@Mercy,
Funny that you should ask. Normally, I wouldn't publish emails since I'd presume people send those sorts of things to me in confidence. However, since Webdiplomacy moderators are apparently publishing information about me, I suppose it's open season!
First I received:
"Dear webDiplomacy member,
I'm emailing you because our systems have flagged your account as
having very strong connections to other accounts on our site. It seems
these accounts have a strong likelihood of being owned and operated by
the same individual or by close real-life friends. You should know
that the webDiplomacy rules prohibit multiple accounts, and they
strongly limit the way in which you play games with real-life friends.
Please refer to the rules here: http://www.webdiplomacy.net/rules.php.
It is our job to determine whether these links are indicative of
cheating, or a misunderstanding of the rules. In that light, if there
is anything you would like to tell me that would help explain the
situation I would be grateful if you would respond to this email.
Admission to cheating will not necessarily mean the worst possible
punishment, since we all do make mistakes. If you fail to respond at
all in the next 3 days, I have no choice but to assume cheating and
ban the account(s) in question.
Thank you for helping us resolve this quickly.
webDiplomacy Moderator"
Hmmm...looks like boiler plate. To this I replied:
"Thank you for getting in touch. None of my friends play web diplomacy - I
found it through Wikipedia. Thank you for helping me to resolve this."
That should do it right? Their reply was:
"In that case, it appears that you may have multiple accounts. If you do, we
require that you limit yourself to one account, and we may ban the other
accounts.
-webDiplomacy Moderator"
Menacing, but not quite threatening. Problem solved, right? Still I sent a follow-up email just to be sure:
"Pardon, but I do not have multiple accounts. Please re-investigate before
you ban anyone's account. Would you consider that you are mistaken?
I'm pretty sure I would know if I had multiple accounts."
And then promptly didn't hear back from them. No news is good news? After that I was busy with work. I was receiving some emails from multiple video games, none of which I read because most of them are automated, and almost none of them are ever important. Webdiplomacy is just a video game, after all. A few days later I was finally caught up with work and so when I logged into Webdiplomacy, I'd found my email account was locked. What's this? I went sifting through unread emails and finally found the culprit:
"Oh, I've done some digging and it appears that you're using a VPN or proxy.
This could be the cause. May I ask why you are using such a tool? It's
interfering with our ability to detect multi-accounts and meta-gamers.
-webDiplomacy Moderator"
Followed very closely by:
"Dear webDiplomacy Member,
Your account has been banned for a violation of site rules. If you wish to
appeal this decision, please respond promptly.
-webDiplomacy Moderator"
This was annoying, especially since I was cooperating and had done nothing wrong. My response was pretty much to the point:
"This is quite silly. I'm using a proxy, because clearly I'm being spied
upon.
It's just overall a funny question - "So, we've been spying upon you, and
would like to know why you're taking evasive behavior."
Please unban my account, this is plain silly."
This did not receive any reply. About a week later I'd gotten tired of waiting and so sent a follow-up directly to one of the administrators, whose identity I won't publish as they tried to be actually helpful:
"Can you please look into this for me? I understand that you guys are
volunteers and so you probably have other stuff going on, however it's
been a few days and I'd really like to resume playing.
I've done nothing to deserve this and I've been more than patient."
The staff member replied promptly from their personal account:
"I will have an admin look into it."
Now we're getting somewhere! Later I received this gem:
"
Hi there
I hear you'd like a ban appeal. Is there any particular reason that you are
using an email address mimicking a site administrator whilst using all
those VPN's?"
Still, it hardly seemed politic to ignore the thing, not if I ever hoped to play Diplomacy again. Thus I replied:
"Thanks for responding.
My email address is the same as my account name. I think mimicking is a
stretch of what's actually going on - I borrowed someone else's account
name because I was too lazy to think of my own. I haven't posted on your
discussion board and don't read it. With all respect, I'm interested in
playing the game but not in the social aspects. As I've said, mimicry
seems like a stretch.
"Using all those VPN's" is surprising as well. Surprising is a euphemism
in this context - silly would be a better adjective. I'm using one VPN,
the one that comes with my browser (Opera). Does it rotate IP address?
Apparently it does. That's outside of my control though.
In essence, given that I'm new to the site I don't feel that I can
possibly have been involved in anything substantial enough to build a case
against me. Everything that's been brought to my attention so far has
been circumstantial.
Do you guys have any actual evidence that I've been cheating? Hasn't this
gone on long enough? As a compromise I'd like to volunteer to change my
screen name if it's that big of an issue for you guys, although I think
that this is more than I should need to do.
I'd love to confront some actual evidence if you guys have any, but your
argument here appears to be circular. I'm in trouble for using a VPN, but
I'm using a VPN because I prefer not to be spied on. I'm being spied on
because I'm in trouble. If you read those last two sentences back to
back, it's a circle. No actual evidence.
Please resolve this and unban me as soon as you're ready, preferably
sooner rather than later as I'd prefer to resume playing. While an
apology from you guys is not strictly necessary, some might feel that it's
indicated."
This did not elicit any response. I sent a follow up after about a week of waiting:
"It has been more than a week without response. Can we please unban my
account? No evidence has thus far been presented. Prosecution has no
case. Motion for dismissal. This persecution has continued long enough."
Which didn't seem to get my any further. After about another week of waiting, I made an account here, not having any other vector for redress.
What do you make of all this?