KZTimer Rules on Global Server Only or Not?

$ikari told us to make this but forums are dead
A kzer called Trueway wanted to test out cheats (not in a malicious way), Ebyssal told him to do it on lan, while Persona said that KZ-Endo's not global, and if you get banned from their anticheat, it's only local (this was 100% honest, he thought that you won't get globally banned).
So, Trueway went onto the KZ-Endo server, (apparently) he didn't even jump, and he was banned by KZ-Endo. The problem, he got globally banned on both of his accounts for LJ Script. His ban is staying, as Zpamm said.
Should the rule, where you'll get globally banned if you use cheats on any KZTimer Global server (that's not local) be changed? And what should it be changed to?

 

Where you guys getting these cheats? I've been bored of kz for a while and wanna get signs global.

Edit: not specifically those cheats cause he got insta banned LUL

 

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Chuckles said only to discuss the rule, and leave individuals out of it.

That being said,
I think that global rules applying to non-global servers is silly.

First of all, you can see the logical flaw with the situation. Aren't global rules made to govern global servers, since those are the servers that are connected to the global database?
Global admins are in charge of managing that database and ensuring that the competition for global titles is fair. If non-global servers aren't connected to the database, why do they need to be governed by global admins - shouldn't the responsibility be put solely into the hands of the owners of these non-global servers?

Due to that strange application of logic (at least in my opinion), very few people in the kz community seem to be/have been aware that global rules do apply to non-global servers. When it was brought up the other day, across several community discords filled with regular kzers, very few people said they knew about it. The vast majority of people in these discussions (Many being long-time veterans) expressed their surprise and confusion on the topic, which is why this thread popped up in the first place.

If it can get your thoughts going, I'd like to offer one specific quote that just about everyone in the kz community uses:
"Now do it on a global server"

How many times have you heard or read that quote before? Most kzers I know have cheats that they'll mess around with on their LAN servers for whatever reason, including myself, and will share the funny stuff that happens with their friends in the community. That's the quote that everybody gives them in response. I even see Global admins say that, and I can't blame them considering that's the logical and appropriate thing to say. However, if LAN servers are just non-global servers, are all of us seriously guilty of a global cheating ban? It's obvious that nobody messing around like that has any malicious intent, and it's not affecting the global database at all considering the server is, by definition, not a part of it.

This is from a month ago, in which I tried to report a player for cheating. I had actually thought that this was a global server, but Zpamm recognized it and let me know it wasn't global. By this screenshot, I personally was under the impression that non-global servers were not governed by global rules. I have never cheated on a non-global server aside from my LAN (although it may still be the same thing), but I wouldn't have bet on this rule.



Let's say an individual is using cheats on a non-global servers, their reasoning for it aside. Someone reports it, and the player gets a global kz ban for cheating. That player can still go and play on the very same servers they got banned on. Again, I personally find the logic in that very strange. A player cheating on a global server deserves a global ban. A player cheating on a non-global server deserves punishment based on that server owner's guidelines, without any intervention from those responsible for enforcing global rules.

As chuckles mentioned in the CSGO KZ discord yesterday, the majority of cheating bans currently in the global database are from non-global servers. That leads me to think about those people - If someone wishes to cheat in order to gain advantages over other players who are competing fairly in the global competition, why would they not be cheating on global servers where it counts? Based on that info once again, it seems to me like a lot of people who had cheats and wanted to test them (This is still a stupid thing to do, mind you) purposely went to non-global servers to do it. In my mind; they didn't want to risk a ban, they didn't want to interfere with the work that the Global admins put in, and they didn't want to hurt our fair competition. Unfortunately, they still get banned from being a part of the KZ community. Most of these players probably move on but I would bet a good amount of them are dedicated kz players who don't have any intention of hurting the global competition nor gaining unfair advantages over players. They made a stupid mistake due to being ignorant to a very logically-flawed rule, and find themselves in a really shitty situation in which they can't play their part in their favorite game-mode and community.


I'm not going to discount reasons why this strange rule is obviously in place, since I do recognize those points. I respect the logic behind them, but I feel that it's outweighed several times by the points that I mentioned in defense of my opinion.

1. I realize that we don't want people configuring cheats on non-global servers so they can use them on global servers. But then again, anyone who is truly trying to get away with cheating will understand how to set up a LAN server and do it there. If they're trying not to get caught, then having evidence of their cheat configuration on another server is silly.
2. I realize that cheating where others can see it is generally not a good thing. However, that's why I said that non-global servers are still governed by the owners and admins of those servers. If there are specific server rules in place, they still need to be followed, and breaking them should result in a ban from that server alone.
3. I realize that cheating is not a good thing - of course. But the effort I'm putting into discussing this is wholeheartedly aimed towards any players who get banned from Kztimer global servers based upon a rule that I strongly, strongly disagree with.

Now, these are my opinions on it and I understand that others will disagree or probably even think I'm autistic for some of it. Regardless, I hope I conveyed this well and really would appreciate if the global team would consider a discussion on this particular rule.

Thanks.

 

i think i agree with @ebyssal for the most part.

if people want to try out some fancy cheats together in their fancy cheating community, so let them do it on their fancy little NON-GLOBAL servers. or maybe open some cute official cheating servers, where you log everything to analyze them fancy cheats

btw, isn't kztimer completely open source? just fork it under a new name, ez fix
or does that get you globally banned too? and doesn't kztimers software license contradict your rule a little bit?

 

Ya how about we don't cheat and in doing so you won't be banned it's that simple.

 

I obviously can't argue with that, since you're right, but there are reasons why I still strongly believe that this rule should be changed.

Now before I get into this I'd like to say that this probably applies to a fraction of players banned on non-global servers. I'm not trying to say that this applies to nearly any significant portion of banned players.

There are good reasons to test cheats. Server owners and server admins can benefit from understanding how cheats work and what they look like. I have AHK LJ scripts and I have a very basic understanding how how it can be edited to look slightly more legit. There have been several times where I've benefited from that knowledge as an admin for a kz server. I wouldn't have that knowledge without putting a fair amount of time into testing it on my Non-global LAN server.

There was the conversation that I tagged you in today in the #kz discord channel. Someone provided an MDX scroll pattern and we had a discussion about it. Gamechaos got on his non-global LAN server and demonstrated how close the patterns of someone Up/Down scroll spamming can get to that of the 24 macro. That sure has one hell of a positive effect on how I look at things on my server. I'm not going to ban a player for bhop cheats unless I'm positive that they are using one, and what GC was able to demonstrate is knowledge that I'm going to be keeping in mind.

Given these quick examples (which once again do NOT apply to the vast majority of banned players), there are reasons that being able to use cheats on some servers that don't affect global competition is beneficial. Chuckles even admitted that cheating on his LJ server wasn't bannable for reasons like this.

There should be a lot of players banned, including myself, for breaking this flawed rule. We aren't banned though, because we never hurt anyone with it nor have we even had any remote effect on others, so nobody has cared. I have a difficult time amassing names of players who haven't cheated on their non-global LAN servers.
The difference between a non-global LAN server and a non-global public server should be that the LAN owner makes the rules of his/her server while the server owner for the public server makes the rules. I allow AHK on my LAN, so I don't get banned from my LAN. A non-global server owner may not allow AHK on their server, so if somebody uses AHK there, they get banned from that server.

Why would intervention from global admins be necessary on servers which are not globally white-listed? The issue with this is apparent in the wording of the sentence. The rule is pretty silly, and there are players banned from global servers who (imo) do not deserve that ban. They deserve a ban from the server on which they cheated, given that the owner of said server does not allow that activity.


I do not believe that cheats should be allowed on non-global servers.
I believe that global rules should not apply to non-global servers.
There is a very distinct difference in that statement.

 

Problem Is endo isnt just some shit non global server, its been global for ages and Is even still on the servers list on kzstats, Its only recently not been global. This server IS globally whitelisted, but lacks the proper kztimer version. The way I see It Is a cheat Is a cheat, the person on the non global server is still very willingly cheating, nothing changes about the persons motives when the server is all of a sudden global.

 

As a timer developer and server developer myself, having global rules apply to non-global servers is straight out silly. With the global system, it implies that bans made on global servers are global and do not affect non-global servers. So, lets say that someone cheats on a global server then gets global banned; now the argument is made that they go hopping around to non global servers and start cheating. These times have no affect on global times and ultimately the "ranked leaderboards". It should be up to the server owners' digression to ban cheaters, remove cheated times etc. It will be in their own benefit to apply for a global server whitelist, so that they can be apart of the global ban system and not have to worry about this; in addition to the other useful benefits such as having global times and support of the community.

I'm not justifying cheating, ahk'ing, macroing and all that at all, and believe that it has no place on global or non-global servers. However, the "global rules" are in reality "kz-timer rules" and realistically shouldn't exist. KZ-timer should have control on the global rules and have the team in place to dictate rules that affect global servers, those which have been whitelisted and agree to work with the community and the kz development team to implement changes and other rules. The global team should absolutely not govern the non-global servers, and they should be left alone in a corner. They are non-global for a reason and shouldn't impact a player's playability on global servers.

My comparison to this is ranked and unranked servers in games like Call of Duty and Battlefield. Unranked servers are servers that don't have xp count towards your profile and are commonly used for fun, custom gamemodes and all the like. I know no instance in which getting banned on an unranked server bans you on a ranked server, unless governed by a server-optional plugin such as Punkbuster. This is a opt-in choice by the server to add the plugin and disallow entry by anyone else banned by Punkbuster on ranked or unranked servers. A solution for this would to be have a built in option in KZ-timer for non-global servers, in which they disallow entry for globally banned players - however, as it's a non-global server, they may not submit bans. I would happily develop a plugin that checks global DB for bans and disallows entry based on this, as non-global server owners may have the option. This gives the control to the server owner and not the kz-timer team.

As ebyssal said, I am perfectly fine with the kz team governing global servers, after all, they are the ones running the ranked servers and ensuring cheaters are banned.
I'm not okay with them being banned for playing on non global servers. I'd be pissed if Activison banned me for playing on a crazy clusterfuck cheat unranked server.

 

I understand what you're saying, but we're only supposed to be discussing the rule itself. Nothing matters about any individual or any specific case if the fundamental rule itself is not changed. As it stands, kz-endo's status doesn't matter for any player who was globally banned for using cheats on a non-global server. The rule would still apply regardless of the server, and even to a personal non-global LAN server from my understanding.

Edit:
@Ballistic Bacon
@Zach47
Do you guys mind editing your posts to exclude the individual case that sparked the conversation, so we can keep the discussion about the rule itself?
@Chuckles asked me specifically not to bring up individuals, and I was going to make a thread but when I got here it had already been posted.

If we're having a constructive discussion about whether or not to change a rule that applies to all KZtimer servers, we shouldn't let a single person's case influence all of this. It's much healthier to do so in a general sense.

If you didn't notice, this is a topic I do care about a lot, and would really appreciate if we could all discuss it together to help the global team come to a conclusion.

 

agreed

 

"A player cheating on a global server deserves a global ban. A player cheating on a non-global server deserves punishment based on that server owner's guidelines, without any intervention from those responsible for enforcing global rules."
Agree with what @ebyssal said.

I'm a noname and I barely even play kz so I'm sure my opinion doesn't matter, but the rule in general just doesn't make sense. I know people say cheating is still cheating even if it wasn't for a malicious purpose, but was there really any harm done in someone cheating on a server not even linked to global stats? Not exactly sure if I completely understand the magnitude of the situation, but it's hard for me to grasp the concept of why someone should be globally banned for cheating on a server that isn't considered global.

 

This isn't a ban appeal? Whether individuals are retroactively unbanned for an overturned rule is 100% up to the global team. We were specifically asked not to make the conversation about individuals. CmonBruh.

 

You used my quote out of context though and I explicitly said that they should be unbanned due to ignorance. Trueway(???) knows about kz and the rules why does he need to "test" cheats?

 

Good ban. Get rid of the filthy cheaters