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Subject: Re: Computer Cheaters

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 18:30:33 03/26/99

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On March 26, 1999 at 21:16:35, Adnan wrote:
>Computer cheaters on the internet chess servers are the biggest, meanest,
>&*#@$$ scumbags. These dishonest liars are responsible for the
>death of slower time control games on Internet.
A funny thing too.  If we could play against Kasparov, we would form a line that
circles the planet twenty times.  But playing against a computer that can kick
your tail does not seem nearly so fun.

>I appluad everyone who posts their names, so other honest human beings can
>protect themselves from this desease :-)
I disagree.  If you have dirty laundry, take it up with the sysops at the chess
server you use and the potential guilty party.  What's wrong with just noplaying
someone you think might be cheating?  Better yet, find a circle of friends that
you *can* trust and play only against them.

Look at the big furor over someone making that suggestion about one single
possible case.  Do you really want one hundred messages here about similar
cases?  I know I don't.

ELO on a chess server is phoney baloney anyway.  For machine against machine, I
pretty much believe them.  But for humans, there is *simply no way* to detect if
cheating is going on, so the ratings have no value whatsoever.

What we have is:
1.  An honor system.
2.  Lots of people without a shred of honor.

Do you see a potential for conflict here?

What seems to be decried is that cheaters run amok.  Posting a list of suspected
cheaters here will just raise the noise level.  What is the goal of such a
dialog:
1.  Eliminate cheating?  [Fat chance]
2.  Humiliate cheaters?  [They have no honor to start with, and you will catch
honest people from time to time.  The damage from harming one honest person is a
thousand times more than the value of exposing one million cheaters]
3.  Something else?  You tell me.

It's useless.  Get used to it.



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