The Problem with Perikles

[Herr Schatten]

While I can understand the concerns of the score players about the legitimacy of submissions, I feel they completely miss the perspective of a player who doesn't primarily play for score, possibly because it's too far removed from their own approach. I feel that this perspective is underrepresented in this thread so far, so maybe I can share some insight in that. There's been a lot of talk based on the assumption that Perikles actively aims for high scores. I'm not convinced that's the case.

I don't know Perikles personally, but from his posts he comes across as someone who enjoys quickly clearing games and be done with them. This is pretty much how I approch most shmups as well, except that it takes Perikles days to clear one while it takes me months. If the clear is his main goal, a good score is simply a by-product of achieving the goal, not a goal in itself.

I occasionally post scores in the relevant high score threads if I feel they are up to scratch, but it's an afterthought and I usually don't pursue them any further. Thus, I have zero interest in optimizing my routes after I got the clear, and someone seeing me play would probably call them unothodox. In fact, it's likely that I don't touch a game again anytime soon after I feel I'm done with it, especially so if the clear included several luck-based dodges I'm unlikely to reproduce. For anyone who enjoys dissecting a game to squeeze out the last bit of score this may sound completely unreasonable, but at that point I'd rather move on to something else than practice further to make my success more consistent.

Now, there are only two games where I have competitive scores at all: Trizeal and Radirgy. As chance would have it, one of my scores is actually 'verified'. I submitted my Trizeal highscore from the DC version via the generated code to Triangle Service for their competition and placed within the top ten, as the highest non-japanese player. However, I surpassed my own score on the PS2 version a while later, and I have zero proof that this one's legitimate. Worse yet, I have lost the VM unit with my DC score on it, so I couldn't even reproduce the proof that did exist at one point. For my Radirgy score I never had a 'proof' in any meaningful sense ever.

Following this debate, I fired up both games for the first time in years. I was appaled by how badly I did. I struggled to keep up my ABS in Radirgy even in stage 1, and I could't even make it through the rotating turrets section in Trizeal. The muscle memory that carried me through these sections on autopilot is simply gone. If someone approached me today, asking me to verify those scores by making a live demonstration, I couldn't do it. You'd see me struggling and decide that I had to be some sort of impostor or cheater. It would take me at least a couple of weeks to regain the knowledge of the games to play them at a level that may or may not convince the accuser that I'm the real deal. Frankly, I wouldn't care to do it. I would politely decline and say: "I don't care enough, remove my scores if you think you must." Of course that would make me all the more suspicious...

I can't say if Perikles is in the same boat, but I got the impression he probably is, so neither is his reaction to NTSC-J's request as weird as it may seem, nor is asking for proof via live demonstration of a game he probably hasn't touched in years as reasonable as it might appear at first glance.

[chum]

You've contradicted yourself. You say that it takes you months to clear games whereas it takes Perikles days to do it. Then you go and say that if you were asked to play something now you wouldn't do well because you need so much time to prepare, buw how would that be the case for Perikles when he needs so little time to prepare? First of all, the games that take Perikles days to clear are typically some of the hardest ones out there. If a game isn't super hard it doesn't even take him days to do it. So I don't really buy this idea that it would take him lots of time to prepare before he could do a live run and that people would, as a result, not believe him due to poor gameplay. That's not the same Perikles that has posted here this whole time.

I mentioned this before but we can see based on his gameplay, not strategies or routing, if his gameplay matches his videos. That means, his surgical precision with movement and his lightning reaction speed. If he doesn't have something resembling that then no amount of preparation will really make his videos credible. We've already established that his strategies and routing is hardly even existent and that his videos are hard to swallow due to this. So then what he's been relying on is his pure skill. Pure skill isn't something you prepare for. It's something you just have. Given how quickly he's gotten his clears it's hard to believe it would take much preparation to just fool around in a game.

[donluca]

Just my 2 cents: removing all of his scores on a whim, after a certain time frame, is way too harsh.

Removing the suspicious scores seems more reasonable to me.

The best way, imho and as already someone else in this thread has suggested, is highlighting those scores (put them in italic, with an * near them or whatever) and write that those are unverified so that people can make their own mind (either be satisfied by beating the verified score or aim to beat the unverified one regardless).

[Xyga]

Don't forget that this thread gives away the best way to cheat and get away unnoticed by shmupper eyes.

And even without that we've seen how feasible cheating is after all.

I guess some want to be as harsh as possible for maximum discouragement effect, but...

[CStarFlare]

To clarify, will you quarantine all of his scores or just the ones people have the most issues with (Tatsujin Ou and Same!)?

2) Removal of scores
Which scores are to be removed and which ones can stay - this is an ethical dilemma. I'm in strong support of having all of his scores removed. ... I don't trust cheaters at all and if we as a community decide that he is one, then I would like to see the full consequences of these claims. ... This is also how recent cheating scandals in other communities were handled (Rogers, Mitchell).

I'm currently undecided though I lean towards selective removal. Part of why I feel it's easy to suggest just removing scores in the first place is that he requested it but I'm a little unclear on how wide the scope of that request was. Unlike Rogers and Mitchell, Perikles isn't caught red-handed. My current position here is that if Perikles doesn't respond within the deadline something has to happen, but that's more a procedural decision than a sure confirmation of guilt.

As Shepardus said, either way I'd mark his scores on Restart Syndrome as private rather than nuke it. I don't really care how people use the site as long as it doesn't affect other members' experience on the site - I initially implemented privacy features so people could use it as a personal diary (either for discretion, or potentially as a place to record all of their runs if they're into obsessive data tracking) and I'm comfortable with pretty much anyone using it for that purpose.

One thing I'll note is that making a sweeping decision on RS is significantly easier than it would be here - it's a single database query rather than manually editing several hundred threads (some of which Perikles owns). The combination of general consensus that most of his scores are legit and the fact that it's impractical to unwind him from every scoreboard he's currently on should be a serious consideration - if the forum community wants to wipe the slate clean, that's an undertaking that requires a project manager, research assistant and a staff member.

I think anyone is entitled to give their two cents on the issue of remaining scores regardless of their level of participation in the high score forum. I don't think one has to be actively score chasing to understand or care about the things being discussed here - see Blossom's comment earlier in the thread about people who obsess over WR scores/replays without ever committing themselves to mastering a game. I suspect the community might err on the side of just removing the specifically challenged scores as most people seem to consider most of his scores legitimate and as AC Seraph said, most people view the scoreboards here as a more casual community thing. That's fine. #EOJPhilosphy

People saying only Perikles' scores should be deleted aren't being fair.

The reason being Perikles' scores are only being held up to scrutiny because a certain group started making noise about them.

Perikles' scores are being held up to scrutiny because they are exceptional. No one cares about everyday scores and that's not a conspiracy. Someone taking 17th place when they haven't earned it doesn't matter to anyone, and I expect even the person in 18th place would shrug; this is not the case between places 1 and 2. There's satisfaction and a meaningless sense of glory at #1, and in some measure it raises the community as a whole - it's a little bit cool and exciting that that we have people in the community who pull off a Futari Ultra counterstop or 600M in DDP; wouldn't it suck if that were a fabrication?

You might want to make another rule; that for future cases of cheating, the plaintiffs instead of launching accusations on a member of this forum beginning anonymously using a proxy poster, should state who they are and bring quality material from boot to support their claim.

It's not unreasonable for someone(s) to approach the maintainer of the community records list discreetly to voice their concerns. This allowed NTSC-J to try to clear things up via private communications before putting it to the community which he did. It's completely fine to go to an "authority" to ask him to sort things out; it's part of the responsibility one takes on when you choose to manage part of a community. If someone is being an ass on the forum, there's nothing wrong with just shooting a mod a PM instead of confronting him yourself.

I think it's also fairly easy to guess who in the community might have raised those concerns in the first place by reading the first page where a few of these people publicly stated their concerns and reasons for them using their own names. I do expect there was a bit of pussyfooting around the issue - Perikles is a well liked and prolific member of the community and I expect some people had stronger negative views than they were willing to express up front, whether out of respect for him or to avoid a strong emotional reaction to their arguments. That's just normal social behaviour. This is an unpleasant thread, but I don't think there's a way around that without just keeping the subject in the closet where it has apparently been festering for a couple years now.

[Xyga]

You might want to make another rule; that for future cases of cheating, the plaintiffs instead of launching accusations on a member of this forum beginning anonymously using a proxy poster, should state who they are and bring quality material from boot to support their claim.

It's not unreasonable for someone(s) to approach the maintainer of the community records list discreetly to voice their concerns. This allowed NTSC-J to try to clear things up via private communications before putting it to the community which he did. It's completely fine to go to an "authority" to ask him to sort things out; it's part of the responsibility one takes on when you choose to manage part of a community. If someone is being an ass on the forum, there's nothing wrong with just shooting a mod a PM instead of confronting him yourself.

I think it's also fairly easy to guess who in the community might have raised those concerns in the first place by reading the first page where a few of these people publicly stated their concerns and reasons for them using their own names. I do expect there was a bit of pussyfooting around the issue - Perikles is a well liked and prolific member of the community and I expect some people had stronger negative views than they were willing to express up front, whether out of respect for him or to avoid a strong emotional reaction to their arguments. That's just normal social behaviour. This is an unpleasant thread, but I don't think there's a way around that without just keeping the subject in the closet where it has apparently been festering for a couple years now.

This is very wrong and you guys don't realize.

What if someone, unidentified, made a "The Problem with Plasmo" thread, based on suspicion he might have stolen a pcb during the latest Stunfest, sharing video footage that's not enough to be 100% sure evidence but maybe, and asking the community what they think and if he should be banned from IRL events from now on.

It's not just someone being an ass, it's publicly accusing someone of being a cheater, like accusing somone of stealing it's a serious matter.

How you guys find normal in such case that the accusers stay anonymous is baffling, as I said anyone can make accusations with questionable material and potentially ruin a member's online/shmupper's life, and the fallen guy won't even know his accuser's names.

Someone jealous/angry could easily fake the case, soil a name and get away with it.
Remember the 'metoo' fakers ? imagine if the identity of the fakers had been protected on top of that.

Well this is what you say you find normal. And in the present case, it was even people teaming up, even if we can 'guess' who I already know other names who took part and never showed it here.
Is that fine?
EDIT: and for those who thought I was exaggerating when saying this came from the outside, one of them is a known shmupper, but known mainly from social media since he hasn't logged in here since 2011, and that guy also refers as "we" besides the other two names I have. So people who have almost none, or no presence at all on shmups forum, participated in that cabal.

If you find injustice 'normal social behaviour', then your scoreboards can go to Hell because you guys have no more integrity than offenders.
Even a cheater has every right to know who accuses him and confronted to them directly, and defend himself/be defended.

But I wouldn't be surprised the majority of scorers / e-sporters would be okay with authoritarian-state like practices, there are a lot of terrible individuals in any competitive hobby.

Sometimes those who have no guts can be the most threatening individuals in a society, people who prefer to discreetly rat on and have the 'police' do the dirty job would normally be seen as assholes in an healthy society, but a society who begins to see that behaviour as normal is a corrupt one.

[CStarFlare]

You're catastrophizing - allegations about one's level of play in retro video games online is nowhere near the level of accusations of theft or #metoo infractions.

The evidence being seriously discussed is analysis of Perikles' own videos and claimed scores, which is being done publicly by people posting in their own names and who (most would agree) have the credibility to make that analysis. There is no anonymous accuser - NTSC-J may not have given a list of people he'd spoken to, but in the end he's not some random hack who heard rumors and just threw them out there. He heard arguments, evaluated them, and wrote them up and presented them to the forum in a way that isn't reliant on information given by shadowy figures. He is the accuser; the fact that others have said similar things in private conversation isn't important.

[Xyga]

No anonymous?

You are wrong, check my edit. I remind you that I have evidence. There are GAPING HOLES in your rules and you are fine with a seriously unbalanced and unfair parody of justice.

You don't even know how many people teamed up to accuse, nor who they all are, only good guesses, yet some might even be unknown here, and yet again this forum was the theatre for their action.

And that some behind that sneaky cabal participate in the thread after that being like 'omg! lets look at this' is only yet another aspect of how hypocrite and dirty your guys ways are.

A cheater is awful, sure, but in this case it looks like everyone behind the action was equally a bad guy.

All is good for you ? well...

ok scorer

[6t8k]

I feel like this definitely has to be a community decision. Please post your opinion here on how you think it would be best to handle the removal of scores. Only remove 2 scores? Remove them all? Why? I would also appreciate it if only people post here who actually use the hiscore forum.

I would object to that. How do you define "People who actually use the hiscore forum"? There are people who might not have used it up until now, or haven't in a long time, but are planning to. It's in the interest of those to be able to have a say, especially in case that new rules will be put in place that will apply to them but have not applied to habitués fot the longest time. They also belong to the community; I don't think confining this to a closer, more elitist circle, would turn out to be edifying. It's not like this place is brimming with activity in regards to hiscore competition.

I actually think that some of Xyga's comments about this - while a bit in a grouchy tone as he does on occasion - were pretty spot-on at times.


ACSeraph, I think your proposal to introduce unverified scores is excellent. To my humble self, it sounds like a solution everyone could live with, I cannot think of any cogent enough drawbacks. With this, the question to remove scores in cases like this wouldn't even necessarily have to be posed in the first place. The distinction between them and verified ones should always be made clear enough, and I'm hoping I don't go out on a limb by saying that it'd probably best if set in effect globally for this forum.

I think a 'possible fraudulent entries' topic in addition to that would be helpful too and not be an eyesore at all if this is taken as seriously as is demanded by one party here.


And, I want to highlight this:

Just like tennis. You have the open era and the pre-open era. Or like historical time and mythological time. Appropriate given the Perikles' love for mythology.

If that would not be tasteful - my approval, is has

[andsuchisdeath]

So one gist that I've gotten from this thread so far is that..

The members who are inexperienced at shooting games (no scores, clears ,replays posted here etc.) are the one's sensationalizing the questioning of Perikles' replays.

What is the true modus operandi here?

Loyalty toward a friend (perikles)? I'm guessing that's not it.

It's quite obvious though, that their MO isn't about maintaining a standard of integrity for this board's high score table.

I won't publicly speculate what I think it could be.

Though I would like to state that NTSC-J's original post couldn't have been handled with more tact. This isn't an easy subject to broach and IMO many of the active and long standing members here have discussed this topic with objectivity and class and behaved like anything but witch-hunting "e-jocks", despite what some members here are desperately trying to fantasize.

[6t8k]

Actually, one encore in regards to antiquity:

I think this thread is a sublime example for what a forum should stand for. It's precious.

The forum, mostly analogous to the greek agora, "was a gathering place of great social significance, and often the scene of diverse activities, including political discussions and debates, rendezvous, meetings, et cetera" [WP]

Proposals to limit discussion or scheming over things that, as is evident, affect this forum greatly, in private for too long - let me underline on this occasion that I'm happy that it was brought up - would ultimately add to maneuvering the shmups forum away from this ideal.

[WelshMegalodon]

I won't publicly speculate what I think it could be.

No, please, go right ahead.

[Xyga]

The members who are inexperienced at shooting games (no scores, clears ,replays posted here etc.) are the one's sensationalizing the questioning of Perikles' replays.

Wrong. it's a problem of people without a face, coming essentially from the outside, doing shit in the shadows to blow up here in the open, and taking real active members of this community for useful idiots. Or so they thought.

It's the scoring gang, partly ancient members here who don't talk with us anymore because they have their private social media hangouts for them 'elites', who suddently decided that one guy who they think is cheating was going down, so they teamed up to start this trash fire somehow reminding that here also exists as forums with a community and is perfect being public, or rather they asked someone to start this in their stead making Perikles name well exposed but without giving away names of the courageous cabal participants.

And when the members here started giving them 'waitaminit' and argue solidly that some stuff was a bit rushed and aspects of this action fishy, they had to work harder to provide the better documented material supporting the case that lacked at thread start.
That annoyed them of course, and the narrative began to mix things like 'all community decision' 'but er...no non-scorers'

And while the question now is 'what to do in the future in such cases' is still debated here and it's annoying them that again, some of the very persons they themselves took the initiative to bother and hail after years of turning their back on, like yours truly, actually continue to voice their opinon on the matter including pointing very questionable unjust practices that actually leave open abusing rules by letting ratting on anonymously and risk exposing people to unfaire heavy charges dealing serious damage to them.
But being 'secret social scoringland overlords' who are entitled to intervene wherever they want even outside their castle to deal with whoever they want in the far reaches of the western stg world, they seem to be fine with rules that permit them to be fascists when it's convenient.
They're used to people admiring them and agreeing quite more smoothly, you see...

And yes, I reiterate, for the next hiscore drama-cabal they'll cook and throw hot on the table, they should use a dedicated thread for scorers over the HS forums, so that if they don't intend to be fair between them and prefer the tribal kind of justice, that at least they don't drag the whole forums in that sad display.
Reminder; it was their mistake, they wanted a public stage with an easy audience for a public execution, but they didn't realize they didn't want the actual audience here to open their mouths.

Of course the discord captures blunder wasn't anticipted either lol.

[Shepardus]

How you guys find normal in such case that the accusers stay anonymous is baffling, as I said anyone can make accusations with questionable material and potentially ruin a member's online/shmupper's life, and the fallen guy won't even know his accuser's names.

In this case, I don't see how knowing the names of the accusers would substantially change the course of the thread. It's not information I've thought to demand because I don't see how it'd be useful at all, unless the idea is to run the accusers away from here or discredit their concerns based on their presence here.

And yes, I reiterate, for the next hiscore drama-cabal they'll cook and throw hot on the table, they should use a dedicated thread for scorers over the HS forums, so that if they don't intend to be fair between them and prefer the tribal kind of justice, that at least they don't drag the whole forums in that sad display.

I don't see what difference that would make; the high score boards do get less traffic in general but are equally as public as Shmups Chat.

[MathU]

I just wanna pop in and say that the various pathologies on display in this thread are definitely part of the reason I don't bother posting in the high scores forum and generally avoid competitions here. Who would want to prove anything to some of you? The abusive, self-congratulatory elitist wankery among certain competitive cliques is far and away the most repellent trait of the so-called "shmups community".

[Xyga]

@Shep: 'useful'? you can't see yourself in the shoes of the accused can you ? apparently not.

How the heck would the accused known how to defend himself not even knowing who's accusing him of the crime?
Say he's unfairly accused, he won't see who person/group did that to him, if it's malicious he won't be able to fnd for himself and charge back like he should.

Accuser and accused must stand on the same ground, that's one of the most fundamental principles of any justice deserving that name.

You guys are very scary if you don't see the huge glaring problem. Very, very scary.

And as for the move to HS forum; after a while Plasmo requested that non-scorers don't participate, and I replied that he's got a nerve after teaming up with people to drop that bomb in shmups chat, asking everyone their oinion, then changing his mind because he didn't like those opinions.
So I said why not do such threads in the HS forums and ask specifically only for scorer's opinions? that'd be perfect.

If you have zero sense of right or wrong and find it okay to let abusers do the fucked up shit they want the way they want without even protesting against that, then fine Shep, go on an be an enabler, you always take the defense of such people anyway no matter the facts.

[CStarFlare]

I won't publicly speculate what I think it could be.

No, please, go right ahead.

Shmups forum culture war.

[Vludi]

Wow haven't seen this much activity in a while. I haven't watched a Perikles video in a while, but I kinda remember some of them having too much improv to my taste, a small example I remember is not pushing forward the bits for the final boss in R-Type, which is very risky and pretty much everyone knows about it, but still things like that seemed like minor mistakes rather than "cheating" in my view, I 1-All'd Daisenpuu without knowing that you can sit in the final boss when you destroy his turrets, for example. Also, I don't have a lot of experience with most of those games, let alone the harder ones, so I guess the best thing you can do here is let the most experienced players in some of those games to tell if they see something suspicious, if there are people that care enough about stuff like Argus or Battlantis that is lol.

[Xyga]

so I guess the best thing you can do here is let the most experienced players in some of those games to tell if they see something suspicious, that is if there are people that care enough about stuff like Argus or Battlantis lol.

^ totally, this should have at least been requested from the beginning, even in the title.

[chum]

The members who are inexperienced at shooting games (no scores, clears ,replays posted here etc.) are the one's sensationalizing the questioning of Perikles' replays.

Wrong. it's a problem of people without a face, coming essentially from the outside, doing shit in the shadows to blow up here in the open, and taking real active members of this community for useful idiots. Or so they thought.

It's the scoring gang, partly ancient members here who don't talk with us anymore because they have their private social media hangouts for them 'elites', who suddently decided that one guy who they think is cheating was going down, so they teamed up to start this trash fire somehow reminding that here also exists as forums with a community and is perfect being public, or rather they asked someone to start this in their stead making Perikles name well exposed but without giving away names of the courageous cabal participants.

And when the members here started giving them 'waitaminit' and argue solidly that some stuff was a bit rushed and aspects of this action fishy, they had to work harder to provide the better documented material supporting the case that lacked at thread start.
That annoyed them of course, and the narrative began to mix things like 'all community decision' 'but er..no on-scorers here'

And while the question now is 'what to do in the future in such cases' is still debated here and it's annoying them that again, some of the very persons they themselves took the initiative to bother and hail after years of turning their back on, like yours truly, actually continue to voice their opinon on the matter including pointing very questionable unjust practices that actually leave open abusing rules by letting ratting on anonymously and risk exposing people to unfaire heavy charges dealing serious damage to them.
But being 'secret social scoringland overlords' who are entitled to intervene wherever they want even outside their castle to deal with whoever they want in the far reaches of the western stg world, they seem to be fine with rules that permit them to be fascists when it's convenient.
They're used to people admiring them and agreeing quite more smoothly, you see...

And yes, I reiterate, for the next hiscore drama-cabal they'll cook and throw hot on the table, they should use a dedicated thread for scorers over the HS forums, so that if they don't intend to be fair between them and prefer the tribal kind of justice, that at least they don't drag the whole forums in that sad display.
Reminder; it was their mistake, they wanted a public stage with an easy audience for a public execution, but they didn't realize they didn't want the actual audience here to open their mouths.

Of course the discord captures blunder wasn't anticipted either lol.

I'm genuinely curious who it is you're talking about. Is this a bigger conspiracy you're thinking about or just a grudge against Plasmo/Cee? I feel like you're overdramatizing things severely, based on what I've seen in "super secret elite scorer clubs" I've partaken in.

[Xyga]

*shrug* read everything back from approximately page two.

[Licorice]

Perikles' scores are being held up to scrutiny because they are exceptional. No one cares about everyday scores and that's not a conspiracy. Someone taking 17th place when they haven't earned it doesn't matter to anyone, and I expect even the person in 18th place would shrug; this is not the case between places 1 and 2. There's satisfaction and a meaningless sense of glory at #1, and in some measure it raises the community as a whole - it's a little bit cool and exciting that that we have people in the community who pull off a Futari Ultra counterstop or 600M in DDP; wouldn't it suck if that were a fabrication?

Yes it would.

Is Perikles the only player with exceptional scores? If not, then wouldn't it be fair to take every player with exceptional scores and hold them up to the same scrutiny?

Or is it the case that all other exceptional scores have already been looked over?

Another question is whether the procedure followed in this case is a good one. i.e. should we create a "the problem with X" thread for every player with exceptional scores, followed by compilation videos of suspect play, and links to compilations of videos of foul play in other gaming communities, and then use the ensuing discussion to determine whether to impose deadlines delete scores or any other prroposed action?

If we are not willing to do this for every player for the given reasons we are doing it to a particular player, then we are being unfair.

[donluca]

I just wanna pop in and say that the various pathologies on display in this thread are definitely part of the reason I don't bother posting in the high scores forum and generally avoid competitions here. Who would want to prove anything to some of you? The abusive, self-congratulatory elitist wankery among certain competitive cliques is far and away the most repellent trait of the so-called "shmups community".

So you despise the elitist behavior of this community, yet you approach us with an elitist attitude of "no way I'm posting high scorse in this community due to 'the abusive, self-congratulatory elitist wankery' (cit.)".

I think our community just got enriched by a new pathology.

[mycophobia]

Perikles' scores are being held up to scrutiny because they are exceptional. No one cares about everyday scores and that's not a conspiracy. Someone taking 17th place when they haven't earned it doesn't matter to anyone, and I expect even the person in 18th place would shrug; this is not the case between places 1 and 2. There's satisfaction and a meaningless sense of glory at #1, and in some measure it raises the community as a whole - it's a little bit cool and exciting that that we have people in the community who pull off a Futari Ultra counterstop or 600M in DDP; wouldn't it suck if that were a fabrication?

Yes it would.

Is Perikles the only player with exceptional scores? If not, then wouldn't it be fair to take every player with exceptional scores and hold them up to the same scrutiny?

Or is it the case that all other exceptional scores have already been looked over?

Another question is whether the procedure followed in this case is a good one. i.e. should we create a "the problem with X" thread for every player with exceptional scores, followed by compilation videos of suspect play, and links to compilations of videos of foul play in other gaming communities, and then use the ensuing discussion to determine whether to impose deadlines delete scores or any other prroposed action?

If we are not willing to do this for every player for the given reasons we are doing it to a particular player, then we are being unfair.

I already made a big ol post at the top of page 7 about this but in short, Perikles has given several high level players reason to believe something fishy is going on, and it's not just an out-of-the-blue thing either. Perikles's situation is different from other top-level players whose replays look relatively ordinary, or otherwise have some kind of corroboration for their purported skill. This thread isn't about just randomly accusing a player because he has high scores, it's because he has lots of high scores achieved in short amounts of time with replays attached that look weird to some high level players. It's a pretty reasonable cause for suspicion.

[CStarFlare]

Yes it would.

Is Perikles the only player with exceptional scores? If not, then wouldn't it be fair to take every player with exceptional scores and hold them up to the same scrutiny?

Or is it the case that all other exceptional scores have already been looked over?

Another question is whether the procedure followed in this case is a good one. i.e. should we create a "the problem with X" thread for every player with exceptional scores, followed by compilation videos of suspect play, and links to compilations of videos of foul play in other gaming communities, and then use the ensuing discussion to determine whether to impose deadlines delete scores or any other prroposed action?

If we are not willing to do this for every player for the given reasons we are doing it to a particular player, then we are being unfair.

This thread was made in response to specific concerns which people felt were legitimate and needed to be resolved. If you or anyone else has one of those about another player, go ahead and do the same thing: state your concern and request additional support to help dismiss them. If the player in question fails to do so in a reasonable timeframe, then score deletion should be on the table.

You're (at least) the second person to make reference to this thread being the work of outsiders as if this were important. Even if this were true, it doesn't matter - if your scores can't stand up to scrutiny applied in good faith, there's something wrong. If some no name Japanese player made a callout video about Jaimers' 600M+ DDP run, that would be completely fine and I would expect Jaimers to not blow it off.

[Shepardus]

*shrug* read everything back from approximately page two.

If you want to be understood it would help for you to clarify your positions more concisely; chum is hardly the only one having difficulty following your pages of rants.

[Xyga]

@myco. indeed, so in an attempt to clear the fishy stuff, a thread with a fishy title was started, with a fishy background because of ppl who acted unnecessarily fishy. and so then the ppl hailed to come in started thinking there is something fishy behind, but anyway still could look into the fishy gameplay in question. now it seems we're dealing with an entire school of fish and it kinda smells, but at least we won't starve.

*shrug* read everything back from approximately page two.

If you want to be understood it would help for you to clarify your positions more concisely; chum is hardly the only one having difficulty following your pages of rants.

I did very much so and very clearly express my points, if you want to understand whoever you are don't be lazy, just go back and read, I'm not a repeater machine for you.

And you're still at it Shep ? you always, always do this coming at me in that fashion; defending anyone's position/opinion against me for anything even the most mundane crap you have nothing to do with, like now is one of the most pathetic examples. You know if you hate what I write/think or my guts, I'd appreciate some day that you'd finally find a more direct and less passive-agressive way to express it. Because like this is very lame and annoying.
Come at me with your own thoughts and words if you're not happy, not again and again borrowing random bits from others just to bother me.

[blossom]

Maybe this is too harsh of a reaction, but really the more I think about it, the result of this thread on a personal level is it's made me hesitant to trust anyone. Assuming Perikles did cheat, why should I believe any other player with a respectable score didn't also cheat and knows better how to hide that cheating? Assuming Perikles didn't cheat, I feel like I would never want to play for score again, considering my style of play is one where I prefer to do as much as possible on my own without studying replays - my route would come under scrutiny because I didn't follow the most well-known methods. Either way, if Perikles did or did not cheat, it's depressing to me for different reasons.

[mycophobia]

its really, really easy to cheat at videogames. best not to take them too seriously

[DenT4F]

As easy as it is to cheat at videogames with videos, it's also easy to build a solid reputation for yourself. Wouldn't take much from Perikles to clear the water.