-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Finals World Cup of Pokemon XI - Finals [Won by Team USA East]
- Thread starter M Dragon
- Start date
- Status
Team germany got banned, reading a wikileaks that implies justice scalia got assassinated
wew lad
wew lad
dodged a bullet this time CrashinBoomBang but u wont be so nimble next time
rumor is avatar from a porno i always wondered this
I dont get why people are mad at the TDs for using the hackers information to ban someone,, if they cheated they deserved to be banned, it really doesn't matter how they got the information. They don't support the hackers actions, but they had proof that they cheated so they were banned. This isn't going to trigger people into hacking accounts.
P.S. don't hack me thanks
P.S. don't hack me thanks
uhm it does, because the hacker accomplished what he tried to and got public attention. if you ban them quiet without making a big thing out of it its different then to shout out "hey we banned that guy and that guy because someone hacked a skype account" and so on. things like the moleman will get serious and people might think about it as a possibility to reveal other ghosting actions. overall with hacking on a pokemon forum we got onto a new level of snitching.
I wouldn't say it as much as we are mad at the tournament directing team for taking action on this information, I just feel like it could have been handled in a more discrete manor. Either you wait until you have actionable intelligence on who performed the hack so you can come down even harder on them for committing a crime or you do things behind the scene. I think going public with this before you have the perpetrator could encourage copycat like attacks in the future. We don't want people's accounts getting hacked just to try and prove ghosting, if people feel like they can get away with it. One is unethical and against the forum rules, the other is a computer crime.
Edit: I do very much appreciate the full disclose from the TD team if they are going to go public with this and hope they practice full disclosure in the future. I just feel like this specific situation might have required a slightly different response than your standard ghosting situation.
Last edited:
I'm going to put this to you guys this way:
Had we obtained the evidence from an anonymous user, who did not explain how they got the screenshots, and the TDs reviewed the screenshots and Isa posted his verdict, with bluri claiming after the fact that he was "hacked", would that change your opinion of the situation in any way?
I'm 100% certain most of you would think bluri was making it up to try and play a sympathy card to lessen or remove the ghosting punishment on the German team.
As it stands, the TD team investigated the situation enough to learn that bluri was "hacked," (and I use parentheses here because all that was needed to obtain this information from bluri's Skype was his password, which while still illegal is definitely not as bad, in my eyes anyway, as DDoSing/doxxing/some of the other shit that has happened on this site, the harassment is a different story tho).
So the question was: does the evidence get ignored because of how it was obtained, or do we act on it considering the current ghosting problem that exists on Smogon?
I think the answer is pretty obvious, not because the TDs needed to make an example of a bunch of people, but because it couldn't be made apparent to the German team, and whoever else obtained the information, that what they did for this WCoP was right. They cheated, plain and simple, and the punishment needed to happen.
Maybe the decision was rushed out a little too quickly (it really wasn't, but maybe) before finding out who the hacker was, but the longer that this was held on to, the longer the players of the German team would have been able to play in current tournaments that they should not be playing in.
There's also the issue of, even if we knew who the hacker was and banned them on the forums (which is likely what would happen, considering the hacking + harassment), it's not like any legal action would happen to them. Reporting to Skype would do nothing, and this is definitely the absolute lowest priority any police body would be interested in.
As to Jayde 's point about Aldaron allowing ghosting to happen: he made it pretty clear what his definition of ghosting was back in the Bloo/Style ost thread, but to reiterate his definition was players basically playing for others (see: King/Limitless). But that was over 2 years ago bud, the definition has changed and the TD team is now stricter on punishing ghosting.
Zeb made his new definition for ghosting pretty fucking clear Genesis7. Maybe it could be made its own thread, that's not a problem, but it's definitely not "tucked away," it's right in plain view under the "Rules."
Ciele also made it pretty fucking clear what would happen should a team be caught ghosting in response to a thread with the title the question of what would happen.
Moving forward, I think speculating that users are going to start hacking each other to get ghosting evidence is stretching a bit too far. I've been a part of this community long enough to where I think I can make an informed decision on that well enough, and I've seen lots of people do really really stupid things here. Is it going to happen again? Absolutely, no question. But will it become a community problem on the scale of ghosting? I don't think so.
Smogon is a competitive Pokemon battling site, with a huge emphasis on tournaments. The TD team needs to protect the integrity of those tournaments first and foremost by stopping, preventing, and punishing cheating when it occurs. That is their job, and they did that here.
To sum it up: Stop. Fucking. Cheating.
Had we obtained the evidence from an anonymous user, who did not explain how they got the screenshots, and the TDs reviewed the screenshots and Isa posted his verdict, with bluri claiming after the fact that he was "hacked", would that change your opinion of the situation in any way?
I'm 100% certain most of you would think bluri was making it up to try and play a sympathy card to lessen or remove the ghosting punishment on the German team.
As it stands, the TD team investigated the situation enough to learn that bluri was "hacked," (and I use parentheses here because all that was needed to obtain this information from bluri's Skype was his password, which while still illegal is definitely not as bad, in my eyes anyway, as DDoSing/doxxing/some of the other shit that has happened on this site, the harassment is a different story tho).
So the question was: does the evidence get ignored because of how it was obtained, or do we act on it considering the current ghosting problem that exists on Smogon?
I think the answer is pretty obvious, not because the TDs needed to make an example of a bunch of people, but because it couldn't be made apparent to the German team, and whoever else obtained the information, that what they did for this WCoP was right. They cheated, plain and simple, and the punishment needed to happen.
Maybe the decision was rushed out a little too quickly (it really wasn't, but maybe) before finding out who the hacker was, but the longer that this was held on to, the longer the players of the German team would have been able to play in current tournaments that they should not be playing in.
There's also the issue of, even if we knew who the hacker was and banned them on the forums (which is likely what would happen, considering the hacking + harassment), it's not like any legal action would happen to them. Reporting to Skype would do nothing, and this is definitely the absolute lowest priority any police body would be interested in.
As to Jayde 's point about Aldaron allowing ghosting to happen: he made it pretty clear what his definition of ghosting was back in the Bloo/Style ost thread, but to reiterate his definition was players basically playing for others (see: King/Limitless). But that was over 2 years ago bud, the definition has changed and the TD team is now stricter on punishing ghosting.
Zeb made his new definition for ghosting pretty fucking clear Genesis7. Maybe it could be made its own thread, that's not a problem, but it's definitely not "tucked away," it's right in plain view under the "Rules."
Ciele also made it pretty fucking clear what would happen should a team be caught ghosting in response to a thread with the title the question of what would happen.
Moving forward, I think speculating that users are going to start hacking each other to get ghosting evidence is stretching a bit too far. I've been a part of this community long enough to where I think I can make an informed decision on that well enough, and I've seen lots of people do really really stupid things here. Is it going to happen again? Absolutely, no question. But will it become a community problem on the scale of ghosting? I don't think so.
Smogon is a competitive Pokemon battling site, with a huge emphasis on tournaments. The TD team needs to protect the integrity of those tournaments first and foremost by stopping, preventing, and punishing cheating when it occurs. That is their job, and they did that here.
To sum it up: Stop. Fucking. Cheating.
Personally what really sucks here is that the TDs have become more transparent with their decision making process by revealing how the information was initially brought out to them (which I have not seen happen before), but then now people are calling them out for it even though none of the TDs condone the "hacking" that was done.
If the TDs wanted to make things easier for themselves they could've hidden the fact that the information was obtained in a controversial manner. But they didn't. They put the information out there only to have more people question the integrity of their decision. It makes it clear why the TDs have had a tendency of not being transparent, and it really sucks that this step forward resulted like it did.
If the TDs wanted to make things easier for themselves they could've hidden the fact that the information was obtained in a controversial manner. But they didn't. They put the information out there only to have more people question the integrity of their decision. It makes it clear why the TDs have had a tendency of not being transparent, and it really sucks that this step forward resulted like it did.
No, I don't think Zeb's paragraph is enough at this point, the use of the word "mainly" is concerning because it creates the need for a subjective look at each case rather than an objective one. Idk how I can make this clearer, if you provide an objective guideline for how you will deal with ghosting offenses and outline the punishments you will hand down then people who are trying to play by the rules will be less apt to find themselves in a bad situation (once again I'm not asserting anything about the ghosting incident at had, my post was a suggestion and really had nothing to do with the team Germany ghosting situation). Of course this will in no way stop people from ghosting as it is more of a crime of opportunity and if people don't respect the rules of play they are still going to ghost and nothing will stop them, my suggestions just aimed to help this issue. As for visibilty of these rules I literally suggested word for word to put them in the site-wide rules (since smogon is the hub for competitive PLAY) and to make it one of the banner announcement at the top of the page.
I made what I thought was a mature post that didn't attack or fault anyone and wasn't even about the topic at hand and yet you choose to reply with your typical sassy, holier than thou attitude. Grow up.
no i'm pretty sure it still is
Might as well ban the roster of 90% of the teams that participated in last year's tourney. Most teams in WCOP do similar team play, only difference between them is that some (like germany) get caught. The rules have been way too stringent lately. Team tour environments are like this for a reason. The disadvantaged teams with the worst records were the only ones last year who weren't ghosting on Skype.
This is a social online game, most of us are still playing because of the social factor and playing with eachother during tournaments like this increases the enjoyment factor tenfold... I recently managed in POCL and we didn't do any ghosting whatsoever, but it also meant that we barely talked. A few lines about team choices per game and that was it, whatever. I didn't develop really good relationships with anyone on the team except for maybe one or two of them who I tested with. I don't see why we have to be so hardassed about this when the teams are just trying to enjoy each others' company and the games and hype of the tournament. It's just a game, for fun, after all. Unfortunately these guys are prolly gonna stay banned and miss two of the best tournaments on the site because of this BS.
This is a social online game, most of us are still playing because of the social factor and playing with eachother during tournaments like this increases the enjoyment factor tenfold... I recently managed in POCL and we didn't do any ghosting whatsoever, but it also meant that we barely talked. A few lines about team choices per game and that was it, whatever. I didn't develop really good relationships with anyone on the team except for maybe one or two of them who I tested with. I don't see why we have to be so hardassed about this when the teams are just trying to enjoy each others' company and the games and hype of the tournament. It's just a game, for fun, after all. Unfortunately these guys are prolly gonna stay banned and miss two of the best tournaments on the site because of this BS.
Last edited:
I mean, shit, I even know of TDs who have ghosted/been ghosted in these tournaments (including the most recent installment of WCOP), not that any of them are going to admit to it. The community divides and destroys itself in such an irrational way it's crazy. People who ghost and don't get caught have the stones to ban or judge people who ghosted in scenarios that are the exact same as theirs. The fact that some people get banned in this situation because they lost russian roulette and happened to get logs leaked from their team when other teams do it (and the TDs even know of it/have participated in it) without action being taken is just unfair.
as ridiculous this topic seems, and as childy it seems i can only second lohgock´s standpoint. Sorry guys you cannot use information obtained via criminal behaviour. Do i want to be part of a community which got criminals amongst it? And the heads of this said community do not hesitate to use hacked data? i want my personal stuff to be personal - and let it be personal pokemon stuff. There could have been talks about bank accounts, other personal passwords ect on that hacked skype acccount as well. what happened if the hacker didnt leak pokemon stuff, but instead bank data, personal pictures or other things?
i really don´t care who got banned, nor how long they got banned - just to make this clear.
PS: i am in for the next worldcup! Sapientia
i really don´t care who got banned, nor how long they got banned - just to make this clear.
PS: i am in for the next worldcup! Sapientia
Considering the anti-ghosting rules this year (providing a calc without being asked to do so by the player was prohibited which is just insane) the hacker could literally choose what team he wanted to see tour banned, so I honestly find it infiuriating to watch the stigma of ghosting germans getting even worse from this shit. The sad thing about this is that I probably won't even try and help Team Germany next year because I'd risk getting tourbanned or my skype account hacked for no reason lol
The stigma of ghosting germans got worse (didn't know it was a thing but lol alright) because they ghosted during wcop, not because some hacker created a scenario in which they cheated. Like it sucks that someone got hacked and if the TDs find out who it is im sure they'll be punished but their job isn't to be the cyber-police of smogon or to try the german team in a court of law to decide if they cheated in a pokemon tournament. If people don't want to be tourbanned or see their friends tour banned, then don't ghost lol its not that hard
Did you even see the start of my post? Or did you just choose to ignore it? My point is that there will always be some kind of communication between the players during a game in the skype chat. I guarantee you that every team did this, which should be fine but apparently isn't due to the ridiculous anti-ghosting rules this year: 'There are ways that players can provide seemingly OK information that implies a move, thought process, or a route of action; this is not allowed and is considered ghosting.'
So basically, literally every information that could potentially influence the players moves in any way is prohibited in the skype chat and leads to a tour ban. What you're telling me rn is that a) this definition of ghosting is correct and b) there are wcop teams that didn't do this at all?
So basically, literally every information that could potentially influence the players moves in any way is prohibited in the skype chat and leads to a tour ban. What you're telling me rn is that a) this definition of ghosting is correct and b) there are wcop teams that didn't do this at all?
people only get hacked because they let theirselves get hacked.
what im saying is if you guys give a shit, you use wack pws that are nearly impossible to crack through normal means instead of basic shit that anybody can guess or eventually brute force, youre not gonna get your skype account broken into and get logs leaked everywhere.
how germany got busted is pretty bullshit, but they ghosted, a user didnt care too much and let his pw get cracked and most of the team are facing the consequences.
cyber security is so so so insanely important in the modern day that you cant afford to ignore it, its just how it is. let this be a lesson for everybody and hope this situation never has to come up again.
what im saying is if you guys give a shit, you use wack pws that are nearly impossible to crack through normal means instead of basic shit that anybody can guess or eventually brute force, youre not gonna get your skype account broken into and get logs leaked everywhere.
how germany got busted is pretty bullshit, but they ghosted, a user didnt care too much and let his pw get cracked and most of the team are facing the consequences.
cyber security is so so so insanely important in the modern day that you cant afford to ignore it, its just how it is. let this be a lesson for everybody and hope this situation never has to come up again.
- Status