Subject: Track Records, Penalties, and Charlie's letter Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 22:51:34 -0400 From: Morrie Mullins To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- First, I'd like to thank Michael Bahr for his initial response to this posting. I'm pleased to see that there are DCI judges who take their role seriously. I was, quite frankly, disgusted with the fact that the letter was originally posted. I cannot imagine a reason why we should ever have the posting of confidential information to any newsgroup. Nothing remarkable was contained in Charlie's email. There really WASN'T anything new there. The logic underlying the decision had been made pretty clear from other sources. Posting and subsequently dissecting the things that Charlie had to say on the matter served little purpose other than to add fuel to the fire already licking at Mike Long's ankles. And trust me,folks, there ain't no more fuel needed there. While I have some disagreements with some of Nicol's points, then, most of my irritation is really with the fact that this was ever posted at all. I enjoy Nicol's posts, I just happen to disagree with some of what he said, this time. :) Anyway, to continue... "Nicol Bolas" wrote >I cannot see how a "closed environment" makes tournament play any >better. I believe that, at the very least, the DCI should let the general >public know that any matter of importance, such as this one, is being >discussed, even if no formal conclusion has been reached. What's >wrong with letting the general public know what you guys are talking >about, without going into very specific details? The closed environment of the judge list allows judges to learn from other judges without having a bunch of us who THINK we know what's best for the game (and I count myself in that number) butting in. There are ways that WotC and/or the DCI sees as the best way for judges to learn to be most effective. Making the environment open, by allowing the free posting of materials such as this, contaminates the learning process of the judges. There is a single set of rules -- outlined by the DCI -- which judges must learn and enforce. Throwing in extraneous "stuff" just makes it more difficult for them to learn to do things the way the DCI wants them done. Do I think the DCI's rules that they're teaching are the best they could be? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's their game, and they have the right to teach people to play it however they want. I think there might be problems with talking about ongoing investigations as well that would have made such a public posting a bad idea. Do you think that it's a good idea for the DCI to go around calling people "cheater" before they know if they have enough information to act against the person? Yeah, I know, I know -- it's Mike Long. But what if they can't come up with enough compelling evidence to act against him, and they've released (or allowed to be released) a document that might call the person's character into question? Any person (moving beyond Mike Long) who was mentioned in the manner Long has been and then had no action taken against them might decide to sue for, among other things, defamation of character. I'm not saying it could be won, but lawsuits are a pain in the ass companies want to avoid in all forms. Or is all you wanted, "We are investigating the incident"? Because I think that this kind of statement could only have been met with a "duh." Of course they're going to see what they can do. The way the game is perceived MATTERS to them, and this has put an enormous black mark on nationals, and the US National team, which at least 3 of its 4 members do not deserve at all. >In this case, the people already knew of the situation before the letter >was posted. The letter only gave the viewpoint of the judge that got >mixed up in it all. All things considered, outside of the confidentiality >breach, I don't see any harm in the release of the letter. I think the confidentiality breach is enough. If the identity of the person who leaked it is discovered, I hope s/he is stripped of all DCI certification and membership. This was enormously unprofessional. [snip] >Two Things: I'd agree with you, if the offender didn't have a shady >track record to begin with. Also, a "penalty" should be something that >would punish the person for his/her actions. How can you consider the >penalty given to Long "Punishing", given his standing in the >tournament? All things considered, the "penalty" did nothing in this >case. The "track record" argument has been dealt with elsewhere. Until the DCI enables tournaments to access an online database of prior offenses to accurately gauge what actions have been taken against a player in the past to determine whether to "upgrade" a penalty from what is laid out to them in the guidelines (such as they currently are), you just can't use track record as a criterion. Just can't. Mike's example shows why. With that said, however, I agree; the "penalty" here turned out to be a non-penalty. Which, I'm sure, is why Long allegedly cheated -- because within the current penalty guidelines, he had nothing to lose. That's a problem with the penalty guidelines, however, not with Charlie's judging, nor that of anyone else. >When someone is caught driving drunk, doesn't his previous track >record get taken into account at the trial? What about history of >violence for abusers? I could go on and on.....when someone is caught >doing something wrong, their past record DOES get taken into >account, and I don't see how this should be any different for Magic. Because at any given tournament, organizers and judges don't have an accurate way to assess track record. As I said above, until they do, this is impossible and not at all advisable. [snip] >There's a HUGE difference between "Failure to agree" and a key >card ending in your lap. And there's a HUGER difference between cheating at Magic and doing something that could get someone killed -- like driving drunk, or abusing a child or spouse. [snip] >Well, the FTAOR would end up on BOTH track records, so these >"sacrifices" wouldn't happen for very long. In fact, eventually players >C and D will feel much stiffer penalties than the innocent player, and, >once the track record gets too excessive (shouldn't take long at 2 >warnings/tournament.), further and more permanent disciplinary >action can be taken against the offending team members. A team of 7 or 8 that sets out to get one player banned can do so with a minimum of difficulty, I would imagine. Even if each player only tanked once to the random annoying guy (RAG), by the time the team went through the ranks once each player would have been expelled from one tournament, at most. Because after a while, the local judges might start giving stiffer penalties for the RAG than anyone else, since he has "a track record for that kind of thing." But the RAG would have been expelled from 7-8 tournaments, which would likely flag all sorts of things in the DCI's computer and get the RAG suspended for some period of time. And when he came back, they could each do it once more and he'd end up banned. Bahr's argument is so sound, it scares me. (Made worse by the fact that you don't even have to take track record into account each time for the flags to go up eventually on the RAG's DCI number, you just have to have the pattern show up. I'm going to trust Bahr's statement that judges are trained to avoid such things in actual tournament situations.) >>Long got what he deserved at the tourney. > >No, he didn't. What he got was what the existing rule and penalty guidelines said he should have gotten, maybe a little beyond. From a moral standpoint, we can stand here all day and shout "Mike Long is a cheating bastard! He always cheats, and he's always going to cheat!" I don't know if he does, but a lot of people are shouting it anyway. But you know what? Until the rules and penalty guidelines are changed, Mike Long or anyone else who wants to can get away with bloody murder, because the rules are not equipped to stop them. I'm pretty pissed off about it (and have stopped playing competitive Magic until it gets fixed), but I also recognize that the DCI is the one holding the ball here. They KNOW that we're pissed, now it's up to them to do something about it. Boy, and Nicol thought *he* was rambling... :) I remain, Morrie Mullins Semi-Retired Magic Player