Abusing players by stalking - is it even possible?
September 26th, 2008Last week, an important debate erupted across major poker forums relating to the fact that within the Ongame Network there have been a few players who’ve been blocked from playing against a limited number of other players. The capacity to do so exists largely for anti-collusion reasons but, on the request of a partner of Ongame Network, the system has also been used to prevent what can only be described as potential player abuse through stalking.
The gaming environment we operate is a dynamic and very vibrant one and sometimes new player behaviour appear that we, and our partners, may not have foreseen or be properly prepared to handle. This appears to be such a case.
The idea that a player can abuse another player simply by doing everything in his or her power to ruin the playing experience of the first one seemed absurd at first. But it may not necessarily be absurd considering the current rules, policies and feature regulations that apply across our network. We, so to speak, see the point being made about players following other players around and blocking them from enjoying games they actively choose to play in. And faced with this new scenario it appears that we have, on at least one occasion, bought such a story of abuse handed to us by a partner site and activated blocks to prevent it. Doing this, without making the rules clear to everyone, was wrong. Flat out. And for that we apologize.
We are now in the process of weighing the pros and cons and hope to deliver a clear policy on the matter that our partner sites can adapt to and easily follow.
Our next challenge is to figure out how to prevent these potential player abuse scenarios from even occurring in the first place. Clearly the heart of the problem seems to be the widespread (ab)use of the private table functionality offered by all our partners. Should they allow one private table per player per level? Just one table per player period or should the current free-for-all situation continue?
We’d be delighted to hear your thoughts on the matter. Please use the commentary functionality below.
Thirdly we’d also like to point out that any investigations into players breaching our, and our partners, policies are handled separately. And any such investigations linked to this debate are still ongoing. Once any outcome is known to us, this post will be updated according to our privacy and security protection policies.
Sincerely,
Ombudsman
September 28th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Firstly, this is presumably only applicable to headsup tables, right? Nobody has the right to sit at a multiway table and then complain about being blocked.
Secondly, how can there be “stalking” if I open up private tables and set them to manually accept or reject opponents?
I can see it’s maybe a small inconvenience to do so, and it might put the fish off, but the guy who made the complaint maybe should have considered not being rude, arrogant and difficult in the first place and the network definitely should not have taken sides at least without consulting the players involved.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:54 am
The case this refers to was regarding a player that had apparently been stalked and had two(or more) players blocked from playing on tables he was playing on.
Why not just make it so that those players are only blocked from playing heads up games against him or any other player with this problem. Stalking is never going to happen at any other table and it isn’t ever going to give an advantage for anyone if the player with the problem can have players banned from his heads up games.
With regards to the number of tables a player has opened at one time. Just make it so that players can open as many tables at a level as they want, just as long as they are sitting down playing (not sitting out) against an opponent at all other open tables when they open a new one.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Dear Joke,
It is not your right to chosse the conditions of your game environment while playing on an online casino, just as it is not your right on an offline dito. You are not the owner of the tables you are sitting at, you are only allowed to sit there under the rights which the owner grants you. The rules are set throught the T&C and programming of the gaming software.
Sure, you are allowed to sit out but as you have noticed, after a while you will get booted from that table. That is because from the casino’s point of view the players who are willing to play are favoured over those who aren’t. No game, no rake. Simple as that. Therefore, the action giving players is granted a bigger right to tables than you, the bumhunters. Who wins or who loses is quite irrelevant to the poker sites, as long as the money lasts and the poker economy gets injected with new money from time to time.
Ideally for the poker sites, all players should be very equal in skill level so that no one is able to bring money away from the economy. Thus, helping you bumhunters to games with giant edges is not interesting to anyone but you. Not to the poker sites, not to losing players who want action and not to good players who want action. You DO NOT have any rights on another person’s private property (ie the online casinos). Of course´, if you are not happy with the present terms your are free to boycott the poker sites which do not meet your demands. But somehow something tells me you do not consider that an option.