can implement individual player blacklists, which is probably a good idea.

[succubus]

Hi there!

I am new here and am not sure of the rules, but why is it that we can't have blacklists? It doesn't necessarily lead to shaming. I've been in other online game forums where the only mechanism to keep order in the game rooms was the forum and it worked. People would have to post a printscreen to prove the quitting and the quitter would have the chance to defend themselves. Also, they would only go to the blacklist after 3 "convictions" (lol).

Anyway, I support any ideas to deal with this problem, as it can be extremely annoying, especially when the player just stops playing and never returns, forcing YOU to quit. Grr

[theory]

No problem.  We had something like this before and it sort of degenerated into name-calling.  I know it feels like we're just calling out "truly bad" people, but as soon as you do people start calling out people that weren't really rude at all, or who legitimately disconnected but are going to get their reputations slandered.  There wasn't really any kind of jury or tribunal to decide cases either.

[DStu]

Nice of goko to come here to say us to change our forum policy to fix the exploits on their system with some strange criteria

Who never say anything in the chat window (social interaction makes unethical players aware that they cheat).

It's not really comfortable to chat on goko, multiply that with how comfortable it is to chat on a tablet/phone, and there might be some other reason.

Above the ranking of 5000, because they are 30-40% more likely to have these "lag issues".

89% of all statistics are made up

Players who have made up names rather than using their google name or facebook name are more likely to lag out. 

The debate on anonym/pseudonym/real name is as old as the internet, and last time I looked it was not decided...

[michaeljb]

Nice of goko to come here to say us to change our forum policy to fix the exploits on their system with some strange criteria

If you mean Neurosearcher is someone who works for Goko, I thought that at first glance too, but I don't think that's actually the case...

  I am Jacob Thomas Redmond on goko, and speaking as someone who has had my client freeze a few times, I wholeheartedly support the creation of a blacklist.

[Stealth Tomato]

Watch Out For Players:

• Who never say anything in the chat window (social interaction makes unethical players aware that they cheat).
• Above the ranking of 5000, because they are 30-40% more likely to have these "lag issues".
• Who only "freeze up" or "lag out" when they are losing, but never when they are winning.
• Who lag out at the start of a game when their opponent starts with 5 copper (This happens a lot in three player games).
• Players who have made up names rather than using their google name or facebook name are more likely to lag out.

Sample size issues. I fit 2, 5, usually 1, and normal lag-out issues can look like 3 and 4. I've also played people on Isotropic who talked a bunch and then, upon deciding that luck was unfair or you were a douchebag, attempted to cheat (the Iso version was to repeatedly undo/redo actions to waste time without getting autokicked, and either continue until the opponent gives up and quits or end your turn and hope the opponent has gone idle so you can kick them).

Also, if you think we need to use our full names to be trustworthy, fuck off. Some of us require some level of privacy. It's not all about "I want to be anonymous so I can be a dickhead."

edit: Also, might want to obscure your email address a bit, such as replacing the "@" with " at ". You're likely to get spotted by crawlers and end up with a boatload of spam.

[SirPeebles]

Many of my best friends don't even use their real names on Facebook.

[Beyond Awesome]

What's this about players above the ranking of 5000+ having lag issues? I almost only play 5000+ ranked players, and almost none of them have lagged out on me with a couple of exceptions. Besides, most people on this forum achieved a 5000+ ranking through legitimate means.

[werothegreat]

What's this about players above the ranking of 5000+ having lag issues? I almost only play 5000+ ranked players, and almost none of them have lagged out on me with a couple of exceptions. Besides, most people on this forum achieved a 5000+ ranking through legitimate means.

Hear hear.

[Jacob marley]

The other problem with using this forum as a blacklist is that there are undoubtedly a bunch of players who don't even know we exist, especially since this forum is not officially associated with Goko.  Even if there were an official Goko forum, there would still be a lot of people who don't use it, so in either case, players with legit issues may not be able to defend themselves.

When playing on the internet, we all have to accept that we will face a certain amount of unpleasantness/cheating.  The personal avoid list is a good way to balance avoiding players you don't want to play and unfairly harassing players who may be unintentionally causing problems.

[Kuildeous]

Above the ranking of 5000, because they are 30-40% more likely to have these "lag issues".

89% of all statistics are made up

I had to +1 just for that. That was the first red flag that hit me when I read the tirade. How did Neurosearcher come by 30-40%? I'd like to see the supporting data for this claim. Just throwing out numbers like that really hurts your credibility. At least if you said, "because they are more likely to…" then at least you would acknowledge that you're going solely off of anecdotal evidence.

As for real name versus pseudonym, I find it hilarious that someone who posts on a forum using a pseudonym would cast doubt on people who use pseudonyms. Sure, he tells us his real name, but how do we know that it's really him? Hell, for that matter, I could change my name to Mindy Carter, and you wouldn't think me worthy of being put on the blacklist because the name sounds real. Here's a hint: That's not my name. Yet, you would be more likely to derogate me for going as "Kuildeous"?

I've been going by Kuildeous since 1989. I've used that name longer than many people on this forum have used their given birth names. That *is* my name online. It has a presence. It's much more identifiable than my birth name. When I ego surf my birth name, I find references to a race car driver, a musician, a vice-president, and all sorts of people who aren't me. When I search for my online name, I find references to me. Sorry, but my online name is a much more precise way of identifying me. I learned this back in the 80s how easy it is for names to cross over (my original screen name was "Black Dragon;" terribly original, I know).

You can try to cast a darker light on those of us who use handles, but you are tilting at windmills. It doesn't take much to fake a name. And some names even look legit, but they probably were based on someone's favorite character (Jack Burton, Mark Cohen, et al.).

I'm not wholly against blacklists, but the criteria would need to be a lot better defined than what was proposed in #10. And I agree that personal blacklists would be more effective.

[Kirian]

Hell, for that matter, I could change my name to Mindy Carter, and you wouldn't think me worthy of being put on the blacklist because the name sounds real. Here's a hint: That's not my name.

I'm going to call you Mindy from now on.

When I ego surf my birth name, I find references to a race car driver, a musician, a vice-president, and all sorts of people who aren't me.

Or maybe I'll call you Spiro Agnew instead.

[Ozle]

Hell, for that matter, I could change my name to Mindy Carter, and you wouldn't think me worthy of being put on the blacklist because the name sounds real. Here's a hint: That's not my name.

I'm going to call you Mindy from now on.

When I ego surf my birth name, I find references to a race car driver, a musician, a vice-president, and all sorts of people who aren't me.

Or maybe I'll call you Spiro Agnew instead.

Oh Oh! Do me next!!!

[Ozle]

But seriously, blacklisting people on a forum is a bit silly. It turns into personal vendetta's quick than you can say 'Sorry Mr Putin im taking my ill gained Oligarch money and going to live in London'

What happens when Eevee goes online and talks a bunch of gibberish and then loses?
You come on here saying Ban Eevee, and the real Eevee gets a bunch of grief!

[Kirian]

But seriously, blacklisting people on a forum is a bit silly. It turns into personal vendetta's quick than you can say 'Sorry Mr Putin im taking my ill gained Oligarch money and going to live in London'

Yeah, but at least you're less likely to be poisoned with polonium here on the forum.

What happens when Eevee goes online and talks a bunch of gibberish and then loses?
You come on here saying Ban Eevee, and the real Eevee gets a bunch of grief!

Poor Eevee.

Oh Oh! Do me next!!!

As punishment, I'm going to call you Ozle, and call Eevee "Ozle," and attribute all the good things you do to him.

[Drab Emordnilap]

As punishment, I'm going to call you Ozle, and call Eevee "Ozle," and attribute all the good things you do to him.

That shouldn't take long.

[Kirian]

As punishment, I'm going to call you Ozle, and call Eevee "Ozle," and attribute all the good things you do to him.

That shouldn't take long.

[Kuildeous]

For some reason, despite being horribly inefficient and unnecessary, I get a kick in how sometimes we go out of our way to find a graphic to represent what we want to say rather than type in two words.

[Ozle]

I'm not quite sure how I 'got told' when the post quoted pretty much meant Eevee would get little credit for anything and I got away scot free!

*skips away scot free*

*Goes to look up how scot free originated*

*learns something for today*

[Drab Emordnilap]

That may be true, but you still got told that was the case!

Hooray literalism!