A big part of the reason I went into a Dip coma was the dubious behavior of some players and the lack of action taken by the community against it. I've been chastised by the moderators for my views on this subject because apparently we're not allowed to say the word cheating for fear of offending someone. Believe it or not I do understand the need to reign in allegations of cheating and the damage that can be caused by false accusations. At the same time the moderators alone cannot provide protection from all forms of cheating. It's extremely difficult to prove, and only the most clumsy attempts are actually caught and punished. I think this stems from an attitude that cheating will only be recognized as such with absolute proof. I'm actually okay with that, but I also think that the moderators need to counsel players who behave in ways that give cause for suspicion. It really shouldn't even fall to the moderators as an official duty, but when incidents arise, their intervention would help. I am still of the opinion, one based upon two decades of experience, that the best safeguard against cheating in Diplomacy is the community policing itself. In the various communities that I've played Diplomacy (Cat 23, Apolyton, Redscape, Dipworld, The Academy, Worldmasters Championships, and countless others) cheating was so rare that you could almost say that it did not exist simply because no one would dare risk their reputation in the community to engage in it. There were no rigid rules. There was no banning players. It just did not happen. Now because most of these games were email based with human GMs, it was a lot easier to police, and much more difficult to pull off. At the same time you had GMs with house rules that specifically defined, detailed, and forbade cheating. This is something that VDiplomacy lacks. The rules are loosey goosey about what is and what is not appropriate. For example, there is no specific rule about waging grudges or continuous alliances across games here. There is some lip service paid to it, but it's really not sufficiently explained that this behavior is improper.

Now with that said I think that most players try to come at each game as a new event and leave the past in the past. And the waters get muddy when we learn one another's styles and react to them accordingly. Sometimes this gives the appearance of running feuds and alliances simply because that's what happens when certain styles interact. The *only* solution to this is a personal commitment form everyone to behave ethically. And the best way to do this is for the community (players and moderators) to be witness to this. As has been mentioned many times in the past the moderators cannot look into every esoteric incident, and are limited in the tools at their disposal. That is why we as players must enforce this upon ourselves. For example, if I write to Dr. Recommended that I'm all in to kill Lief Siverson because that bastard stabbed me two games ago, I expect to be called on it by Dr. and told that's not appropriate. Of if I ask Doctor R. to help me take down Cypeg because he resides above me on the Elo ratings, I would again expect to be rejected and frowned upon. And if I continue to behave this way, then Dr. Recommended should simply say, I'm not going to play in games with you anymore because that's not ethical. It's really that simple. If we all engage this way, cheating will virtually disappear except for the most clumsy cases that the moderators are very good at enforcing.

Unfortunately there has been no appetite for this, and moderators of the past have stamped out any such talk, claiming that they have total control in the same breath where they admit that they cannot control it. We don't need the moderators to control it. We as the players can control our own behavior, and there are clearly enough players posting in this thread who get it enough to be a part of the fix.