From what I gather, a player here on funkypool.com recently had his account reset due to "exploiting the ranking system by choosing vastly inferior opponents with much lower rank than himself"

Now, IF there is any truth to this at all, my question/complain/shock is in two parts:

1. Do we have staff on this site that actually operate based on the belief that playing lower ranked opponents is an exploit that somehow unfairly can get you high rank? If that is the case, I urge Nick and the other admins of this site to educate your crew - since this is simply not possible. If anything, players who constantly choose to play low ranked opponents accept a larger risk they need to - with nothing to gain.

2. Are we, the players on funkypool.com to understand that playing lower ranked players is from now on considered a rule violation? Or am I to believe that people now get reactions from the site staff based on opinions rather than rules?

Sorry for the tone of all this, but I am shocked right now to say the least. Someone has apparently been accused and penalized for "rank farming" through choosing low ranked opponents. That is simply dead wrong, confused, misguided and technically ignorant. I really really hope I have been misinformed, but if I have indeed not, I really urgently await feedback from Nick or Dave on this issue asap please!

If we now have new, unwritten rules, misguided or not, people need to know!

Thanks.

(and please no pointing to Contact Us on this issue, the question is public since the answer is relevant to every single user on this site, not just me)

this isnt a roumour i have spoken to the player and his stats were reset

Yeah it's a bit of a joke but even though he was at the top the fact no one gave him credit for it is punishment enough as no one really rates him, he is a good player no doubt but his ranks were fake.

That being said he did abide by the rules and if he isnt allowed to play lower ranks then staff should do something about it rather than resetting. This is one reason i just dont see the point in keeping stats no more because it can be erased so easily.

Id rather just keep my stats in real life now lol.

Yes, that is a public fact, but the reasons clearly are not. And for the record, that is NOT a topic here. We don't want this important topic capped under pretense of being a banning inquiry / personal info or similar excuses.

So lets keep the focus here: Is choosing opponents from a certain rank category a rule violation or not...

for once I agree with you Janmb, if the player was reset for only playing lower ranked players, and not for playing the same lower ranked player, then it is just not right, Otherwise there are many players who should be reset and we all know who the biggest one is.


So if the rules have changed admin, let us know.

Janmb i know what you mean mate. I dont blame you for being outraged. In some situations i've found where theres maybe 2 games available to play throughout the game types what choice do you have but to play low ranks. And if the situation arises where you can only come onto the game server at certain "off peak" times, then you have little choice but to play the games available.

Precisely blacky... and that's why it is so important, completely regardless of this particular instance, to get established whether or not this has somehow turned into something earning a reset by admins.

Most of all because the idea that you exploit anything through selecting exclusively lowbies is fundamentally flawed and dead wrong,

and secondly like you say: Someone playing far more lowbies than high rank opponents is perfectly normal since there are a ton of lowbies for every high ranked player on this site. It's a pyramid distribution, so a player logging on at random times, picking the first game he sees will in average be playing far more lowbies than otherwise, for simple statistical reasons.

A good example is 8uk, im on a lot and throughout the day i see maybe 5ish game rooms all day that have someone over 800 in them

I dont like doing it, especially to the level some people do it where they'll hardly ever play someone at a higher rank, but i dont think its against the rules

Its especially hard to consider when there are people (i know at least one) who have fixed rank games, against an opponent who may have been unaware of what the other player was doing, by deliberately losing rank so that they are 'novice' in the main 3 types despite having 42 tournys wins in 2000ish games overall and with more wins than losses

I hope this case is reviewed if those reasons are true

I think that you should be able to choose who you want to play regardless of rank. As long as the games arent fixed and are being played truthfully then what rules are broken. The onus is as much on the lower ranked players not to play the higher ranked ones and the other way round. If someone with a rank of 600 want to play a virt at a game type, so be it. As i say, as long as both are playing to win.

And on Zante's point, i could not agree more. The person in question has clearly not played by this principal and is guilty of rank fixing as much as someone doing it to gain points.

Firstly, as anyone with any sense will already know, this is absolute rubbish.

The rules are very clear, have not changed, and will not change unless there is something major that happens to necessitate it.


Secondly - the site has always championed the principle that everyone should play everyone. The ranking system is specifically designed for that purpose.


And finally - if something seems silly, it probably is. If you believe some of our members - the balls always curve and miss on their shot, the pockets move and change size, the game always disconnects only them when about to win a tournament, mods have cheat modes, admin can levitate mice (it's true, search the forum) and most stupid of all, that someone would be reset for playing a certain rank of user.


Hope that clarifies things a little - and to refer back to Jan's second post - things like this are always better initiated via contact us simply because there are some more naieve users who may believe such rubbish just because they see it on the forum, without stopping to apply a little common sense.

Edit - Capped, as there is simply nothing to discuss. Some people may think it is unfair to play certain ranks of player but it is not. Anyone can play anyone here

Edited at 23:23 Thu 26/08/10 (BST)