Subject: Re: Eric Tam's post on Cheating Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 14:07:22 -0400 From: David Matteson To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com to Eric Tam and everybody else, First of all, i would like to say "Thank you, Sherlock Holmes." Your listing of facts was amazing. What did you do? Run a search in Microsoft Encarta on "cheating" or something? Sorry if i sound a little sarcastic or bitter, but i am. Once again we find someone blatantly catagorizing everyone because they are so omniscent that we are all but mere ants in their gigantic farm. Specs to be observed. Either a genius or not thinking about it much, eh? Well i guess i'm a genius then. Your "moral compass" may not match mine but that doesn't really matter at all here. We are not talking about abortion or the death penalty; we are talking about cheating in Magic. This is a simple matter of whether or not you are altering situations so that you may gain an advantage over your opponent where it would not have occurred otherwise. Doing this passively or actively, either way it is still cheating. You say you do not wish to give away your position on the subject, but you already have. So i can clearly not choose the wine in front of me. But only a fool would not know that, so i can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. Hey what's that?! Regardless of the list of garbage, your post is pointless. This subject is very simple and hardly warrants all this hubub that it has attracted. That includes my own posts, but i'm still not going to shut up. The basics of the matter are; a person knows when they are cheating, and it is their problem to deal with. I am not going to be one of those dorks spouting out "you're only cheating yourself" because i'm sure $5,000 would make me forget about it. The problem with cheating is it's exactly like buying a spice girls record; you help promote mediocrity in the world. By cheating, you contribute to an already over-flowing bucket of poor players who win undeserved prizes. Rather than promote competition, you are promoting laziness and slothful mis-gaining. There is a distinct difference between not pointing out to your opponent that they could disturbed-burial their mogg fanatic and kill you with it, and not correcting the burial of a soltari priest against a giant-strengthed wall of diffusion. one is a possibility the opponent doesn't realize and one is an impossibility that you allow to slide through. by the rules of the game, you should not have won, and that is what seperates them. as i said, this is not a complicated issue, and if anyone out there doubts me, think about it for a little while and it should come to you unless you are a complete, bungling dolt. have fun, ...dave