Team play forum
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
04:15:54
[ report abuse ] |
 Subject: Sending a powerfull message to GK No II
Message:
No more than 50 adds to the thread, but don't let that stop the debate. I believe GK is happy when the limit is reached. GK has all the means and tool to silent the debate, they allready took the first step. I sent an invitationss to captains. GK stopped me from sending an invitations to the debate, I'm accused for spaming. I can't even contact my captain anymore GK democracy.
Sensational
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schaakhamster
8/09/2007
05:12:57
[ report abuse ] | hasn't this
Message:
gone on enough allready? You have your opinion, gk has theirs and neither of you both is willing to compromise. Plus if gk wanted to silence you he would delete this thread and make sure you couldn't post again.
It has allready been said: you don't have to play here, there are a lot of similar sites to gk around. In the end this site isn't a democracy but a commercial site belonging to gk.
I don't find gk to be the place you describe but everybody is allowed to have their views.
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
08:38:56
[ report abuse ] | answer to schaakhamster
Message:
What you dislike is a freedom of speech, a freedom of free word and free debate. You made your point if you don't like you can simply ignore this thread, in case you read all the adds from players/captains you are very alone with your opinion.
I suppose you are one of those "professional abuse reporters", please make 2 clicks just to be sure you contributed to constructive debate and tell GK about it, maybe you get a reward for it.
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annie-jade
8/09/2007
09:03:31
[ report abuse ] | recap and other stuff
Message:
The limit on PMs is probably just another automatic setting, Junie. There ARE real spamming problems on sites that allow messaging, so that's not unreasonable - although it would be helpful if the site FAQ, or some other page detailing the site rules, were to specify just how many messages one can send in what time period, and what measures will be taken if that number is exceeded. In general, I have found that there is a great deal of information on the site's specifics that should be provided to the public which has NOT been provided anywhere. We have once been given the explanation for this, being that "the FAQ should be kept short or people won't read it" which, to put it as politely as possible, is not the most compelling reasoning I have ever seen for keeping the site's rules and limitations non-transparent.
But, back to the issue at hand... there are several serious problems with GK's setup that need to be adressed ASAP, that were raised in the previous thread, and so far GK has most carefully avoided commenting on any of them, or indeed on any post less than fully supportive of the status quo.
An excellent summary of the problems, as well as a very consideration-worthy suggestion for a solution has been posted by zmeyko (post of 8/08/2007 00:52:43). Well thought out, Oleg! :)
There have also been other good suggestions, such as brynner's ("Can you just make it so that when a premium membership terminates, the list of "other users who have used the same computer" clears?") and other good points made by too many people to list - hopefully the first thread will remain online so people can refer back to it.
But to save some time, I'd like to summarize the major technical problems revealed by the previous thread:
1. The automated multiple-account flagging script needs both some working out of technical bugs that often end up placing the "blame" on the wrong account, and some serious reconsideration of exemptions - such as that former team captains and any other former paying members should NOT be treated like accounts that have always been free;
2. GK needs to recognize that reapeating "there is no acceptable reason to log in to somebody else's account" like a mantra does not make it true, and instead consider the list of possible justified exceptions, and how the site program can learn to make a distinction between making a move from an account and technical actions - vacation flag setting, help with checking the settings of the account for the computer-challenged or language-challenged, and anything else that may come up and is NOT cheating - IOW, just about anything other than making a move for the account;
3. Some kind of an appeal possibility to deal with problems that will still come up even with improved scripts is needed; and, last but not least -
4. As several others have pointed out, GK would do well to respond to their clients a bit more politely and constructively. I'm sure that the need to deal with dozens of abuser accounts a day can make an admin short-tempered, but please don't forget that in this forum, you are not dealing with those abusers, but with some of your best long-term customers.
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davewv
8/09/2007
09:47:05
[ report abuse ] | Solution
Message:
The solution to one of the issues here is very simple if GK will listen. When a paying member drops back to free status his account should be re-zeroed. All indication of past users should be eliminated. It should be treated as a new account with no multi-users being reflected from the past. The counting of multi-users should start afresh with the new free user account.
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davewv
8/09/2007
09:55:43
[ report abuse ] | Solution #2
Message:
As a long-time Captain here I see need for a second change.
Captains should be given the option to set vacation flags for team members with emergencies (medical and computer access etc.).
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mudraker
8/09/2007
11:17:47
[ report abuse ] | Bong Chow
Message:
as a captain of a team that has stood for several years now, i must say that i dont have any solutions because anytime i have provided or endorsed good ideas gameknot has not done anything more than say "thank you we are looking into it".
on the subject of maszola i am very disappointed to hear about gameknots actions against him. he was a most admirable captain and demonstrated great integrity as a human being. it is this reason that the Hungarian Wanderers is the team we have played the 2nd most amount of matches against. i really hope gameknot can resolve things as they will be losing a great man if they do not.
as for my account appearing as being played on viking2's computer. i have no idea how that came to be as he is listed as being in North Carolina, and i have never even been there. i do not know viking2 personally nor have i ever played a game against him.
Bong Chow
mudraker
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
11:45:39
[ report abuse ] | a copy from previous thread
Message:
I’m/ we are also sick an tired to trying to make you understand
1 I and and mazsola, we accept the limitations for a free players, but mazsola’s limitation is far much more than an ordinary free member’s
2 What I have difficult to understand, that you like a parrot keep repeating that mazsola didn’t do anything wrong, but as a free players he has to accept the limitations
3 I can’t accept your total lack of will to make a manual check if there was ever made a move from our computer.
4 Mazsola did what almost every captain do they, some times open a members account to check if the setting was correct. He had a communication with about it. Mazsola did it first time and only time during his captaincy, the new member acramax07 is ethnic French, there was some problem with a communication mazsola and acramax07. That is the only account possibly “allowed” to be connected to our computer. Only God knows and almighty GK should also know what the other accounts come from.
5 A manual check would confirm what I’m saying, and after confirmation of this erase those accounts from the list manually and a problem is solved!
6 What I know nobody accused you for removing mazsola from his captaincy, it is picked from some imaginary world, “WE ARE ACCUSED FOR THAT TOO”, no you are not, but YOU REMOVED HIM FROM THE TEAM, correct?
7 Yes mazsola is a popular person, he documented during 3 years his fairness and integrity. He shoe show respect to opponents and fellow captains. He always fought for this site and keeping this site clear from abuse and cheating, your records can witness about that, that is a reason so many captains and players made add declared to support mazsola. I hope they shall keep to do so unless you use your powerful tools to stop it. Obviously a free debate is not so popular at GameKnot, specially when your shortcomings are discussed. All the people on on the thread asking for compromise, some kind of solution and changes/adjustments in the automatic monitoring programs. What is your proposal “ business as usual, money solves everything, pay” sensationally intelligent answer, all these captains and players on this net couldn’t figure out ……???
With other words, who cares how many accounts we have on our computers, do we pay for them, you cover for us. Openly declared!
8 I was mistaking, 3 days of discussions, adds from lot of honorable members, captains on GameKnor and you still didn’t understand or standings, the issue and reason for this discussion. Hopefully the discussion shall go on till you get the picture and start a discussion about
a., changing policy, more friendly attitude to players
b., independent body of appeal
c., adjustment of an obviously inadequate monitoring system
d., a long time premium member after downgrading to free member, specially captains like viking2 and mazsola get their sheet of multiple accounts erased, do the “unknown” accounts pop up later too, than it is obvious and evidenced that the computer is used by more than like in mazsola’s case and daphsa03
e., discussion how to solve a bigger families need for games
f., My proposal is, no more than 2 free accounts per computer, and introducing a junior/family member account 5 dollars a year fee/18 games paid by a member of family or anyone but connected to at least one golden premium member
Finally let’s start a discussion GameKnot in stead of defending your position
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
11:53:53
[ report abuse ] | copy from previous page no 2
Message:
I write on behalf of my husband and forward a few words from him.
I don't ask for any special favour, I don't beg for contribution and definitively don't need any exception. I ask for a simple status of a free member, nothing else. I ask for an answer from gameknot, why they in haven sake removed me from the team dispite of their declaration that I'm not accused for anything and as far they know I didn't do anything wrong, Halleluyah brother, than why all these limitations.I believe you would be a nightmare in a witness stand whatever you say it is full of contradictions. Finally, a manual check of my account and erasing of the accounts never been opened and used from my and my wife's accout. Is this simple request that difficult to understand for GK and perfom it, or prestige is more important to you that fairness and justice
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gameknot_com
8/09/2007
12:26:58
[ report abuse ] | Dead horse, say hello to beating...
Message:
Time and time again I keep asking myself, why do I need all this headache with the free accounts? How much easier it would've been to just offer a one month or even two weeks trial membership and then everyone have to pay for their accounts after that no matter what. Like many other chess websites already do. We don't seem to get much appreciation for offering something for free to everyone anyway. Yes, we do get an occasional "thank you for a great website" comments, and everyone here at GameKnot very much appreciates them, but most of the time we get complaints about how someone cannot do this or that with their free account or how come they have to pay at all. Yes, converting the site to a completely paid one will also bring more money and also significantly reduce the number of players, which means less bandwidth cost and we won't need as many servers to buy and maintain. All an all, a win-win situation for GameKnot, right? So why don't we do it then? Well, believe it or not, we are not in it for the money alone. Yes, money is important once you outgrow your $100 per month server that you maintain yourself in your spare time after you are done with your day job, which GameKnot did, oh I don't know, around 2002. After that, if you don't run it like a business, you either run out of money and have to close up shop for good, or you start relying on donations and other people's help, which brings frequent outages, overloaded servers and reliability nightmare. What you do instead is you hire staff to do customer support for you, you hire developers to implement new features for you (or help you do it) and you pay them good salaries like they deserve. That is why money is important, but beyond that we are not an evil corporation that is set out to squeeze every possible cent of profit from every customer as much as possible. We realize that not everyone can afford to pay for their membership for one reason or another, and that 99% of players only play a few games at the same time, they don't need access to advanced features, etc. etc.., so they are happy to stay within the limitations of a free membership and are grateful to be able to play chess for free, and we are more than happy to provide them with a free account. It is hard though to ignore the remaining 1% of the players who are very vocal and demand very loudly that we do this and that to the free accounts, so it would be easier for them or someone else to get more without paying. And who proclaim that GameKnot isn't listening and therefore very evil simply because their demands are not met. Well, I guess that's what we'll have to agree on then -- GameKnot is evil to those who choose to see it that way. So there you have it -- evil and greedy GameKnot continues to provide free accounts to all willing to live with simple and well defined limitations of a free membership, and asking for a modest annual fee for anyone who wants more.
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schaakhamster
8/09/2007
12:46:09
[ report abuse ] | right...
Message:
whatever, you know... in the end it's just a hobby... it's not like gk is shooting puppies... and no I don't report people but none the less it's quite a irritating thread... in the end you pay for what you get...
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schaakhamster
8/09/2007
12:50:28
[ report abuse ] | daphsa03, well you
Message:
can say a lot about gk but you can hardly say you haven't got the freedom to speak your mind on this site...
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davewv
8/09/2007
12:51:19
[ report abuse ] | Successful Business
Message:
One earmark of a successful business is they listen to their customers!!!
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vhhsawb
8/09/2007
13:05:31
[ report abuse ] | Calm
Message:
I do not have any answers to this present circumstance but I would like everyone involved to stop for a few minutes and think about what is going on. I like a good fight as well as anyone but...
1. One of the problems we face is anonymity. If we could actually speak with each other this entire conversation might be very different. We need to keep this in mind as we carry on this dialog.
2. Listen to the other person. Try to see things from their perspective. I read a really good article online the other day and I will attempt to give you a link to it.
3. Remember we are speaking to people. The anonymity and facelessness of the internet makes us forget we are dealing with human beings who have a need to be treated with respect...and that means EVERYONE needs to be treated that way. I do not think gameknot is evil and I do not believe the other people are evil. If we keep up the dialog we will find common ground.
4. -> www.jimmcguiggan.com I would really urge you to read this post...it will not cost you anything and it will not try to sell you anything. Just an invitation to think.
vhhsawb
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schaakhamster
8/09/2007
13:11:35
[ report abuse ] | nice post
Message:
vhhsawb, I'll just shut up for the rest ... I just hope that people understand by just insulting gk they aren't going to get anywhere...
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blackbaron
8/09/2007
13:27:47
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
I was invited to post on this subject by original poster , and I have to say a few phrases spring to mind ie , Mountain out of molehill , and GET OVER IT ! Pay the subscription and get on with the chess
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
13:46:01
[ report abuse ] | answer to schaakhamster
Message:
Mister you made your point, you expressed your dislike about this thread. I have difficult to understand that you keep returning to complane about it. I hope this thread if for those who want to discuss the subject, you keep repeating like parrot that you love GK. You can write a mail to them and maybe you get some red roses, you never know. Don't bother to answer to this, please go somewhere else and get a life of your own, or you can open your own thread and discuss a subject of your own choice.
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brynner
8/09/2007
14:34:22
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
It seems pretty common that Captains are called upon to manage team members' accounts, particularly to set vacation flags. And it is expressly against the rules to log into someone else's account. It seems, at the very least, you could add functionality to allow Captain's to set vacation flags for their team members without logging in to their accounts.
And this doesn't have anything to do with enhancing accounts for free users. Even if you went to an all-paid model, it seems like this is still a useful function. Especially since Captains are otherwise clearly breaking the rules.
And then I think it should also be emphasized that the rule against logging into someone else's account applies to Captains as much as anyone else. Let Captains know, clearly, that they are breaking the rules when they do this. But if they have the ability to initiate vacation flags, it shouldn't be an issue.
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gameknot_com
8/09/2007
14:41:27
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
Daphsa03, please be respectful of everyone participating in this discussion, and not only the people who agree with you. You can insult GameKnot and GK management all you like, but not the other fellow players here. I'd hate to take away your forum posting privileges as I'm surely will get accused of silencing the opposition, but you are starting to cross the forum posting rules in your posts. Thank you for your understanding.
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gameknot_com
8/09/2007
14:59:37
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
As for the suggestions (such as the ability for team captains to postpone someone else's games) -- please send them via "contact us" form. I'm the only one at GameKnot who checks these forums as far as I know, but if you use "contact us" form, your suggestion is guaranteed to be forwarded to the correct person for further consideration. Please don't expect all your suggestions to be implemented tomorrow though. It takes time, and we already have quite a few things in the pipeline, plus there could be other considerations that might prevent a suggestion from being implemented. I.e. unfortunately no guarantees, other than your suggestion will be considered. Thank you.
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annie-jade
8/09/2007
15:19:14
[ report abuse ] | let's hear it for deceased equine abuse :p
Message:
Junie, please just ignore the non-constructive comments, you are only helping them fill up your 50-post thread allocation faster, and then they'll whine about "what, a third thread already?" :)
GK - can I call you Mike, or do you prefer "evil greedy GameKnot"? Just say the word... ;) Yes, you do have a valid POV there too, of course, but try to understand that a lot of the bitterness about this issue is coming not from the matter of how you treat free accounts, but the fact that you treat faithful, long-time paying customers who just may want to know that they COULD take a break sometime if they wanted or needed to, WORSE than you treat those bad bad bad eternal freeloaders!
Think about it... if taking advantage of those extras that premium members are allowed, like logging in to more than one account, means that your account will be penalized if you ever want to take a break of any duration, and penalized severely, such as by outright banning, removal from teams, and revoking of private messaging privileges (for many, the only way to keep in touch with their other friends and teammates here) this means that to anybody who cares about their account, premium membership becomes a lifetime sentence. You don't think anybody likes having their arm twisted like that? Plus, the people who have invested the most of their time and effort in this site (playing hundreds of games, playing for teams, becoming socially involved with other site members) will naturally be the people who most care about maintaining their current accounts! Those are the people who will find an offhand "oh, just register another account" the least palatable answer. I'm sure those trolls who just come here to play blitz and open a new account every week because their former account was just banned for site rule violations AGAIN, won't care much, so who exactly are you upsetting with this policy again?
The thing is that as things stand, once you become a premium member... and actually take advantage of one of those nice extras... there is no going back. Ever. If you do, your account dies. Sort of like the Legend of Tir na Nog, you know? :) And that means that a former paying member faces having LESS rights than an eternal freeloader, if they ever want to take a break. Why is it so hard for you to see the injustice in that?
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
15:22:45
[ report abuse ] | answer to gameknot support
Message:
To the honorable GK Support!
Dear GameKnot support, your mail is a long list of explanation on issue, we all understand we agree with you. We never asked you to stop taking fee for your service. I’m fully aware of that programmers, computers, you forgot mention the office building but that too, wages to all the employed, fees all that cost money. I too belong those members who paid the fee, so did mazsola too till for 10 days ago please remember that. Your add is a long description of your daily activities I’m sure you don’t sit and polish your nails all day long, but you still avoiding to answer to the issue, that is the reason that the debate is still going and we try to get you to accept that we have a problem, a problem what has to be solved. I believe you of some reason are tied up with prestige and don’t let the common sense decide. So many complains about the same subject, can you at least think of it that the monitoring system is not perfect? You dedicated a lot of time to read all these adds, I’m 100 % sure that a manual check of mazsola’s account should take much less of your time. I have also difficult to understand why you so stubbornly defend your monitoring system, why the blind trust in programs.
Yes most of us love this site, that is what I’m trying to say to you, but why not have a goal to make it even better and more human. Loving this site is like being married to someone, the love can turn to hatred and you walk away from it. I already told you, we shall to Africa I too intend to turn my account to free, but after our Africa tour we would like to return to the site as paying members, but I’m also sure that if you prefer the let mazsola’s and later on also mine account suffer of all the limitations he is suffering of, we both fulfill our commitment to the opponents and our team and after that you never see us on this site again.
I made a number of proposal in my last add on the previous thread, I copied it into this one too, at least something there should catch your interest. We all have wrong and your monitor has right. All the excellent and intelligent players here have wrong, on some few exceptions, there are 2 or 3 adds from players ready to follow you blindly, but what about the others.
Let’s make this site even better, but please accept that you don’t have all the answers, we players here represent and endless source of excellent ideas, but with earplugs in both ears you never hear our call.
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
15:31:14
[ report abuse ] | Thank you for the advice annie-jade
Message:
You have have right Annie, some adds are not worth to comment
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annie-jade
8/09/2007
15:47:38
[ report abuse ] | technical discussions
Message:
Hmm, don't be so fast with asking that technical suggestions be taken to private channels. You might benefit a lot more from a joint discussion and feedback from your players. :)
For instance, on the suggestion that captains be allowed to set vacation flags - a great idea there, and would do nicely if further refinement isn't viable, but it doesn't cover all bases, and a broader solution MIGHT be viable if you start thinking about it.
For example... on one occasion, my teammate zafarraya was without net access, and didn't remember how much time he had left in his games. So what he asked me to do was to check how much time he had left, and IF he had less than a day in any game, to set a vacation flag for him. As it turned out, he had more than two days in all his games, so I didn't set the flag... but you see, for such an occasion, the person helping out needs to access the current games list page, not just the vacation flag page. Ditto on people trying to help less technically competent friends with their account settings - access to more pages than just the vacation flag one is needed. Again, just about anything other than making a move in another person's game may be a justified, non-cheating access by another account. Also, it's not always the team captain who is called on for technical help... and what about people who are not on teams, are they not allowed to ask for technical help at all?
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
15:54:35
[ report abuse ] | thanks for the warning gameknot
Message:
Well I donno what to say, but if a player is tired of this thread, I can't understand why he keeps returning and complaining about it, he also sent me a message. Please read all his adds before you accuse me for insulting schaakhamster. I welcome evrybody to make an add, we have some few representing an opposing opinion, I didn't make any comment on them, it is up to every player to have an opinion, but this one keeps returning to the thread to complain about it
Why don't you send a warning to him? FEED BACK PLEASE!!!!
BTW I have no intention to call you or anybody else of GK employeds with "names". I have no intention to insult anybody reresenting GK.
We all want some changes and a recognition that your minitoring system is not perfect and both the programs and resticted accounts shall be adjusted, what about that in your pipeline?
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daphsa03
8/09/2007
16:17:44
[ report abuse ] | answer to annie-jade again :-)
Message:
I was never a captain, but I understand the issue, after all I live with one, at least a former one. I believe he wrote to th GK support about it and asked them to give him a chance to set a vacation flag for some players. I believe GK never answered to his mail. Henry only once during his captaincy entered an other player's account. It was less than 2 months ago an ethnic French player enjoyed the team, the player was marked as premium player, so it was impossible to him to understand that the player after 1 challenge got his quote filled, at the same time he kept asking for more games but he coudn't engage him in challenges. The player claimed that he set his settings to 6 team games, so Henry got his password to check if the setting was correctly performed, it was correct, so he asked GK what was wrong with his player's account. The GK support answered that the account was a bronze premium account with max 12 games.Not Henry not I ever heard about that kind of account. Obviously mr acramax07 has some kind of connection to the players listed on our computer. This is the subject GK has so difficult to understand, beside Henry informed GK that he shall or opened the account without any warning or comment from GK that it wasn't allowed.
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annie-jade
8/09/2007
17:59:53
[ report abuse ] | autoflag bug
Message:
Yes, I understood the problem, and you are not the only one here who reported instances of players being linked by the autoflag script with other players they had nothing to do with.
I have some general idea of what may be going on, and that is exactly why I told the story of the situation with our team's only non-premium member, catfriend, in the previous thread - it wasn't so much a complaint on an impending problem (except for the part about not being pleased with the arm-twisting), since neither zafarraya nor I are planning to stop our premium memberships in the foreseeable future, as I told it because this is a situation involving only 3 people and I have an exact knowledge of just who accessed whose account, which I thought might help us all understand how this site works. I don't mind telling it, as I don't believe we did anything morally wrong. So to recap, I accessed zafarraya's account on several occasions and no report of shared computers showed up on either of our profiles (we are both Premiums). Then on one occasion I accessed catfriend's account, and immediately thereafter, this free account started showing both me and zafarraya as other users (please visit the account if you want to see the situation). To underline, catfriend and zafarraya never had anything to do directly with each other's accounts - my IP was the one that accessed both of theirs. But somehow catfriend ended up with the record, while us two premium members remain with "clear" records... yet there must be a record somewhere, or the script wouldn't have known to list zafarraya in catfriend's account as well as me. So I'm still not clear as to what would happen if either of us would ever stop being a premium member, but some kind of problem is likely to come up if things stay as is, though that's academic at this time. As for the technical explanation of how this may have happened, well, I can see two possibilities, and I shall call them "the uncharitable theory", and "the charitable theory". ;)
The "uncharitable theory" is that evil greedy GameKnot likes to pick on free accounts no matter what. ;p The "charitable theory" is that the script dumps all the blame on the last account in the chain of interconnected accounts (A accessed B who accessed C who accessed D and E, etc, and A gets them all), or perhaps just on the first free account in the chain. Either way, it doesn't seem too fair. In this case, yes, catfriend asked me to access his account, but there have never really been two players associated with his account. This is the technical bug about "assigning blame" wrongly that I was talking about in the first point of my problems summary. It would be nice to have the script at least "blame" the correct accounts, since the way this is, even if GK were to agree to wipe the shared comp records of premium members who go free, this wouldn't help us should I want to take a break, since it's catfriend's account that is being blamed, not mine, and it would be my account that gets wiped, not his.* Clear as mud?
*davewv, the same situation applies to your player veemutema getting the short end of the stick when you accessed her account.
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silhouet2003
8/09/2007
23:21:50
[ report abuse ] | ok
Message:
I'm team captain for 3 years now and playing chess and being captain is just my hobby.....I don't feel the need to give the orders and to control my players and will never open an account...I only see one reason for time outs and having not set a vacation flag and that's an urgent medical reason...it's the year 2007 and if there is a problem with the internet connection, I believe that everyone has a neighbour or a friend where he can open this site...and if there is a medical problem, then the chess-problem doesn't exist, we are not playing as professionals and it's not our job...and players who have other opinions don't have to play in my team...I hate time-outs but it's not my task to control all my players every day...so the possibilaty of openening the account of other players is no option for me
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gameknot_com
8/09/2007
23:37:26
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
Oh, good, it looks like we are finally getting somewhere. It seems we are now in agreement that player "mazsola" wasn't being punished nor accused of cheating in any way, and that his account simply started being subjected to all the limitations of a free account (applied equally to all free accounts) after he didn't renew his premium subscription for another year and he just happened to have quite a few other players listed as using the same computer. And that GameKnot has the right to impose any arbitrary limitations on the free memberships we offer (up to and including not offering such memberships at all), as long as such limitations are clearly defined and made public before they are applied.
Now, it seems that the blame is being shifted to the system that detects users logging in to different accounts from the same computer. Or, rather, that it has "bugs" or outright does not work at all. The aforementioned statement seems to be offered as a proven fact based on... hmm, I'm not sure actually, I guess, based on what other players said. Ok, fair enough. Let's review one of such statements -- by annie-jade in her last post. (I hope it's ok, annie-jade, that I refer to you in a third person, I don't mean any disrespect by it). She proposes that the system doesn't work and then proceeds to tell us a story that's supposed to demonstrate why it doesn't work. Yet if we carefully read the entire story, it actually shows that the system did correctly identify the accounts that were used from the same computer and no errors were made. How? Let me explain. By her own admission, she logged in to account "zafarraya" on several occasions, then, I assume, probably to her own account after that a few times, and then to account "catfriend". If we remove the middle part, then you can see that accounts "zafarraya" and "catfriend" were in fact accessed from the same compute, as well as account "annie-jade", by annie-jade herself. Which is the reason why "catfriend" now has two players listed as using the same computer. Either I'm missing something, or everything worked as designed. Please note, that until annie-jade told us how everything happened, nobody could know for a fact whether it was the same person logging in to all three accounts, or two people, or even three people doing it in turns, the only fact we could know (which was detected and correctly recorded by GameKnot system) is that all three accounts were logged into from the same computer.
In fact, it's not all that hard of a technical task to see from the server side when someone logs in to their account from the same computer that was previously used to log in to a different account. So it is quite hard to get it wrong, especially considering we've been working on it for 7 years, practically right after GameKnot was started (not all that time, of course!). In fact, it's much harder to foresee all the tricks that someone might come up with trying to purposefully avoid the detection of logging in to more than one account from the same computer. I'm pretty sure if someone tried hard enough, it is quite possible to avoid detection, except that it's a rather complex and cumbersome procedure and you have to do it every time you switch from one account to another, so I can't really imagine anyone having the patience and persistence to do it day after day, week after week, month after month -- after all, you make one mistake, and gotcha! It's much easier to simply buy another computer. But then you end up getting an extra computer so you can save yourself $40 in membership fees?! But I digress...
So, let me reiterate, the system simply records all instances of someone logging into an account from the same computer that was previously used (possibly by someone else) to log in to another account. Once again, the system doesn't make any assumptions about, nor can it know with any degree of certainty, whether it was the same person, or more than one person each time and for what reason or purpose they did it, etc. etc.. So when you see on someone's profile page that there are other players listed as using the same computer, it is in no way an accusation that there's something shady going on. Just that someone logged in to their account from the same computer as... well you know the rest.
Having said all that, let's assume I'm just lying about everything. And that GameKnot's management is indeed a sneaky and greedy bunch that devised this "clever" system of forcing people into subscribing by randomly listing other players as using the same computer. Fair enough, anything is possible, martians can be walking among us as we speak. But just consider for a moment -- so far in this message thread (including its first part) we've only had several team captains saying that their team members had the dreaded "too many players from the same computer" problem that they cannot explain. Let's also assume it wasn't because the captains themselves logged in to those accounts and caused the problem, but that it was indeed artificially created by GameKnot. Let's even be generous and say it was 100 players affected by it all in all. By her own admission, daphsa03 already sent private messages to pretty much every team captain here on GameKnot bringing everyone's attention to this discussion, so it is safe to assume that if the problem was much larger, we would've heard about it by now. Heck, let's even multiple the number by 10 for an even 1,000, just to make sure. So, there you have it, the sneaky and greedy GameKnot managed to force 1,000 innocent players into subscribing to a premium membership. Out of over 600,000 accounts created on GameKnot so far. For a cool 0.17% effectiveness rate. Oh, but wait, they didn't all subscribe to a premium membership actually, because the team captains are complaining about _losing_ some of the team members, so that number is much lower, probably close to 0.01%. Way to go, sneaky and greedy GameKnot management, you are not all that clever after all! Wouldn't it be easier to come up with something more effective, like, oh, I don't know, getting rid of the free memberships altogether and only offering two week trial memberships after which everyone have to subscribe?! I guess GameKnot is failing at being greedy as well then...
Joking aside, I do see the other side of the coin, so to speak. That large families, or players using library computers, or people playing from Internet cafes, etc. are not able to use free memberships on GameKnot for long as eventually they have to subscribe to a premium membership to continue playing here. As much as I regret it, I'm afraid it's just one of those things that just cannot be avoided and thankfully it only affects a very very small percentage of players...
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schaakhamster
8/09/2007
23:39:05
[ report abuse ] | well
Message:
I send a message to partly as an excuse for my posts because I went to far. Apparantly that wasn't received too well. Well anyway, I hope that some compromise can be reached and yes I was well out of bounds to say that this thread had no meaning. I'll leave it at that.
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zmeyko
8/10/2007
02:01:29
[ report abuse ] | -
Message:
To annie-jade
Thank you for the kind words, and big thanks for bringing clarity into the thread!
To gameknot
And thank you, for the years of effort and for your patience now! I mean it.
A few details I'd like to stress:
1. Again, there are situations when, for the lack of better options, players ask their friends to log in to their accounts and do things *other than making moves*. As described by annie-jade and davewv, this may lead to free accounts removed due to no fault of their holders but a fault in the system. The matter is complicated by the fact that some of the free accounts are formerly paid ones.
2. A partial solution suggested by davewv and brynner to clear the "same computer" user list upon downgrading would at least protect those who had paid for their accounts in the past.
3. Why should their interests be protected after they downgraded their accounts? Here's why: Most of them are likely to become paid members once again, after taking their break. Many of them have invested much time and effort into the growth of GK community (like maszola) and so have very compelling reasons to keep the old nicknames, stats and correspondence. For the same reason (community value) these people add to the overall value of GK experience and IMO should be viewed as more than an insignificant percentage.
4. If gameknot, for the reasons no less compelling, prefers "100%" instead of "most", "many" and "likely" in item 3, a special "freeze account" feature would ensure just that. If a player goes on hiatus, he or she clicks "freeze" - and from that moment cannot start new games / be challenged, nor get billed until "unfreezing", but can still send and receive messages, post on forums, retain the stats etc. "Frozen" accounts holders should get the same immunity from the "multi-user" issue as paying members for the duration of, let's say, 1 year. Those not planning on ever returning to the site will have no reason to use this feature at all.
5. If any of the proposed solutions, or some other ones, are considered for implementation - I so hope they will! - then we have to come up with some way of correcting the errors of the system as well (maszola, brendanibar, catfriend, and others). Perhaps an appeals body isn't a bad idea - a temporary one, for the transition period.
To gameknot again
Apologies if I'm wrong and/or if it's not my place to say this, but this is what I imagine is happening: Your brainchild gameknot.com is not a child anymore, so to speak :) I would be proud.
Best regards to all,
Oleg.
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cash1981
8/10/2007
03:45:17
[ report abuse ] | I agree with davewv
Message:
I have often wanted to postpone games for my team members but I cant, and gameknot says I have to write them email and they will do it. But isn't it more feasable and less work for them if the captains can have authority to do that?
I wanted gameknot to postpone my player arshia's game but they never did, because his account was restricted.
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daphsa03
8/10/2007
10:30:08
[ report abuse ] | we are getting nowhere GK
Message:
To the honorable GK Support!
I don’t know what makes gameknot believe that we are getting somewhere, no we are not even close to get somewhere, maybe you changed tactics and start to make joke of it, but that isn’t a progress.
I let annie-jade answer for her self, I’m sure she agrees with me that, the only change we achieved so far a gameknot effort to turn the debate to some cabaret show.
I find your add insulting and neglecting “it is only 0,01%” who cares, well, I see that gameknot doesn’t.
You seems to be happy that only so few made their add after “all” the messaging. Well you can spot my messaging box, I have some “few” there too, but they don’t dare to go public, it has to be something terribly wrong when captains don’t dare to take a conflict with you.I have a player who was hostile to my thread, but after his add contacts me and tries to explain him self I managed to contact 25% of all captains, many of them have vacation, after that you stopped me, I got accused for spamming. Well if you are not afraid of the development, let me fulfill my invitation campaign, or even better you have all the tools you make an invitation to a public discussion do you dare to do that. It should be a real fair, democratic and honorable act.
Yes there are methods to avoid be spotted, but not annie-jade not mazsola, not viking2 and lot of other captains never had plans to cheat, they don’t consider opening an account for checking a settings is a violation of rules. They are or were team captains, they have to make a decision within some few minutes maybe within hour. They have no time for waiting 3 to 5 days for GK and as one captains said they ignored his request..
I have roots in many cultures, Hungarian, Swedish, Czech, Slovak and naturally some of the ethnic groups in Indonesia too, do I mention to any of these ethnic groups “dog”, they all have a precise image of an animal, head, ears, a torso, 4 legs and a tail. When a dog’s head/brain decides, it barks or waves with its tail, but what about a GK as image of dog. The head doesn’t talk to us the torso is making fun of the thread and the tail, the monitoring system is controlling the entire dog. It has to be so because we didn’t get any promise from GK, despite of all adds, suggestions, ideas and proposal for improvement of this site. We have to accept the automated monitoring system because you run it for 7 years, you are satisfied, well it obviously you don’t bother to make improvement, why should you it works within its limitations, when it malfunctioning its “only 0,01%” of players suffering of it, if we can trust your figures.
Well to getting somewhere, tell me please, why do you deny a manual checking of mazsola’s account, is it better to you to lose 2 premium members in the future, if your answer is pay now or leave site, than we prefer to leave, just to mark our dignity and independence. Than we rather play for a less professional chess site, but with more human and less greedy attitude to the players.
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heinzkat
8/10/2007
11:33:02
[ report abuse ] | GameKnot
Message:
is absolutely not at all greedy. Come on!!
A lot of the arguments are a bit aimed at nothing. The only problem that is addressed, is the automatic suspending of accounts. Stop moaning about cheating and what kind of a honorable person mazsola is. Those are no arguments to get him back, those are no arguments against his restricted access to GameKnot. So far my observations :)
gameknot_com didn't answer this question yet: why do 'they' (the 'authority') automatically suspend accounts? Isn't it enough just to list the other accounts that are used on that computer on a player's profile WITHOUT the automatic restriction of not being able to start new games/sending or receiving messages? You can say 'with '600,000' players there is no other way to control this' but then again, there are not that many accounts suspended every day. It would be a delightful improvement if the automatic suspension thing would be just cut out by GK. Of course, that does not mean people can open 20 accounts on one computer and play here for free. And I don't think there would be that many. It would be delightful if the current suspending system would be replaced by a same kind of monitor that does point out the possible abusers of the system, that could be suspended.
Greetings,
heinzkat
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vhhsawb
8/10/2007
11:40:20
[ report abuse ] | heinzkat
Message:
I believe the last post goes to the heart of the issue in this thread. Can a system be put in place that would allow a true examination of accounts and records to justify the suspension of a player that would allow an explanation to be given?
Peace
vhhsawb
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tata2001
8/10/2007
14:42:00
[ report abuse ] | long story, short comment
Message:
I tried to reed all those conversations and it seems to me that I need add my comment on certain sugestions. First of all I am sorry to hear what happened with a respectable player like mazsola, I hope that there will be a satisfying solution for the problem.
As of the suggestion of giving the right to Captains to be able to set vacation flag for a player, to be honest, I dont like the idea of someone else (even my Captain) to have the right to manipulate my settings.
Best regards,
Tahsin
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chilliman
8/10/2007
17:25:57
[ report abuse ] | without prejudice
Message:
I think a lot of these posts are getting very emotional and seem to be losing focus on the real issue which surely is 'is there a better way to to handle members who transition from a paid to a free account without losing their privileges'.
I have read a lot of sniping, attacks, rants, aggression (aka verbal assaults) etc in the above posts and I don't believe this is the way to get your position taken seriously.
all site members are responsible for knowing the rules - they were established prior to (most of) us paying for membership. is it now fair to complain about those same rules because they work against us? have a think about that.
isn't password/logon sharing a violation of the site rules? if so, is it acceptable to violate this rule because you think you have a good reason to do so? isn't it still a violation? isn't that what the whole issue is about? have a think about it friends - isn't a deliberate breach of the site rules what gets members into this situation in a lot of cases? isn't posting on the behalf of a player who has lost their posting privileges also a breach of site regs?
I'm not going to go into free vs paid membership, or what's 'fair' (as it's very subjective), or whether gk is here purely for the money (why not set up your own chess site then?) etc as I think these threads have done several complete circles now and everyone is just repeating themselves.
mazsola is on my buddy list, he is a great bloke. I was a team captain for over two years and during that time we arranged many team matches and exchanged many pms. I always found him to act with great integrity, he should be very proud of himself as he is a good man. I hope a satisfactory resolve can be reached, satisfactory for all site members - maybe if a precedent can be established for loyal gkers it can be named - maybe we can invoke the Mazsola Ruling for cases such as this.
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daphsa03
8/11/2007
01:53:28
[ report abuse ] | answer to chilliman
Message:
Yes course the adds getting or maybe already turned emotional, the reason is that people lost valuable friends from teams or maybe family members or just a visitors at their homes who made a weekend stop and made a move or 2 from their computer.
Let’s make it simple to understand. It seems to be a common behavior by captains to open members accounts, to set vacation flag or check for something like message, checking for settings of team games in mazsola’s case. We have teams on the net with active co-captains. The co-captain opens captain’s account and sets up challenges, right or wrong I don’t now, but all these activities are monitored in real time by GK. What does GK to prevent such a behavior, NOTHING. They let these activities go on year after year without one single warning to any of the captains, they didn’t waned mazsola who wrote and told them that he opened the player’s account, not a word.
The craziness with this GK policy is, that they actually invites to breaking the rules, the only player who suffers is a free member, premium members can open and play from each other’s accounts in worst case or computers in best case without punishment.. The captains who “sinned” they get away till they decide to downgrade their accounts, than “post mortem” they get the punishment, because I still call it punishment, their accounts like mazsola and viking2 get revoked just to mention some, they are more I know that, I saw some on teams with same problems when I invited captains to this forum.
GK till today didn’t answer any of the questions I asked them. GK is talking about everything between earth and heaven but avoids the real issue. We got educated about GK’s financial need, we got to know that GK pays wages to their programmers, but no answer to the questions.
Here come the questions and the GK’s answer
1 Why did you revoked mazsola’s account? the only question been answered
2 Why did you remove mazsola from the team at the same time players in the same situation are still on their teams? no answer to that
3 There are listed players on our computer, who never entered our home, they were never even close to our computer neither we to their, can you make a manual check? no answer to that either.
4 That is obvious that a monitoring system has some bugs, do you work on an adjustment? no answer to that either
5 Could you be so nice and answer to these questions so we finally get somewhere?
6 Some adds came up with excellent ideas, they could make this site even better, are you ready to listen to them? Yes you said send them by contact us, You use to answer that we shall look to it, after that nothing happen
7 We need an independent “appeal committee” has GK any plans to set up it? no answer to that
GK is anxious to keep their image clean from the shadows of greed. Whatever GK says something is wrong when a premium members get away with almost everything, money makes GK, that is not so important with “Rules and Policy”, while money flows to GK accounts, GK is very mute, deaf and blind for the violations of the rules.
You can say whatever you want gentlemen on GK, you scarifies lot of your official principals, rules and standings for money.
You can blame your automatic monitoring system, but somebody at your company ordered and accepted those functions. Your system got programmed by Mammon’s 2 kids greed and parsimony
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chilliman
8/11/2007
02:31:57
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
refer to my last post - this is the same stuff over and over again
thanks for making it simple for me but I understood your gripe 10 gripes ago. if co-captains log on using others logons then they should be banned from the site for sharing their logon details as this is a flagrant breach of site rules which I do not condone at all.
if this site is so offensive to you then why stay? why does anyone stay? because the positives outweigh the negatives. life is all about compromises - you yourself are a legal professional, surely you understand this and surely you understand the need to 'read the fine print'. your posts seek for selective application of gk rules, those that you deem appropriate.
try this - rule 11 of gk Community Standards:
11. If your account is suspended or if your private messaging and/or forum posting privileges are revoked, you may not use other users' accounts to get around the ban. You may not help other users with suspended accounts and/or revoked messaging/forum posting privileges to get around their ban.
or this - TERMS OF USE FOR GAMEKNOT ONLINE CHESS WEBSITE.
THIS AGREEMENT DESCRIBES THE TERMS UNDER WHICH GAMEKNOT ONLINE CHESS WEBSITE ("WE" OR "GAMEKNOT") OFFERS YOU ACCESS TO AN ACCOUNT (THE "ACCOUNT") AND THE SERVICE TO ALLOW YOU TO PLAY CHESS ONLINE (THE "GAME"). BY CLICKING ON THE "REGISTER" OR "SUBSCRIBE" BUTTON, YOU ACCEPT THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS BELOW.
4. In the Account registration process, you will be required to choose a login name and a password. While you are encouraged to use a pseudonym, especially if you are a minor, you may not choose a login name that violates anyone's trademarks, publicity rights or other proprietary rights. Login/user name are not changeable. You may not disclose your password to any third party. We never ask you for your password by email, and you should not disclose it via email if someone asks you to do so. There may be an additional charge to reissue lost passwords. Although we may offer a feature that allows you to "save" or "remember" your password on your hard drive, please note that third parties may be able to access your computer and thus your Account.
I see your constant wordy posts as doing very little to help your case, probably the reverse actually - IMO. good luck in your vendetta.
your turn
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daphsa03
8/11/2007
06:45:10
[ report abuse ] | thank for you "friendly" advice chilliman
Message:
I try to make it short and easy to understand. I’m a lawyer, once a legislation body, in this case GK accepts violation of a rules during years and that is a case here, they can’t use it years later just when it suites them. Beside of that, mazsola got removed from the team without any reason, he is the only former captain in similar situation, not viking2 and at least 10 former captains in same boots.
I assure you chilliman we can read and we read the rules, but when a captain notices that co-captains are setting up challenges openly with acceptance from GK, mazsola wrote a mail to GK and told them that he shall open acramax07’s account to check if the setting was correctly performed. GK didn’t say a word about it, no warning, nothing. BTW GK here on these 2 threads declared that mazsola didn’t violate any rules, he is not accused for cheating or any wrong doing, the problem according GK that he let expire his premium membership. You read both threads and you get it confirmed and not only once, at least 2 or 3 times they repeat it. So let’s get your accusations off the table
You jumped in wrong conclusion, opening of an account is the same as cheating, what GK allows says something different. So, you can open a thread and demand GK consequently follow all they rules, I promise to make an add and support your idea, but your proposal gonna be ignored by GK of a very practical reason, financial reason, guaranteed half of a premium players would be kicked from this site, that is what my check-check come up with. Do you want an evidence for this, go to the sites of the team’s and check the free members’ accounts, also former members account. You can do the same at Hungarian wanderers too, you don’t find a single one listed with Henry’s name.
Your add makes that we discuss something different than the origin issue, let’s go back to it, let’s go back to the subject, why Henry got removed from the tea, why totally unknown persons’ names/user names are listed together with our, why GK denies to make a manual check of Henry’s account.
FYI chilliman if no correction occurs, and Henry’s account remains revoked, we leave this site, but thanks for your advice, happy to know that Henry can always rely on his friends
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farhadexists
8/11/2007
08:33:45
[ report abuse ] | Hope this helps
Message:
From the End User License Agreement:
6. We may terminate this Agreement and/or suspend your Account immediately and without notice: (i) if you violate any provision of this Agreement; (ii) if you infringe any third party intellectual property rights; (iii) if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us; (iv) if you violate any of the player rules of conduct on GameKnot (which we may amend or supplement from time to time, in our discretion),..........
===========================================================
Now, when you click on player rules of conduct, you get:
5. You may not create nor use more than one account on GameKnot. Only one player per account is allowed.
============================================================
Now whether or not this is fair, those are the rules. GK could argue that logging into someone else's account (even with the honourable intentions of helping that person out) counts as "using" more than one account. I myself am in a similar situation, I helped a friend out by logging into his account to set up his vacation flag, while he was out of town on an emergency. When he came back, he was facing problems with his ISP, so he logged on from my PC and made some moves. He's been banned, and I will also be banned as well as soon as my membership expires. Once again, we can argue about whether or not this is fair, but those are the rules that we are all aware of.
Perhaps GK could make an exception in the case of Mazsola, considering all the support that he has received from GK members here. However, where will it end? As Mike mentioned in the previous thread, it'll lead to everyone appealing for 'special treatment'. Everyone will use the example of Mazsola, when arguing his or her own case. And GK will be accused of being biased, with different rules for different members.
It has also been suggested that an independent body should be formed, to decide and rule on each individual case. But how feasible is that option really? Who'll be on the committee? Long time GK members? Life Members of GK? Who decides, who gets to vote? And might not the members of this independent body also be accused of nepotism, favouritism, or bias? However, at the moment, this seems like the only solution that'll make us happy. I personally would rather belong to a GK which consists of more people like Mazsola. However, we have to come up with a realistic solution which will be acceptable to Mike. Any suggestions?
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daphsa03
8/11/2007
09:38:04
[ report abuse ] | answer to farhadexists
Message:
I don't intend to oppose to anything of what you wrote, but mazsola got differently treated than other captains in a precise situation. GK let them stay at their teams mazsola got removed. Did you friend got removed from the team?
Mazsola doesn't ask for excetion only for a fair treament. Why is GK denying a manual check, 5 of the listed nameson our computer are totally unknown to me and to my husband.
The GK rules equally apply to all members,the premium members are not by any mean excluded by any means. How come that paying members despite of they are spotted allowed to open other players acoount without being warned, without being subject for restriction, not to mention that they are allowed to have unlimited number of accounts connected to their computers that is the issue. Fair treamnet, equal rights to all of us.
Thank you for your add
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chilliman
8/11/2007
15:56:30
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
daphsa03 - if you wrote to all captains on gk asking for their support, why do you think this thread has 8 delete votes and many captains have not responded?
Henry was and hopefully still is a friend and I have said all along that I hope this issue can be resolved in a satisfactory manner, but I am capable of my own thought and that does not mean that I will blindly follow others if I don't agree with what is going on. you yourself asked me to post in these threads which I have done.
it would be a great shame for you both (for anyone) to leave this site as you have made many contributions to gk and this is a great place to play chess. if Henry is not able or prepared to pay for membership at this time and this makes him subject to the rules of 'the common people' then so be it. have you investigated what will happen to his profile should he choose to again become a premium member? won't he regain all the privileges accorded a premium member? if so then there has been a lot of carry on about nothing.
again thankyou for making it easy for me to understand, though I assure you I too can read.
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daphsa03
8/12/2007
02:36:47
[ report abuse ] | answer to chilliman
Message:
I believe the situation is status quo, the only offer we could make is at the site at play some few games with 14 days reflection time and become a premium members, next July. We have no intention to give away 80 USD just to make some at GK happy one or two games at time, We shall be away from chess till mid next year, why to pay during that time. We have no guarantee we can access computers in the African outback, not even for professional need.
Sorry chilliman I wasn’t clear enough, I didn’t contact all the captains as GK let understand on these threads, I managed to send invitation to approximately 25% of all captains, many of them still on vacation and 5 captains terrified to take conflict with GK. I couldn’t contact the rest of the captains because I got stopped by GK, they accuse me for “spamming”, if I of some reason decided to send you a private message, I can’t, I’m banned from messaging. So don’t believe everything GK says. They sent me a warning. I replied that I accept that they wont me to sent any more messages, but the warning was more than warning, they “forgot” to tell me about it. They also forgot to tell for how long time I’m prevented to send messages. I discovered that when I wanted to contact a player of a very private reason, but I couldn’t. That is the way GK democracy works. GK’s business idea is simple, you pay and shout up than nothing happens to you. You can cheat, you can lie much as you want for an annual fee of 60 USD. BTW Mark your own captain is also listed with 1 free account
I would like to make it clear to you that I didn’t ask any captain or player, unless they didn’t offer it to support my/our case, I invited captains to a discussion nothing else.
Yes if Henry pays a fee everything is forgotten. It is prostitution, honey for money. He can open 30 accounts from our computer, if he is stupid enough and has tick wallet enough to do that. He can set up a team called Mazsola with rest of Mazsolas, with members mazsola1 to mazsola30, GK doesn’t care, for money it is alright.
I would like to inform you that mazsola’s buddy list doesn’t exist anymore, GK erased it. All the names, friends Henry made on this site during his captaincy are gone. He discovered it yesterday evening when a person with high integrity wanted to add him to his body list.
Than he made also his first time effort to establish a contact with other chess site. Yes it is a shame, shame on GK, when it comes to me, where go, I go too. I have no more trust to Mike on GK than my husband has
My husband is a modest man, with high integrity and with very high demands on fairness and justice. He believes he contributed to keep this site clear from cheaters and rating manipulaters. He had some good help from other captains, one of them mentioned it on this thread spygirl. (BTW Brandy,id= Henry says thanks for the years of excellent collaboration and for the help with chasing cheaters )GK removed them from teams after Henry’s report, but they had to, it was too obvious. It wasn’t worth, when a legislative power, is also a supervising power and executive power too. GK failed both as supervising power and executive power as well.
GK would be a easy case in a court, whatever thy say is full of contradictions and for money they don’t bother about their own rules
I hoped for a fair solution, but we have to realize that we are dealing with a defiant, immature conduct, befitting a 6 years old kids in a sand box.
It been told by a person who knows the GK boss since the start of this site, the more pressure on him the more “hard-nosed” he gets.
I may be the chess site, but the management and the treatment they gave Henry doesn’t make it worth to stay.
I have to say thanks for all the adds, also those who don’t share my view. I accept a democratic procedure and open fair debate, contrary to GK, (preventing me to invite people to this thread 80% of team players don’t know anything about the existence of this thread)
I shall keep replying to the adds and open a 3rd and 4th thread to if necessary, but I have a feeling that GK tactics is to stop/silent this thread. I’m already stopped from messaging, when they stop the thread with some made up accusation, they silent me too.
Democracy shaped by GK
Finally, the only remaining way for mazsola and my self to say thanks for the years of good games challenges and laughter to say it now and here. Mazsola is already quarantined and I have a feeling that I have not much left. We send thanks to GK for creating an excellent chess site and a very professional chess tool, but your policy and democracy is not worth a penny, if the management disappeared, hardly anyone here would drop a tear for you, a greed and ignorance nothing people appreciate.
The summery of all these is that no change of attitude from GK in sight, the treatment of mazsola is unacceptable and we don’t intend to finance your discrimination of different accounts. A limitation is one thing abuse, bullying is something different.
I started the thread with demanding a answer for some questions, beside of one not even an effort to solve a problem, nothing just ignorance
The very day we fulfilled our commitment to our team and opponent, we let our accounts terminate.
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daphsa03
8/12/2007
03:50:58
[ report abuse ] | one more answer to chilliman
Message:
I answered about the number of contacted captains. I have no idea why anyone wants stop the discussion, here no person was accused for any wrong doing or abused. The discussion is generally about GK monitoring system and it's shortcomings.
Beside, mazsola made lots of friends on the site, but his demand of fairness made some captains dislike him. He openly contacted the captains whos players he intended to report, in one case a captain said thank you Henry, I donno how to trace them, please keep an eye on my guys, some other captains kept a defence speech for the player's behavior, got agressive, some years back it was an open fught on this net between mazsola and a still acting captain when GK removed 3 of his playwers for multiple violation of GK rules. They maybe recognize the problem, but they don't intend to support the person whos case triggered the thread, they love to see mazsola disappear from GK
You sems to be more experienced of this than I'm, I got an information about abuse report from a player who just made an add. The thread was reported before any add was made, but I donno where to find that report
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remete
8/12/2007
09:48:24
[ report abuse ] | To gameknot.com
Message:
Well,the original question was:Why had mazsola been removed from the team?
Can't he be a team member,if he's not a premium member? We all know that's not the case. But what then?
I'm the team captain,so i have the right to remove anybody from the team. Of course GK can remove anyone from the whole site,with a good reason.
So,we're still waiting for an answer.Will we get it once?
regards:Oláh Zoltán/remete captain of the "Hungarian Wanderers"
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heinzkat
8/12/2007
10:25:30
[ report abuse ] | remete
Message:
If you had read all contributions to both threads, you would have known. Plus, the reason was already stated in the opening post of daphsa03 in the first thread.
"As for the account "maszola" -- according to our records, it has been suspended due to too many users listed as playing from the same computer. GameKnot employs an automated system that screens all user names for duplicate accounts (i.e. multiple accounts created by the same person). Unfortunately we have to keep such
system in place due to frequent abuse of our free accounts. "
I hope now the discussion can be about this automated system. That's the only way we can get any further on this topic.
There is nothing wrong with this automated system except for the absence of human review before accounts get suspended. Can gameknot_com please give some more information (see previous post of mine) on this subject?
Thank you,
heinzkat
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daphsa03
8/12/2007
14:20:56
[ report abuse ] | answer to heinzkat
Message:
Partly I agree with you, but, id= remete has a point. Players, captains and co-captains on other teams in a precise situation been left on their teams, like viking2 just to mention one. To mention all the others would fill the text quote here, but you have right heinzkat, it's time to give us a clear message GameKnot
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chrisobee
8/12/2007
14:50:11
[ report abuse ] | Message to GK
Message:
It is clear you are aware that players access the accounts of team captains to deal with team matters in the absence of that person, for a start I told you months ago and you acknowledged my message !
It is nigh on impossible for one player to run a team on their own, if they are away for an extended period is the team supposed to grind to a halt ? That is ridiculous so I see 2 solutions:
1) Allow the team captain to nominate a vice captain who has the ability to deal with team issues on their own account or
2) Other team members access the account of the team captain to deal with team issues.
Currently 2) happens all the time and has done for at least the 18 months I have been on GK. To be a team captain you need to be I think it is at least a Platinum membership, ie you pay more! So if you are serious GK in your claim not to be solely motivated by money is is not time that you dealt with this issue which I am also aware has been discussed elsewhere on GK.
Ultimately a website is only as good as the members who belong to it working with rather than against those who own the website. So it really is time to resolve this matter once and for all.
Sincerely,
Chris O'Bee
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gameknot_com
8/12/2007
18:45:57
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
Heinzkat, to answer your question -- why we need the automated system that finds players logging in from the same computer? Initially, when it was created, it was designed to catch people who create multiple accounts. As far as I'm concerned, it worked and still works quite efficiently. You'd be surprised how many people create accounts named "cleverdude", "cleverdude2", "cleverdude3", etc. on GameKnot every day with identical name and age in the profile and think they outsmarted everyone. Unfortunately though, even after many improvements and tweaks, we realized that it is impossible to be 100% sure that two accounts belong to the same person, nor the opposite, that there are two people using the accounts separately (short of remotely checking everyone's passports or fingerprints before they log in to GameKnot). We can be blue in the face coming up with new checks and tests, yet there will always be a case, however improbable, that would be incorrectly categorized. Since there's no way to conclusively prove or disprove the fact of someone having multiple accounts, there's no point in trying. So it has been decided to simply make it into an additional limitation of a free account -- that no other users can be listed as playing from the same computer, otherwise a premium subscription is required. So that there are no implications of anything unethical going on with the flagged accounts whatsoever (since we cannot prove it anyway).
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gameknot_com
8/12/2007
19:06:46
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
Chrisobee, thank you for submitting your suggestions. Although as I already said in one of my previous posts here, please don't expect all of your suggestions to be implemented tomorrow. Absolutely all the suggestions are considered but unfortunately we cannot guarantee that all of them will be implemented, or how soon. It takes time and there are a number of additional considerations that can be in the play. To name a few: other features might already be in the works that would need to be implemented first in order to prevent a conflict; another suggestion has already been accepted into the to-do list that would already serve the same purpose or that would make implementing the other suggestion unnecessary; implementing the suggestion would require additional server resources so a hardware upgrade would be required first; it is not clear that the suggestion would be beneficial to everyone, and not just a small minority of players; etc. etc.. Also, please don't forget, that although teams are important, they don't even represent the majority of players -- only about 8% of active players on GameKnot are also members of a team. While we are happy to introduce new features and improvements that would be useful for team play, I hope you understand it won't be only the team related suggestion that are implemented.
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