Aliases and the Ladle, Let's discuss and do something.

[Lucifer]

It seems pretty obvious to me that there are two sides who want certain things that aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Team Gold: Wants to know who they're playing against, plain and simple. Has some fears that allowing aliases will allow people to play twice in the same day for two different teams. Logical fear, and the fact that it hasn't happened isn't evidence that it won't. As the Ladle grows, so too does the possibility of some smeghead or group of smegheads will game the system in that way.

Team Blue: Wants to be able to use aliases for various reasons. Hiding their identity doesn't seem to be the main reason, based on this and the previous drama. This time it looks like it was a theme of aliases. They don't see why it's a problem, because to them it's NOT a problem. They didn't try to be ultra-secretive, necessarily.

I often advocate human solutions to human problems rather than technical solutions. I think this is a case where a technical solution will satisfy 99% of the current issue satisfactorily for both sides, and help to smooth the Ladle up a bit. In doing so, it might even be possible to remove some of the rules the Ladle has right now.

Allow aliases, have a single central authority for the Ladle that enforces player identity. Simple as that.

Then, the people that DO use the holes in the authority that will inevitably creep up (because it's really not possible to enforce identity without resorting to storing really private information and using credit card services to authenticate) will be universally regarded as smegheads and therefore be easy to punish.

Epsy: Can your tourney app be adapted to serve for the Ladle in that very simple role?

[PokeMaster]

Very nice Lucifer. I'd be very much in favor of such a system.

[Word]

Kind of funny you haven't mentioned this before hand.

Actually, I have.

9. Out of my experience I believe subs are essential to keep the number of actually participating teams as it is. We heavily relied on our subs in practically every second ladle we played and rarely had the line-up we thought we would have, even if I met the "core players" on that ladle day some didn't show. I'd leave those rules untouched.

In one of the ladles where PRU lost the first round I was later notified that one of our subs had played for a different team after we had lost (not actual clan members) but at the time I got that notification I couldn't do anything about it anymore. And bringing it up here wouldn't have helped anyone either (by that time they also lost as a part of that other team). This is still an exception though. My only consequence then was not to talk about it and not ask that player for help again. That other teamleader knew exactly that he had someone from us on his team (and I'd bet most spectators knew it too).


This should be considered as well: I think something like my proposal in 8. could avoid this dilemma and save us a lot of nerves.

There is a difference here though, both teams needed these subs and they actually helped (while it's still bad sportmanship) the respective team. What we have now is an entire sock puppet team.

[Cody]

Kind of funny you haven't mentioned this before hand.

Actually, I have.

In one of the ladles where PRU lost the first round I was later notified that one of our subs had played for a different team after we had lost (not actual clan members) but at the time I got that notification I couldn't do anything about it anymore. And bringing it up here wouldn't have helped anyone either (by that time they also lost as a part of that other team). This is still an exception though. My only consequence then was not to talk about it and not ask that player for help again. That other teamleader knew exactly that he had someone from us on his team (and I'd bet most spectators knew it too).

tell us who the team leader and sub are?? so we can lynch them!

[Word]

wouldn't help anyone to name one of them now, after about 20 ladles - the only thing that matters is if we now get this solved by changing the auth thing we take care of this problem too so players don't even try to do that in the future.

Oh, just another idea I had while attending a seminar about greek sanctuaries (Wednesday: Olympia and Ancient Olympic Games...)

By the fourth century*, bronze statues of Zeus, known as Zanes and paid for from fines for lying, bribery, and cheating, lined the route to the Olympic stadium.

So...why not just have some kind of Wiki site especially for cheaters where your names are never removed and that can't be edited by everyone (just so the cheaters can't delete their own names; the decision process itself should be democratic)? It should be done in a way it discourages people from collecting lots of entries there. I can imagine how that could do harm to someone's reputation while not making the ladle less fun. The site would be linked to the Challenge Board so that everyone can access these "infos".

*BC

[sinewav]

Allow aliases, have a single central authority for the Ladle that enforces player identity. Simple as that.

This compromise is already in place, somewhat. It's why all players are required to login to play and GiDs are public in the server. It's why we can have themed teams, like the recent Pokemon one, and why players will sometimes sign up and play with variations (like writing your name backwards or adding extra characters -- your still identifiable). We can all use /players to see "this" is really "that@forums". The structure of the Ladle already says "alises are not Ok" without explicitly saying so in the guidelines. You can change your name on the grid, but we still want to know who you are.

Apparently this isn't enough for some players and they require aliased GiDs too.

What we don't have is a single central authority to effectively deal with smegheadery. As it stands, this whole community is the central authority and our only tool for governance is public admonishment. Realistically, not much more can be done. Players who are determined to be smegheads will always be smegheads. We just need to call them out on it, repeatedly, for the rest of their Tron careers, haha (that's why Ladle 36 keeps coming up).


However, there is on rule we can add to the guidelines and it looks like we probably should. It's the foundation of good sportsmanship: the golden rule. Before you do anything you should ask yourself "would it be Ok if everyone did this?"

In the case of L-57, I would say definitely not. The Ladle is fun, but it's fun because you are playing against people you know. Ask yourself if Ladle (or Arma) would be as interesting if every game you played was against "Team Blue and Player 1." (Well actually, if all teams were aliases there would be no need to randomize brackets every month and I can stop doing it, haha. Seeds would also be useless, and so would forum accounts because everyone's name would change every month.)

[0000]

But Sine, several people are implying that such a "100% aliased ladle" would in fact be just as fun or more fun if the entire ladle was aliased. WST and TST are almost all aliased and they have been used as examples to support their argument.

In fact it seems that the majority feels this way based on the responses here. This saddens me, and I hope ladle doesn't ever become that way, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[sinewav]

Well, there is another, obvious solution to this entire mess: The Bowl (aka SuperLadle).

By simply adding The Bowl, we provide an incentive for players to remain on the same team without alias. Teams will need all the help they can to get through a season and make the cutoff for Bowl. If your good players want to moonlight and play with others under fake names your team will really suffer.

Today I started recording round wins and round totals from previous Ladles for the stats page (I'm not done yet, I'll put them up soon, kinda busy lately). I'm doing this based on our Bowl conversation starting here. I say let's start using the current 2012 stats and set a date for The Bowl. We can change the date and season for next year after we try it out and work out the bugs.

Let's put it this way: I'd rather be involved in a tournament where players are serious and don't fart around with this kind of trickery. It seems like they do it out of boredom anyway. So let's raise the stakes, in the game, without any new rules except for the ones specific to The Bowl.


Edit: Oh yeah, it looks like Speeders will be the first team to make 100 round wins (they are at 97). All they need to do is advance 3 more times. So if they make the finals in L-58 they will achieve this milestone. CT was the first to play 100 Rounds, but they are a little short of SP on round wins. I'll record this stuff later too, when I get some time.

[þsy]

Good work on the stats sine. I think what you suggest is a really great idea, if we could monitor player's achievements with an increased focus on stats, it will discourage aliases and encourage others to participate. Having a 'profile' to work on and compare to others will change people's approach to ladle participation, and maybe even play. The idea of joining a team for your first ladle is pretty cool, but to think that someone/something will monitor your progress is great

[Venijn]

Good work on the stats sine. I think what you suggest is a really great idea, if we could monitor player's achievements with an increased focus on stats, it will discourage aliases and encourage others to participate. Having a 'profile' to work on and compare to others will change people's approach to ladle participation, and maybe even play. The idea of joining a team for your first ladle is pretty cool, but to think that someone/something will monitor your progress is great

[ItzAcid]

Well, there is another, obvious solution to this entire mess: The Bowl (aka SuperLadle).
By simply adding The Bowl, we provide an incentive for players to remain on the same team without alias. Teams will need all the help they can to get through a season and make the cutoff for Bowl. If your good players want to moonlight and play with others under fake names your team will really suffer.

^ This. I haven't been actively discussing anything in these threads, but I agree that The Bowl would be a reasonable solution to the current problem. +1 to sine's post.

[Mkay1]

Complex but effective plan: burn all criminals at the steak. This will ensure nobody will never do it again. (ps it might be hard to find where they live though)

[Concord]

yeah, I shouldn't hate on the newer players. I shouldn't blame them for growing up in a crappy fort competitive environment, it's our fault.
consider this an apology to anyone whose first Ladle was later than 28.

[Jrotc2012]

still trying to figure out who coolguys are.

[Overrated]

still trying to figure out who coolguys are.

I'm rather certain this is just a troll team put together by players who don't even plan on playing. My best guess would be Mecca or weed tbh. Other than that, they sort of had to be included because of the guidelines we currently follow.