Ladder Site Online...

[The Black Sword]

As has been noted by TBS, this is exactly the same as a new strong player joining the ladder. I don't see why that would not matter for the alias discussion though: two points about that: firstly, this cost for opponents is unavoidable for a new strong player joining the ladder. It is avoidable for aliases. Secondly, let's be honest: how often do you think 2200+ new strong players join the ladder compared to how often existing strong players create an alias ? for example the only new strong player I know is soul_steven (of course they are others, it happens he is the only one I know), and we know nani has 2 aliases, Daunt 1, Cremember at least one and neki 2...

1. The ladder doesn't break whenever a new player joins. Or at least it shouldn't break, I haven't really formed an opinion on your suggestions of the changing the ranking for new players. So assuming it doesn't break for new players it won't break for an alias with the same effects, which is why this IMO is irrelevant to the alias discussion. Oooks point is also good.

2(a). That evidence is anecdotal, the ladder should be able to cope with the situation of a dozen new top players joining without throwing off everyone's ratings.

2(b). Some anecdotal evidence back . Almost every new player has this effect to some degree and I hope you'll agree that more new players join than aliases.

Whitemage, best of luck with your game, please post a link somewhere when you finish as I would love to try it out. As others have said though that is also off-topic/irrelevant.

Concerning Pelopidas' post;

1. Well obviously I disagree, I feel the treatment has been quite unfair. However, if nani and Rigor have worked it out themselves then I feel I should stop harping on about it.

2.

In this specific case nani did a very unwise thing to actually challenge our competence in an arrogant and awkward manner that badly contrasts with his trespassing against the ladder rules. If one breaks a rule and by this harms others it would be more of a decor to actually show at least traces of penitence.

Nani's manner did not come off as arrogant to me and some quotes to back up your statements would be nice.
Additionally proof that he harmed others, of which I'm yet to be convinced.

3. As I mentioned earlier, I've always felt treated fairly by nani.

4. Again some proof would be nice. Additionally it would seem one would have to have quite a low ego to place such importance on a top 10 position in an unofficial ladder system for a comparatively unknown computer game. Why also do you pick 10? It seems this point could be expanded to affect any alias simply by changing that number.

5. The problem with all of these analogies IMO is that thieves harm others for their own benefit while aliases which avoid sniping or feeding do not. I agree that the rule should not be changed just because it is unenforceable, that would just be one minor benefit. Tbh, most of the advantages of changing the rule are pretty minor, but then so are the disadvantages. Perhaps any form of punishment should reflect that?

[tekelili]

Well The_Black_Sword, I didnt want argue with you because you know I am glad of have a player of your sportmanship in this comunity, but now that things calmed down, I will explain why I am not agree with you about alias

1- Measure own skill is something lot of people find fun. Even if you wont ever win a medal gold in Olimpic games, lot of people check their times every week when doing footing. They are happy when they get a better time than day before and, as you can understand, they wont be happy if someday they discover the clock they used everyday for do it, was working bad.

2- There are 3 differences between a new stong player on ladder and an allias from a top one:
a) first is real, second is ficticial in terms of anyother player rank.
b) the amount of new strong players joining ladder is very small, amount of allias that can join is virtually infinite. How can anyone find out their skill level if it is possible that a single player takes ten spots on ranking, and several players do same?
c) If you want meassure your skill with other players you expect compete under same rules. If some players followed rule "just one account per person allowed" and other players didnt, meassure becomes useless.

3- Lot of players dont give too much importance to elo, and just play ladder for other reasons. But thats not reason for dont take care of players that join ladder just looking to find out their elo. I think they are as good for ladder as anyone else.

4- Elo system in ladder is not God to manage quickly lot of of new players joining ladder, evenmore when players arent forced to play vs everyone and can pick oponents. If we imagine an scenario where top 50 guys of ladder create a new allias account every month, supose elo system, in an enveyroment with so few players as wesnoth, will manage it easy, it is unreal imho.

5-Supose that allow allias will just bring more games to ladder is also doubtfull imho. You must take into account how many players will quit or wont join ladder, because they are not interested in find out their elo in such system or they just lost trust in enveiorement.

I think you dint claim for it for it, but just answering those who wanted allias to try wieird tactics: Well, I think no player complained about HODOR. That was a public allias (not a secret one). And conditions used by HODOR to play his games were also clear and public. So there is not a problem with this. Every reasonable person can understand why "just 1 account per player" rule was settled in ladder. And every reasonable person will be agree that HODOR didnt break "soul of rule". If every player wanting try weird tactics would have had same behavior as HODOR, I really doubt anyone would have complained about it.

And finally, what chances has ladder of make polls of just admin ask players their opinion, if just 1 player can give 15 votes using allias?

As a side note to this issue: I joined ladder to learn, and thats why most of my first game where vs the hardest guys. But after Cackfiend kicked my ass 10 of 11 times I told myself: "I got enougth, lets check what I learned with middle class players and find out my elo". When Cackfiend asked me for a game I explained him my change of mind and politely rejected play him. I am sad and feel myself very stupid of did that, after discover elo system was being altered for lot of allias accounts. And also feel very sorry for Cackfiend, that couldnt find a game lot of nights with me on server, for (I understand now), stupids reason from me.

[Insinuator]

Speaking in images (Rigor agreed here): Imagine a bank robbery. For the bank, it is more important to get back the money, they don't really care about how
the thieves are punished. Now guess what would happen if one of the robbers would confess to the crime. > extenuating circumstances (not quite what we have here)

Really? You actually think that bank robbers would be acquitted with "extenuating circumstances" just because they confess? I suggest you go try robbing a bank, wait a few days, then turn yourself in and confess the whole thing. I'm sure people will be just as sympathetic and understanding as your fans are here.

Heh. Ah, I just had to say something to that.

[nani]

Really? You actually think that bank robbers would be acquitted with "extenuating circumstances" just because they confess?

I wasn't talking about acquittal, but a shortened imprisonment at least if you confess, no? I'm no native english speaker though,
maybe it could've been misunderstood. Where's Faello when you need him the most?

I'm sure people will be just as sympathetic and understanding as your fans are here.

Well I haven't said people (against aliases) will forgive me, I just said the bank (ladder-admins) will be more interested in getting back the money
and preventing further bank robberies (alias-usage), than in severe punishment for the robbers.

I fear you didn't get the image.

[thefish]

whats the matther with leocrotta that only he is blocked and not dauntless when he confessed other account, Clearly they both have confessed, they both should be punished the same way,
but wait, its sure that confess should confer a shortened imprisonment(nani's words), let these players that confess other alias can choice what account they want to continue and block the other ones .
for example , nani choice demogorgon, as we dont know Dauntless alias block Dauntless , cremeber choice horde king, etc

ladder being a competition could not permit various places for the same player, its ugly ,4 top 10 places for 2 players guessing Dauntless alias should be at top 10, and we dont know which others , but gollum and goldillucks are suspect.

hope the other players with aliases confess and we discover the other ones.

[Gallifax]

I am pretty sure that Gollum is just himself, known him a long time.

[WhiteMage]

I noticed that during the past 12 hours there were 11 votes for "OK" in “multi-aliasing in ladder” poll and 0 votes for being "lame". Apparently some aliases feel very strong about the issue of keeping aliases. . When people are willing to go to this extreme, I am not sure how will you re-establish trust on people using their aliases for honorable reasons only.

[Huumy]

I noticed that during the past 12 hours there were 11 votes for "OK" in “multi-aliasing in ladder” poll and 0 votes for being "lame". Apparently some aliases feel very strong about the issue of keeping aliases. . When people are willing to go to this extreme, I am not sure how will you re-establish trust on people using their aliases for honorable reasons only.

Without any kind of proof I don't even see how this is relevant, it seems the admins and atleast neki are coming to somekinda conclusion.

[WhiteMage]

Without any kind of proof I don't even see how this is relevant, it seems the admins and atleast neki are coming to somekinda conclusion.

I hope that vote dates were logged, so there should be some kind of proof. If you need statistical evidence, that is pretty easy to do with some p value calculation and standard alpha value (0.01) giving you probability that this happened by pure chance. In absence of proof that is what we use in science.

[Oook]

Good to hear that Rigor and nani have had a useful discussion on this, and that both are agreed on working out an constructive, practical solution to this. I get the impression that it's likely changes will be made to the ladder code at some point? If so, and to keep the constructive comments coming, it might be nice to consider any other improvements that could be put in as well. (Rigor, please just say if you don't think this is helpful, or you think that much change would be impractical) I can't really offer to do any coding for it atm, so this is more just a wish-list rather than requests - that'll be up to whoever actually does the work for it of course.

I'll start off with a couple of ideas I've seen mentioned often, and which seem universally popular. Firstly, a ore detailed search function, and the ability to input faction / map details for results, to make it easier to find relevant / interesting replays. Secondly, changing from the elo rating system to a Glicko / Trueskill based system. This gives a confidence interval for ratings, which means that those with a large interval (hence quite unreliable ratings) have less impact on other players, and also adjust more quickly, to settle on a more reliable rating. I've mentioned this before, and I've seen quite a few others on here recommend it - does anyone have any objection to it other than the need for code to be rewritten?

Any others people would like to call attention to?

A few slightly OT comments, spoliered to keep the main part on track.

About Pelopidas / Coriolan:

Spoiler:

I agree with you about Glicko ratings being useful, but apart from that... wow :/ Firstly, I agree with what Crend and nani said in response to your post. But more worrying is the terrible lack of manners / sportsmanship you show in those replays. You're certainly not the only ladder player who moans about luck too often, but I'd have hoped an admin would try to set a better example. I find it especially sad that you seem to take a lot of your anger at the RNG out on your opponent.

In particular, the game against ReNoM - sure, you had bad luck, but that does not give you any right to speak to your opponent that way. You accused him of cheating during the in game chat, which given your position as an admin is a pretty serious claim to throw about like that. To then give him a 2 for sportsmanship, simple because he had a lot of good luck, is just petty. You had bad luck, you lost, move on. Don't get abusive towards other players, especially newer / weaker opponents, who might get put off / get a bad impression as to what ladder regulars are like. At the very least, I think you owe ReNoM an apology.

This also highlights another issue regarding aliases. As you said, you stopped using Pelopidas when you started using Coriolan, which is fine. And while I don't have any problem with different aliases in general, I think when an admin starts using them, they really need to make it public, to avoid any claims of conflict of interest when dealing with disputes etc. I certainly don't think this happened - I trust the admins to keep personal / professional separate (but this discussion has shown I'm on the more trusting end of the ladder community, so it would probably be good to be upfront about this ) But some of your in-game behaviour was borderline what I'd consider reporting to ladder admin as abusive. If I did feel the need to do so, it would be helpful if it was clear I needed to report it direct to Rigor, and not to Pelopidas in that case.

Your actions may not have been against the strict letter of the ladder rules, but they were very much against the spirit in which I have found the ladder to be played. I'd hope you seriously reconsider your attitude and behaviour, both in game and when reporting. While we're reconsidering the ladder rules, I'm tempted to suggest a stronger statement regarding acceptable behaviour...

For nani / Insinuator regarding the bank example:

Spoiler:

I think your example was pretty clear, nani. It's just that Insinuator has found it's easier to argue when you don't try to think about what the other person has said, or even bother to read it properly

To possibly clarify a bit: nani's not talking about committing a crime, confessing, then expecting to get off. He's talking about authorities tending to be more lenient to a person who draws attention to widespread rulebreaking, even though they took part themselves. E.g. whistleblowers - a good example is http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Busine ... olicy.html . Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_state's_evidence contains similar examples. Hope this helps

For tekelili:

Spoiler:

I'd certainly agree with you regarding Hodor style accounts. But even for other aliases, I don't think they mess with the elo as much as you worry that they do.

Firstly, if 50 new strong accounts joined in a month, let alone a week, it would be very obvious to anyone looking at the ladder results. It clearly hasn't been happening at anything like that rate in the past. And if aliases had to be identified, you could just avoid them if you wanted to not lose points to them.

And remember, unless they are abused (which we've seen no evidence of so far), they will only affect others when on the way up. And whilst they will have an effect on others during this period, the elo system is self correcting. Everyone else's rating will quickly settle back up / down to the correct level. Assuming you don't spend most of your time playing players who are greatly under-ranked, your rating will still be more or less correct. Note that there are many other effects that will push ratings up or down, such as opponents being weaker / stronger after a long ladder break, timezone effects etc. Again, overall, this noise gets dampened out.

So your current rating should still be reasonably accurate, at least within the general limitations of elo. Regarding your point about playing stronger players - as I said, I think your plan to get an idea of your correct elo was still fine, but equally, there's no harm in still playing stronger players at the same time - with enough games, that would also get you to an accurate elo. That's how the elo system works.

Whitemage:

Spoiler:

If we're getting into conspiracy theories, it's worth noting that I've seen no evidence that you didn't make all those votes in an attempt to make people who are in favour of aliases look bad

[Huumy]

I hope that vote dates were logged, so there should be some kind of proof. If you need statistical evidence, that is pretty easy to do with some p value calculation and standard alpha value (0.01) giving you probability that this happened by pure chance. In absence of proof that is what we use in science.

I believe for scientific prove you need some information that are in this scenario impossible to get. I would claim that even the most intelligent math professor would have a lot of work to do to figure out what are the all scenarios that might affected for the votes. Maybe some wesnoth player who knows people in real life told them to vote? Maybe some1 linked the poll somewhere? Then one would need to somehow calculate the chances for all the scenarios happening accurate? It's simply almost impossible to figure out where and why these votes came from.
If you simply calculate the differences in the votes per time then you simply get the amount of the difference (surprise) but there's no meaningful way to proof in a way or to another what caused the votes.

Ps. I'm not expert on math but I happen to know some common sense, but ofc if any1 can get a unbiased professional opinions or get CIA on this case, that would be helpful.

Also in more important point the poll can't anyway be said to be accurate and I think for ladder mods the poll is not essential for making any decisions. (I might be wrong on this one, tho.)

Also in much more important point if one person made 11 fake votes would you say every group and every person he shares opinions with is untrustworthy? Point being I don't know how you get from 11 fake votes for multiple aliases --> Every1 who wants multiple aliases is untrustworthy?

[Cackfiend]

pretty ridiculous that nani's main account isnt unblocked yet. im dissapointed in you rigor

[WhiteMage]

Huumy,
You have some partly legitimate questions, and scenarios, I agree. In statistics we call them: lurking variables and correlated data. Let me assure you that there are well accepted statistical methods to deal with these common problems in real life and I happen to know them in depth. Since you do not know this field well, here are a few topics I recommend you read some books and articles about before you engage in deep discussion: cluster analysis, statistical pattern analysis, multivariate statistics, Occam’s razor.

To OOOK:

Spoiler:

Thanks for repeating my point I made many pages ago involving you and Leo: yes it is possible that I casted all those votes to bias the poll. However, this does not make my current point any different: as long as 1 person can do it, the whole poll is useless. Btw: it was not me.

[Insinuator]

For nani / Insinuator regarding the bank example: I think your example was pretty clear, nani. It's just that Insinuator has found it's easier to argue when you don't try to think about what the other person has said, or even bother to read it properly

To possibly clarify a bit: nani's not talking about committing a crime, confessing, then expecting to get off. He's talking about authorities tending to be more lenient to a person who draws attention to widespread rulebreaking, even though they took part themselves.

Oh, my bad. I guess I thought ROBBING A BANK isn't "widespread rulebreaking" that needs to have "attention drawn" to it. Please, Oook, link me some more pages on economic policy, racketeering, and murder cases, because those really demonstrate how confession makes it OK. I know what he was trying to say. But the people in those cases should not be labeled as heroes, nor should they escape punishment. They did not commit those crimes to "draw attention to widespread rulebreaking". They happened to be caught and then reduced their sentence in return for cooperation. Those were negotiated terms, not tender-hearted confessions.

Just because something beneficial (attention drawn to multi-aliases) comes from something wrong (cheating), does NOT justify it in any way! It is a mere side effect and should not detract from the issue.

This also highlights another issue regarding aliases. As you said, you stopped using Pelopidas when you started using Coriolan, which is fine. And while I don't have any problem with different aliases in general, I think when an admin starts using them, they really need to make it public, to avoid any claims of conflict of interest when dealing with disputes etc.]

So now there are "conflicts of interest"? For someone who identifys himself as very trusting in the next breath, you seem oddly suspicious of Pelopidas now. This sets a double standard. Why should an admin have to report his alias if another player doesn't? Particularly if said alias is inactive after the second is created, obviously indicating nothing more innocous than a name change.

And remember, unless they are abused (which we've seen no evidence of so far), they will only affect others when on the way up. And whilst they will have an effect on others during this period, the elo system is self correcting. Everyone else's rating will quickly settle back up / down to the correct level. Assuming you don't spend most of your time playing players who are greatly under-ranked, your rating will still be more or less correct. Note that there are many other effects that will push ratings up or down, such as opponents being weaker / stronger after a long ladder break, timezone effects etc. Again, overall, this noise gets dampened out.

1. What evidence are you expecting to see? Only a moron would make a second alias and play it all the time then beat it. That's something that would be noticeable. It would be far smarter to create half a dozen accounts, keep them at a moderate level and beat one every once in while. Spreading the games out like this would be virtually impossible to track and just because someone confesses to one prominent alias doesn't mean they don't have a bunch of little ones out there.

2. The elo is self-correcting over the ENTIRE Ladder, yes. But it is not so for one person. Imagine a strong player such as Pumpkin, who is accused of being a second alias, playing five games against an actually new person. Now, they both start at 1500, but if Pumpkin wins every time, he's boosted himself past 1600 in a breeze and smashed the new guy into the 1300s. That is a hard place to recover from, PLUS it gives the genuinely new person a wrong impression that this is the type of skill level they should expect from a beginner Ladder player. That could be very discouraging and not representative.

It is far more important to consider the trees than the forest, in this instance. It doesn't really matter what the overall picture of the Ladder is (though, off-hand, I would argue that having two people hold the top four slots shows a skewed picture). It's more important to consider the individual players. If the strongest players use these multiple accounts, especially against new players, they're artificially suppressing the elo of lesser players. And don't even try to argue that they don't play against weaker players! I checked the top ten, and all of them played a majority of their games against underrated players, in some cases nearly 70%!

pretty ridiculous that nani's main account isnt unblocked yet. im dissapointed in you rigor

Dude, you do know that Nani stated he's ok with it, don't you?

[Huumy]

Who's ever alias Coriolan is/was, I totally owned your alias on the ladder