by thegreekdog on Thu Jan 29, 2015 8:13 am
Let me get this out of the way up front - I do enjoy AoG as a poster and forum denizen. I'm sure I've played CC games with or against him. So you can feel free to accuse me of favoratism. But me liking AoG has nothing to do with this post other than I would not generally have bothered to type this otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, what follows is true for any low-ranked user accused of point dumping.
Based on what I've read, the rule against point dumping is in place for two reasons: (1) protect the integrity of the scoreboard; and/or (2) discourage new users from leaving the site.
The first reason posits that a player that point dumps is giving points away to another user without the second user engaging in a fair contest, thus the second user is gaining an unfair advantage over other users at or near his or her level. My counterargument:
(1) A player of the caliber of a cook does not lose significant points when he or she plays a higher ranked player. Simply put, there are not many points to gain from playing a cook and having the cook deadbeat. Therefore, the integrity of the scoreboard is not really in jeopardy. For exmaple, the difference between the #1 ranked overall player (Kaskavel) and the #2 ranked overall player (random21) is 99 points. I do not believe random21 would win 99 points in a game against AoG. There is a 1 point difference betwen the #17 ranked overall player (PaulatPeace) and the #18 ranked overall player (Lex Usi).
This is further shown by looking at the games that a point dumper may play and, more importantly, who the point dumper is playing against. In my X years at CC, I've seen most point dumping cases take on an element of favoritism. The point dumper is dumping points to his or her favored players. Let's take AoG's case. Did AoG know any of the users to whom he point dumped? Did he have reason, whether through friendship or otherwise, have a reason to dump points to particular users? As far as I can tell, AoG did not know any of the users and none of those users were in any of his clans or usergroups. Thus, I propose that AoG has no reason to point dump to those particular players. AoG did not engage in this practice to have certain people climb up the scoreboard.
Additionally, AoG did not, to my knowledge, make it public knowledge that he was point dumping; thus, no one could "take advantage" of that situation. For example, I'm in a number of usergroups with the guy and I had no idea. Thus, Lex Usi did not have the opportunity to sully the integrity of the scoreboard by playing AoG a couple of times to gain the requisite points to overtake PaulatPeace on the scoreboard.
(2) I chuckle every time a high ranked player accuses a low ranked player of something with the proposition that what the low ranked player is doing will discourge new users from staying on the site. Without getting into a full discussion about this and with only anecdotal evidence, new users don't leave the site because a player in a game deadbeats and the new user wins points. New users leave this site because of the extreme complexity of the games and because they will lose consistently to higher ranked players that take advantage of their experience to take points from new recruits. It happened when I was a new recruit with far less game options... many of my real life friends and relatives stopped playing almost immediately after joining for this very reason. The biggest harm to new users is not point dumping; it's experienced users looking to "protect the integrity of the scoreboard" by playing new users to get some easy points.
Anecdotal evidence aside, someone quoted something in the range of 30% of new users deadbeating. This, in and of itself, negates the reasoning that new recruits will be harmed by point dumping. Further, and again I can only speak for myself, if I was a new recruit and a cook joined my game and I won because the cook deadbeated, I would say, "Cool. I won some points. On to the next game." I would not say, "Well this site sucks because this cook deadbeated. I'm leaving and never returning." To suggest anything different is ridiculous, but I can't speak for others.
What follows next is not meant to denigrate what I've written prior to this. As I said above, I like AoG as a forum goer. His contribution to this site does not lie in his game play. It lies in the entertainment he provides in the forum. Therefore, banning him from games would be sufficient to "protect the integrity of the scoreboard." Banning him from the forums does nothing productive other than punishing the forum goers who enjoy his posts.
