Who was the biggest cheat?

Originally posted by DeepThought
In English law to avoid an allegation being libelous it must be true and it must be in the public interest that the information is released. So accusing a politician of an affair is still libelous

Can you provide a reference to the "public interest" bit? I've spent a little while googling and as far as I can tell, the "truth" defence is always valid in UK law.

Originally posted by Korch

Don`t forget that its site admins who makes final decision. Which may not match with opinion of mods. From one side it decreases influence of possible game mod bias, but on the other side it makes possible decisions, based on "out of chess" factors.

Also you ignore fact that many banned cheats were accused before in public forums by these "people throwing around accusations".

The first point is fair enough.

The second less so. I am concerned that people who aren't cheating could start being accused. The logical difficulty with your argument is that in the past there have been plenty of people who have been accused of cheating in the forums and (probably) were not using engines. Clearly many actual cheats were also named. I think this is known as the gambler's fallacy.

Cheating accusations used to be rampant in the forums, most of which were baseless. Even if you have good grounds for an accusation someone reading your post might think they can start making baseless accusations. I've seen one I've seen one 1,200 accuse the other 1,200 player of cheating without any apparent grounds, and if either of them was using an engine it wasn't built for making chess moves - the player who was making the accusations then stated in the forum that she was therefore going to use an engine in retaliation and was promptly banned 😀

I do see the point you guys are trying to make, Actually GM/IM's cheating in on-line games is not new. A number of them have been caught. If there is sufficient evidence I don't see that the site would exactly be breaking new ground by banning a known IM, although I think it is likely that the admins would want a higher standard of proof than normal.

Originally posted by Fat Lady
Can you provide a reference to the "public interest" bit? I've spent a little while googling and as far as I can tell, the "truth" defence is always valid in UK law.

Not easily. It was years ago I heard this and I could easily be wrong, I can't remember the source. This is why I put massive cautions at the top of my post. If you can't (easily) find a reference then I doubt I'll be able to either. The libel laws in this country are notoriously complicated and may have changed in the meantime.

Edit:
Ok tryed this: defence to libel public interest

The first hit is not helpful. The second is about the "Reynold's Defence" where someone got an allegation wrong but used public interest as a defence, The 3rd is the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation although based on what it says there I am right, but only in the Phillipines...

Originally posted by DeepThought
The first point is fair enough.

The second less so. I am concerned that people who aren't cheating could start being accused. The logical difficulty with your argument is that in the past there have been plenty of people who have been accused of cheating in the forums and (probably) were not using engines. Clearly many actual cheats were also named ...[text shortened]... h I think it is likely that the admins would want a higher standard of proof than normal.

There have been baseless accusations of course, but most of them usually are not able to persuade others. For example accusations against me produced by Arrakis (before second game mod vote) was obviously ineffective (taking into account results of vote) as Arrakis have showed himself obviously ignorant and biased.

On the other hand many cheating accusations which made people to believe them were based - these accused players were banned later.

In modern computer era title of CC IM/GM means much less that in OTB - engine use is not prohibited in CC (which can`t be said abut RHP).

Originally posted by Korch
There have been baseless accusations of course, but most of them usually are not able to persuade others. For example accusations against me produced by Arrakis (before second game mod vote) was obviously ineffective (taking into account results of vote) as Arrakis have showed himself obviously ignorant and biased.

On the other hand many cheating accusatio ...[text shortened]... ans much less that in OTB - engine use is not prohibited in CC (which can`t be said abut RHP).

I think we'll have to agree to differ on your main point. Although I do agree about Arrakis...

It is a thought, but if a player is known to have an account with a correspondence chess site which does allow engine use, then a comparison with their games played there may help to establish innocence (if they get a much lower match up rate here then they are behaving differently). Unfortunately the opposite doesn't prove guilt, you still have to demonstrate that they are using an engine here, however it provides a useful cross check.

Originally posted by no1marauder
...If you want the analysis, people can give it to you. I suspect you really don't want to know.

I did PM him to offer my 20 games, but he has yet to show that he wants the analysis.

Originally posted by Squelchbelch
I did PM him to offer my 20 games, but he has yet to show that he wants the analysis.

PM responded to. Send me the proof.

Originally posted by Policestate
PM responded to. Send me the proof.

Sent.

Originally posted by no1marauder
I don't care about people who make a concerted effort to protect obvious cheats. There's nothing in the TOS barring truthful assertions that someone is matching up to an engine far beyond what the greatest correspondence players in history ever could; that rule is simply a forum posting guideline. It's a bad one; the fact is without people continuing to hat you haven't seen game analysis of cheaters' games in these Forums is hypocritical.

Yes I don't see why I can't simply publish the analysis in the only chess forum.
They're only statistics which are easily checkable.
How would I be in breach of TOS/forum rules?

I agree.

You are not adding moves, you are producing facts.

Perhaps do it without naming the names. Say this is a game you
just made up and give the stats. Then add if this game matches any
game that is played on here then it is a sheer coincidence.

Originally posted by Squelchbelch
Yes I don't see why I can't simply publish the analysis in the only chess forum.
They're only statistics which are easily checkable.
How would I be in breach of TOS/forum rules?

I think there could be dangers in this, I'm not convinced you should have posted your figures, A lot of the games you analysed were against engines, which could cause statistical problems. You need some way of randomizing your choice of games to analyse, Even without that I don't know how close to 99% statistically confident you can be on the basis of 20 games - I appreciate that it takes ages to analyse the games. What you've posted is reasonable evidence, but not proof, and people have a habit of confusing the one with the other.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I think there could be dangers in this, I'm not convinced you should have posted your figures, A lot of the games you analysed were against engines, which could cause statistical problems. You need some way of randomizing your choice of games to analyse...

I disagree.
I think that the games need to be against strong opposition and/or engine users.

1) Weak opposition chosen randomly would cause the strong player to play obvious 1st/2nd choice moves when the weak player plays... err weak moves. This could skew results, causing an innocent stronger player to come under suspicion when they really shouldn't be.
Strong players will put up more resistance, create positions of greater balance (therefore many moves with slight variances in score - so engine match-up stats importance are increased in value) and not least the games will last longer so crucially you get more moves out of book.

2) Games vs engine users at least give you some sort of frame of reference in a game. If banned engine has say 32/36 top 3 moves out of book and our suspect has 34/36 then over time his performance against the engines is a factor.
If he is consistently picking Fritz's top 3 moves more than other users banned for engine use then you can draw a rather simple conclusion.

ps
I know it's not proof. As I say it is merely statistical evidence.

There is a clear process for users to present cheating accusations OUTSIDE of the forums:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/fairplay/createticket.php

FAQ

The forums aren't the place for cheating accusations.