War #8 - General Discussion

[trashduke]

Bripod wins for the awesome reference!

[Vangelios]

Well I don't trust anyone here.
Even in team darkness war7 I suspected of one member and really don't  understand why people agree to a competition that gives many possibilities for this type of things, every human being has his days of weakness.

[Drake_XIV]

Well I don't trust anyone here.
Even in team darkness war7 I suspected of one member and really don't  understand why people agree to a competition that gives many possibilities for this type of things, every human being has his days of weakness.

In the context of War, this is fairly unreasonable due to the fact that the issue only arose, to my knowledge, because an administrator was participating in War.

With that in mind, no other forum member would have been able to replicate this issue. So amidst the "many possibilities for this type of things," this actually would be one of the much rarer occurrences.

In other news, it's great to see that Gravity is still hanging in, even if just barely.

[Chapuz]

If the community no longer trusts me, I will resign since the Admin position is one of service to the users.

Who decide to trust you or not is each person individually, not the community as a whole. I'm pretty sure that most of us trust you, but it looks like unfortunately at least one of the WMs didn't when they decided the penalty.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Well I don't trust anyone here.
Even in team darkness war7 I suspected of one member and really don't  understand why people agree to a competition that gives many possibilities for this type of things, every human being has his days of weakness.

In the context of War, this is fairly unreasonable due to the fact that the issue only arose, to my knowledge, because an administrator was participating in War.

With that in mind, no other forum member would have been able to replicate this issue. So amidst the "many possibilities for this type of things," this actually would be one of the much rarer occurrences.

In other news, it's great to see that Gravity is still hanging in, even if just barely.

I'd just like to note as I stated before if this is a staff-related issue staff members in general should ponder how heading into War affects their other duties. This particular issue has a level of awkwardness to it due to only one staff member occupying the position in question. I presume antiaverage and UTAlan's increased activity are a response to this, but it sets an example for staff in general to consider their commitments when they join war as well as how they communicate that to both non-staff and other staffed users.

If the community no longer trusts me, I will resign since the Admin position is one of service to the users.

Who decide to trust you or not is each person individually, not the community as a whole. I'm pretty sure that most of us trust you, but it looks like unfortunately at least one of the WMs didn't when they decided the penalty.

If enough of the individuals in our community potentially distrusts Higs than she has a fair reason to make such a statement. I have not seen a centralized opinion yet that shows a clear loss of faith in Higs, so unless someone who supports the notion steps forward it may be best to let things run their course.

[serprex]

If the community no longer trusts me, I will resign since the Admin position is one of service to the users.

Who decide to trust you or not is each person individually, not the community as a whole. I'm pretty sure that most of us trust you, but it looks like unfortunately at least one of the WMs didn't when they decided the penalty.

It's possible for a person to believe two conflicting views. What I must think as a WM is different than what I may think while thinking as a non-WM. That said, all WMs agree on the matter, at least as WMs

[ARTHANASIOS]

My feedback:

* An Admin who is Warblind is a joke after all. What's the meaning for an admin to be Warblind if he/she can remove the Warblindness at will? If the duites of an admin contradict with his/her duites of War or another forum event, there are only 2 fair options (everything else is just a poor excuse in my most honest opinion):

 1st) The Admin does NOT participate at War or the forum event at all.
 2nd) The Admin leaves his/her position prior to joining War or the event.

* An admin who has viewed private boards of other War teams for ANY reason (even if that say reason was to fix a bug or whatever) while supposely being Warblind has only 2 honorable options (once again, everything else is just a poor excuse in my most honest opinion):

 1st) He/she abandons the event in the middle of it, even if that means his/her team has to get a replacement.
 2nd) He/she absolutely NOT participate BY ANY MEANS to the deckbuilding of his/her team for the rest of the event. No matter how ethical that person might be, he/she can't unsee what he/she has already seen and can't be objective to the deckbuilding no matter what.

* If the Admin breaks any of the above, he/she should be PERMABANNED for the War or the other forum event. Harsh, but the only fair solution imho.

[theelkspeaks]

As I understand from CuCN's post (feel free to correct if I'm misstating anything) only The Oracle can grant or remove admin privileges, including whether an admin is Warblind or not.  Said account is shared by all current admins.  The problem, as I understand it, is that Higurashi needed to use The Oracle account to fix various permissions during the duration of War (including several permission fixes for me personally when I became LO and encountered a series of bugs with respect to my NLW and Chatmod statuses.)

The plan going forward to protect from any abuses is to change The Oracle's password when an admin goes Warblind so that only all non-Warblind admins can access The Oracle during the War.  This seems like a more-than-sufficient solution to ensure that regardless of whether inappropriate behavior occurred in this instance, inappropriate behavior would be impossible in all future instances.

[CuCN]

As I understand from CuCN's post (feel free to correct if I'm misstating anything) only The Oracle can grant or remove admin privileges, including whether an admin is Warblind or not.

My post was not meant to imply this.

[SpikeSpiegel]

The evidence our conclusion was based on:
Admin logs said that during the deckbuilding phase of Round 2, Higurashi made some change to all the team sections other than Aether's, and then another change to the same sections 13 minutes later. (source: antiaverage)
According to a database query, the account "The Oracle" viewed every one of the topics with links to the vaults, but not Aether's. No timestamps, but an incrementing ID number pointed to it happening in Round 2. (source: antiaverage)
According to the vault tool revision history, Aether's decks were consistently being posted after their opponents' decks were. This included one instance where only two decks were posted prior to a period of several hours with no activity; at that time, only the two corresponding opponents had posted their decks, with the other four posting during the gap. (source: Google Sheets history)
Some behavior in Aether's secret planning area, which will remain private. (source: deuce22, from hainkarga)

Higurashi gave an explanation for the first two, but serprex and I still agree on our conclusion because of the coincidences required.

Whether or not any cheating occurred, it is certain that every secret team board and vault tool except for Aether's was exposed to someone using the Oracle account.
antiaverage has told us that information in PMs was not exposed.

Thanks to hainkarga for being cooperative with our investigation.

Apart from what is written here above, few things aren't so clear:

- Why Higu hasn't asked antiaverage to fix that bug/issue?

- Why Higu has not informed WM's about a forum issue/bug that forced her to work over secret team's areas?

- Why Higu wanted to use at all costs a no damage stall deck vs , coming into conflict with her General?


Imho, we'll never know the truth. Unfortunately all signs seem to point in a direction.

My feedback:

* An Admin who is Warblind is a joke after all. What's the meaning for an admin to be Warblind if he/she can remove the Warblindness at will? If the duites of an admin contradict with his/her duites of War or another forum event, there are only 2 fair options (everything else is just a poor excuse in my most honest opinion):

 1st) The Admin does NOT participate at War or the forum event at all.
 2nd) The Admin leaves his/her position prior to joining War or the event.

* An admin who has viewed private boards of other War teams for ANY reason (even if that say reason was to fix a bug or whatever) while supposely being Warblind has only 2 honorable options (once again, everything else is just a poor excuse in my most honest opinion):

 1st) He/she abandons the event in the middle of it, even if that means his/her team has to get a replacement.
 2nd) He/she absolutely NOT participate BY ANY MEANS to the deckbuilding of his/her team for the rest of the event. No matter how ethical that person might be, he/she can't unsee what he/she has already seen and can't be objective to the deckbuilding no matter what.

* If the Admin breaks any of the above, he/she should be PERMABANNED for the War or the other forum event. Harsh, but the only fair solution imho.

If an Admin breaks any of the above, he/she has to resign.

[Vangelios]

I'm definitely inclined for WMs, and also happy to know that even an ADM can be watched. I thought it would be impossible to prove what happened.

I can believe in coincidences, but not a significant sum of facts that demonstrate an action.

Also one thing bit strange is behavior of Higurashi
If I'm innocent and I can not prove, I would send everyone to hell and leave the forum, but now I see a behavior comprehensive and submissive.

Also agree with Arthanasios ADM or warblind as a member of war is the demonstration that things are very amateur, naivety and infant here.

[ZephyrPhantom]

My feedback:

* An Admin who is Warblind is a joke after all. What's the meaning for an admin to be Warblind if he/she can remove the Warblindness at will? If the duites of an admin contradict with his/her duites of War or another forum event, there are only 2 fair options (everything else is just a poor excuse in my most honest opinion):

 1st) The Admin does NOT participate at War or the forum event at all.
 2nd) The Admin leaves his/her position prior to joining War or the event.

* An admin who has viewed private boards of other War teams for ANY reason (even if that say reason was to fix a bug or whatever) while supposely being Warblind has only 2 honorable options (once again, everything else is just a poor excuse in my most honest opinion):

 1st) He/she abandons the event in the middle of it, even if that means his/her team has to get a replacement.
 2nd) He/she absolutely NOT participate BY ANY MEANS to the deckbuilding of his/her team for the rest of the event. No matter how ethical that person might be, he/she can't unsee what he/she has already seen and can't be objective to the deckbuilding no matter what.

* If the Admin breaks any of the above, he/she should be PERMABANNED for the War or the other forum event. Harsh, but the only fair solution imho.

While on the hard side, I think the first two points ARTH has raised regarding Warblind Admins are valid. The attempt to use "Warblind" as a workaround to participate in War seems to be the core cause of this mess, demonstrating that it does not work in general. For future wars I think it would be wise to always have a neutral active admin if someone in a position like Adminstrator (perhaps Global Mod, too) wishes to participate. Future Admins that wish to participate in War need to ensure there is a reliable replacement, not attempt to shoulder the entire burden themselves.

Regarding withdrawing: while she does not necessarily have to do so, I do agree withdrawing from War (partially or fully) would go a ways on Higurashi's part towards regaining the respect of others on this forum.

===================

Regarding resignation: while on a professional level, I respect Higurashi and her willingness to owe up to her mistakes, I believe circumstances and further investigation have made it difficult to hold faith in her integrity from this point forward. As she stated before, the Admin position is one of service to the users. If the users hesitate to trust her, it may not be wise for her to remain in this position for the time being. However, on the off chance another culprit playing with the Oracle account exists, I believe further investigation and monitoring of the Oracle account should be done first before a dedicated request is made to Higurashi to resign.