Your eight step post was very lucid. Thanks for that.

Not seeing the whole affair, it sounds like the admins may have treated you with too much of a knee-jerk reaction. But I can't see their side of it.

I will say your post where you write "....UNRIGHTFULLY...." is a bit rude. Not enough to justify dismissing you, but you're not doing yourself any favors.

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Occupy Babel!

Unrightfully means unfairly or unjustly. If you agree with his position that the KGS admins acted wrongly, then it is merely a statement of fact. There is nothing inherently inflammatory about it.

However, I do agree that he didn't do himself any favors by using that word. When dealing with admins (or anyone else in power for that matter), it is often best to prostrate yourself and take the lowest posture possible. Here's a template for dealing with admins:
Real life counterparts of KGS admins are much worse. I have had a green card application rejected because of a clerical error by a government employee. That is, the government employee checked the wrong box while processing the application. I appealed and the appeal was handled by the same person who made the mistake. Second rejection. My lawyer told me to just file the same application again (because it would take more money and time to sue) and it went through. I wasted 16 months and lots of money because of one stubborn and incompetent government "admin", but there was no way to get justice. Better get used to it!

An important exception: If you are a paying customer, then always take the most forceful position.

The lesson, as always: The real world is always worse than the internet. Be thankful that KGS admins are not worse than they are.

Whoever you quote, I like it!

I sympathize with you. Some KGS admins make rash actions without looking at the full story.

I agree that KGS admins can go overboard with the moderation and periodically make big deals out of nothing.

I also think that when a guest comes to your home and uses your internet connection you have some responsibility for his/her actions. Don't cry when they break rules while using your internet connection and you have to pay the consequences.

Agreed.

Except, the problem here seems to be that the only "crime" they committed was logging in (to their own accounts) from his computer.

(Based solely on what he has said, of course)

I'm new to all this business of "chat rooms", being quite old and not much of a computer user. My son, Jimmy (or "Beanie" as he now wants to known) wanted me to get one so I could "skype" with him (whatever that is) when he is at college. Jimmy (or "Beanie"- its a type of hat, apparently) told me I should "join the 21st century by mixing with some of the chill dudes that play that board game of yours", so that's what I'm doing.

Great! This is easier than I thought. I suppose I should say something relevant to your "chat room".

Nope, I'm stuck for words!!!

Now, how do I make this stay?

Jimmy?

JIMMY?

TAKE YOUR HEADPHONES OFF AND COME AND HELP.




JIMMY!

Beanies were popular in the 50's. If you're losing your memory, go might prove to be a difficult pastime.

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Patience, grasshopper.

You were just very unlucky. Seventeen is not a native english speaker and actually has a completely different cultural background than you and therefore behaves differently from what you'd call "normal".
Well and Bigdoug is just an automated script program that is actually alive, so nothing much to expect there.
Long story short: Don't worry about it, your ban should be lifted after at most 2 days. Also, send email to glue@gokgs.com and explain your situation and ask for the "deranking" being undone. (Deranking means your rank, ie kyu/dan, is removed from your account).

I find it odd that people justify improper response and lack of understanding from KGS admins by saying they are not native speakers.

Surely, if their English is bad enough to cause misunderstanding, they should stick to dealing with people they can communicate with?

Glue resigned from KGS, she's no long around. Living minecraft I believe

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North Lecale

This sets the bar much, much too high.....as it stands we have occasional misunderstandings between Aussie, UK, and US English speakers (all of whom are native...sometimes even just within different geographic areas of the same country)...much less others who are non-native. There's a difference in being able to adequately communicate in a language and being able to understand the nuance and attitude of expressions and colloquialisms for all English speaking cultures worldwide.

This is just silly. Obviously people should be careful on the internet about communicating clearly, but there is no reason that avoiding being banned should require someone to explain their situation to someone who doesn't speak english.

As I read the OP, the admin was speaking in English, and asking to have a serious conversation, but was not being taken seriously (perhaps due to his formal phrasing). Hardly the situation you describe.

I think I'd be "lol'ing" at someone who was "accusing" me of having multiple accounts... on a public server... where having multiple accounts is generally considered par for the course (I can't count the number of times I've seen people recommend starting a new account to escape rank-lock/stagnation).

I mean, even if the guy has a badge, how could anyone possibly take such an accusation seriously?

Edit:

I've also seen people who talked about having multiple accounts for different styles/conditions; one account might be for slow games, one for blitz, and one for when they're drunk. Doubtless, these would all result in varying ranks.

Also, if multiple family members play Go on KGS, they'll each be logging in from the same IP address at the very least (and possibly the same computer). Or maybe someone will want to log-in from an Internet cafe... and maybe others have logged into KGS from that same cafe.

The more I think about it, the more preposterous it is to accuse someone of having multiple accounts or even rank-abuse based solely on IP address access records.

The administrators are not being totally unreasonable because few of us have their computers set up for multiple users and mostly connect from home. Perhaps what is needed is some way to inform administrators that in this case IP address does not equal user.

Few of us on L19, perhaps. But KGS is designed to be a family-friendly server, with many of the policies designed around the idea that children will be among the userbase. How many children have their own computers? And how many children share their parent's computer (eg, "a family computer")? In either case, if the child plays Go, I think it's a fair assumption that someone else in the family plays Go as well. If the child plays on KGS, I think it's still a fair assumption that someone else in the family also plays on KGS. And regardless of whether or not they're sharing the computer, they are sharing the same IP address.

You don't even need to have multiple users on the same computer. Just being on the same home connection will give the same ip address.

I have like 7 kgs accounts (most of them deleted from inactivity). And I know some people who have like 20 alternate accounts.

Mistaking what I was saying.

Not unreasonable for an administrator to at first assume 1 IP address = 1 user.

But at the same time the administrator needs to have a way of being informed that this IP address has multiple users. And if the information is that the IP address is that of a "public" access point must treat as non-bannable. Multiple accounts (different people) from a home IP address the administrator should (at least at first) also accept as true -- until/unless doubts become reasonable.

Look, one of the reasons I don't use the servers is that for me impractical from home. I'd be accused of being an "escaper" every time I had to break the connection to allow the phone line to be used for voice communication. That's right, no broadband out here in the sticks, just dial-up, phone lines not good enough even for DSL. But if I did load a laptop into the car and drive to town where I could get connectivity I'd always be coming in from one of several different IP addresses (the library, the food coop, this or that restaurant, etc.)