Legit players ban appeal, please help
Radaza
✭✭
Hello All,
I sincerely hope you and all your families staying safe during COVID times.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the team for all their effort for a great game that we all enjoy a lot - Ingress. Game, decoding and events are marvelous opportunities to have fun and meet great and interesting people around.
Speaking about events. During the very last event, 2 agents, pr0m and Azraf teamed together during an xfac authorised event - first saturday at home.
Covid is being less important this month in Switzerland country as it was at the beginning of the year, they agreed to hit as high score as possible playing together during ifs event, where xfac play is not considered as win-trading as per February 2019 AMA.
https://ingressama.com/ama/feb2019
"Let me be very candid about this, as I’ve said this before, and it clearly needs to be repeated. Official Niantic events such as IFS, NL1331, Mission Days, Glyph Challenges, Anomalies, etc. are not win-trading. You do not have to like that statement. But those are the rules. Things were changed because it felt redundant."
Nevertheless, both players being on the spot, in real life in the location, using both only their accounts, they still got banned and hence a good will turned out to be the most saddest one for our communities as both were very dedicated and passionate players.
Our ENL player pr0m, one of the top 10 Ingress players worldwide as you may see in your statistics, was, here in Switzerland, giving a lot of his free time and always nice and positive attitude to provide the best in-game experience for many players by organizing enlightened only but also many xfaction events, such as IFS. You may find his name as a leader of many of those.
He was the first one to make sure that the game is fun and equal for everyone, not accepting any cheaters within the enlightened community and he put a lot of efforts to make sure to integrate all players in the game, green or blue.
Such as was the case for Azraf, who quickly became one of greatest RES players in the area. That provoked many jealousy among the ENL faction and it was pr0m who managed to calm down the situation with his legendary calm and patience. Again, to ensure that the game is fun and everyone is treated with respect.
Banning pr0m and Azraf already unfortunately gave the message that even playing without any third party software is the best way to get banned. Unfortunately I've heard that a lot lately from both factions here and it really saddens me. They were the best example, that just playing in a legitime without harassment, without anger or in life violence is possible.
Therefore, I would kindly ask you to reconsider your position on both accounts, as, at least from what we know, they have not violated TOS and it has only worsened the people relationships in this area. I personally feel, this is definitely not the way Niantic would like their communities to become, well I sincerely hope not.
Otherwise, if they did violate TOS according to your decision, would you mind at least communicating which terms were violated? Not to me, but to pr0m and Azraf, so that at least we may leverage the true reason to try and appease the high tensions in between communities.
Many thanks for your consideration and time to read this letter and sincerely hope you would pair with us to help us to make the game fun and equal for all players here again.
Yours truthfully,
Radaza
Dear Niantic,
I hope the entire team is doing fine and that you're dealing well with the consequence of the situation we live in.
I would like to voice my opinion on a particular situation that occurred during the beginning of this week. Following the IFS at home event on Saturday, at least two relatively high-profile agents were banned in Lausanne, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Pr0m (ENL) and azraf (RES) participated in a x-fac event commemorating the recent catastrophic events in Lebanon.
The way the warnings, as well as temporary and permanent account bans in Ingress are handled is somewhat cryptic, and perhaps rightfully so, following the "security by obscurity" framework. There is a mix of official rules, unofficial rules, clarifications of Ingress staff, AMAs, and somehow self-converged opinions of Ingress playerbase, mostly figured out by experience, both positive and negative.
The impact of a ban obviously differs from player to player, and, as you know, tend to have very unintended feedback: Cheaters don't care, they'll create another. Legitimate players would be concerned with the effort that the account has had invested in over its lifetime. Committed players would have personal attachment to their account. Dedicated players would worry about the ban in the context of losing the level, sojourner streak, medals, achievements, badges etc.
On Tuesday, in the morning, agent pr0m got banned, with a generic message. No reason given, no three-strike policy, no temporary ban, just a straight-out termination. I assume the ban was done programmatically. An appeal that immediately followed, was rejected 3 hours ago, after (I hope) being treated by a service desk.
I imagine most of the banned agents don't appeal, as they are themselves aware of there being a good reason behind. If you take a look at the statistics of the agent, at the contributions in the community forums, at his event attendances, at the sheer amount of dedication, energy and willpower he has expended in order to support the game, everything it stands for, and the local community, do you really think this person is cheating? Do you think he would risk is L16*8, 1.2billion AP account, with badges and mission banners that take minutes to load on the scanner in consciously breaking the rules? With my utmost and most sincere respect, are you aware how much this game can mean to somebody?
This agent is the core of Swiss ENL network. He recruited countless players, myself involved. He is what symbolizes the game, and all of its values to us. I am not asking for reversal of the decision. I am asking for something that I am not entitled to according to ToS, I'm asking for an explanation of why an agent of such a profile got banned, along with an opportunity to be given to him to explain the action. You are by no means required to oblige, you can equally just ignore this wall of text, but if you do - and I truly believe you have no reason to not to - you will demonstrate yourself what you are asking for the players to do: a sense of fair play, transparency, adherence to the rules and a healthy antagonism and competition instead of hatred across the factions.
I will borrow the closing remark from Talleyrand: "C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute". Dear Niantic, with all the sincerity I have and all the respect I have, am, and will keep holding for the game and your entire team, you have made a mistake. You messed up. Please, I appeal to your Ingress core values, do revisit this case, look at the evidence, examine this particular case, and if you decide to maintain the decision, state the clear reason why. By doing so, the rules will become clear, unnecessary bans will be avoided, hard feelings will be quenched, and a little extra clarity would be for the better for you, for us, and for the whole Ingress community.
Many thanks for your considerations,
Juraj (aka agent Dragonfish, L11(recursed), Lausanne, Switzerland)
Dear Niantic,
Regret to say that very disappointing thing happened: ban of pr0m and Azraf. Both players are very active and with no doubts real ones. Both with a positive attitude.
Yes, we are aware that you are not obliged to communicate / negotiate on your criteria, but we strongly believe that it’s a false positive one. As I've already contacted support on their behalf on this topic Terrence promised to provide extra info to banned players to allow them defend themselves but so far there are only generic mails unfortunately.
I really hope you will review all circumstances and will reconsider your opinion on this topic.
Thank you,
Holocronster
Comments
https://niantic.helpshift.com/a/ingress/?s=your-ingress-account&f=submit-a-ban-appeal&p=web
I think this is what caused the bans.. maybe a bit harsh since spoofers cheaters can play with no bans..
"they agreed to hit as high score as possible playing together during ifs event,"
Thank you for insightful comment.
Trying to understand as ifs shouldn’t be sanctionable per Feb 2019 AMA.
Thank you for your link. Helpful.
i suppose that's the one you're talking about :
Q58: For a really long time, lots of Agents from both factions have accused each other of "Win-Trading", a term that was explicitly mentioned in the "Community Guidelines" of Ingress. Even "legitimate" XF efforts like Mission days, IFS and XF-Field-Art have been branded as "Wintrading". A few days ago, however, I noticed that the term is no longer found in either the Terms of Service or the Community Guidelines. Was that an intentional change? (and if yes, why was it changed?) And does this imply that all XF is "fair game" and people can no longer be banned for supporting Agents from the other faction in however they see fit?
A58: Let me be very candid about this, as I’ve said this before, and it clearly needs to be repeated. Official Niantic events such as IFS, NL1331, Mission Days, Glyph Challenges, Anomalies, etc. are not win-trading. You do not have to like that statement. But those are the rules. Things were changed because it felt redundant. My advice, outside of official events, do not privately collude with one or more people from the other faction to benefit from each other's actions as that is against the spirit of the game and will likely open you up to being reported for cheating. If it is done publicly and without intent to negatively impact the community, such as announcing a cross-faction get together at a bar, that’s not in my opinion cheating because everyone has access to the information about the actions in advance. However, just publicly announcing your actions doesn’t absolve you of cheating. There has to be no negative impact to the community. Announcing you and your xfac friend are going to take down a zero-cell sat phone required Portal that is being currently used as an anchor over a region is likely to get you reported for cheating.
I think here are the parts were wintrade comes
"do not privately collude with one or more people from the other faction to benefit from each other's action"
"However, just publicly announcing your actions doesn’t absolve you of cheating. There has to be no negative impact to the community."
Making as much as possible ap is really not without effect. Making it at the same time of an ifs does not make it a part of the ifs.
But they should have had a temporary ban, not a permanent ban.....
Greetings! As part of the Orga for the Beirut IFS, I am letting you know that the nobody in the event or the organizers were involved in this. Only one of these agents(Azraf) attended and submitted stats for the Beirut IFS. While we were informed by Azraf that there might be "extra AP gained" by him and even received intel links to the area of play, it was just to show that there is no fudging of the copied stats from the game.
When we verified his stats later, it was clear to see from the Intel activity that these guys were at it for hours before and after the event. It makes me sick that you say that this AP gain was for Beirut to gain sympathy out of it so that your buddies can get un-banned. Kindly remove that bit. Thanks.
PS: Nothing against the agents involved. Whether they cheated or not is for Niantic to decide.
Hello,
Niantic good job, well done ! And +1 for @Gobi130
For info, pr0m isn't a top 10 xDDD
Just because a player has a lot of missions or a lot of ap, doesn't mean he doesn't cheat.
An agent's profile does not guarantee his loyalty to the rules.
Agreeing to experiment is not in the rules even in XF events. These events just make it easier for players to meet each other, discover cities and change the daily game.
If you wanted to do something nice to show your support, XF fields art is always applauded . Regularly we see XF starlinks as a tribute or a memento. The goal is not pa or mus, but just to do something together to commemorate or support what brings us together as human beings before we are of one color or the other.
Hello,
Win-trading since 1 year, it's not fairplay...
Niantic : good punishment !
Hello Gobi130 peace to you and thank you for your insight comment.
We regret to include reference to your event as it what was refered to us as intention from one of the agent. It was meant to explain the gesture of involved player rather than drag the sympathy for the un-ban. We are sorry for you if you feel it was meant otherwise. The reference to your event was taken out.
Thank you again and wish you peaceful day.
R.
playing on xfac is ok, but here it was agreed before to abuse it to gain ap.. so thats why the bans happend.... but try appeal....
Hi!
Thanks for taking out one reference but there is more than one reference in your original post. Please remove those too.
Have a nice day!
Bonjour
J'ai personnellement avertis Azraf que le windtrading était interdit le 13 août 2020.
Cette action de windtrading à été organisé réfléchi et volontaire.
Windtrading = triche = ban
Hello
I personally warned Azraf that windtrading was banned on August 13, 2020.
This windtrading action was organized, thoughtful and voluntary.
Windtrading = cheat = ban
Dear Gobi130 ,
Should you refer to below part, as far as I know, it includes 2 facts.
Hence, I will await official organizers to comment should we took the aim of ot the event or that of one agent really participated, out of the text.
Quote: "azraf (RES) participated in a x-fac event commemorating the recent catastrophic events in Lebanon".
Otherwise, kindly let me know, which part do you refer to.
Peaceful day ahead to you.
R.
Thank you dear @mortuus . We did so.
Have a peaceful day ahead.
R.
Why do they play together with another player of the opposite faction in a war game in order to achieve a maximum of points? Imho it's not meant to be played like this.
XF events are organized / tolerated in order to improve agents relationship, not to bend the games rules to gain a max AP in a short amount of time.
They should see it positive: They now know about Niantics stance regarding their gameplay and can adjust their gameplay to be within the rules with a new account. 🤷🏾♂️
I think a comment @ofer2 wrote on Reddit once fits pretty well here.
Hi
The IFS event has nothing to do with this post and appealing to Niantic. Don't you agree with that? As part of the organizing team involved in organizing the event, I can tell you that the event also wants nothing to do with this. Please remove it./
Thanks
Dear Niantic, dear pr0m and azraf supporters, and dear other players reading this post,
I can understand some points of view above, even though I don't share all of them.
In the report I sent on Monday evening during their nth wintrading episode, I asked Niantic to communicate about wether wintrading is definitely OK or not.
Obviously, the answer could not be any clearer.
I can see both sides here.
What seems to be clearest is that Niantic should clarify wintrading once and for all.
IFS, especially the non IFS at home events, the average AP gain is usually much higher than normal for members of each faction.
I have seen teams, as a group, not deploy high level shields to make things easier. Leveling up prizes are common.
New players are given the opportunity to learn and gain AP faster, learn tips from veteran players from their own team as well as seeing how the opposition fights back.
Where do we draw the line?
These players have been warned about wintrading and multi accounting dozen of times. Each time their answer is that they do the right thing and that the whole community around them is wrong.
They do know why they were banned : because they cheated. There is no other responsible apart themselves. And apart themselves no other player needs to know how far they went in cheating.
More over this forum is definitely not the correct place to appeal a ban.
nia ops : thank you for your effort in striving to keep ingress fun and fair.
[EN]
I personally notified azraf about the fact that win-trading was forbidden, and that was... early 2019 !
I have also to specify that I've been contacted by agent pr0m, on Telegram, during my early Ingress weeks, back in 2017, when I was fielding a high-density portal area...
He told me he was waiting for me to complete my fielding before starting to destroy the area.
Surprised, I asked if this kind of behavior wasn't considered as win-trading, but he told me that 'one-way wintrading' was tolerated !?!
After that episode I decided to block him in Telegram.
It's interesting to see that in 2017 already, pr0m was contacting new players, from opposite faction, in order to 'optimize' his daily AP rate, while win-trading was totally forbidden!
In my opinion, both agents azraf and pr0m deserved a permanent ban; whatever the AP lost, they both can create a new account and pay it in a fair way.
[FR]
J'ai personnellement informé azraf du fait que le windtrading était interdit, et c'était début 2019!
Je dois également préciser que j'ai été contacté par l'agent pr0m, sur Telegram, au cours de mes premières semaines Ingress, en 2017, alors que je fielder une zone de portail dense (le flon)...
Il m'a dit qu'il attendait que je termine de fielder avant de commencer à casser la zone.
Surpris, j'ai demandé si ce genre de comportement n'était pas considéré comme wintrading, mais il m'a dit que si c’était à sens unique s’était était toléré!?!
Après cet épisode, j'ai décidé de le bloquer dans Telegram.
Il est intéressant de voir qu'en 2017 déjà, pr0m contactait de nouveaux joueurs, de faction opposée, afin d ‘ «optimiser» son AP quotidien, alors que le wintrading était totalement interdit!
À mon avis, azraf et pr0m méritaient une interdiction permanente; quel que soit l'AP perdu, ils peuvent créer un nouveau compte et jouer fairplay cette fois.
(And this is exactly why I will never participate in any Ifs event. It's structured and encouraged for players to gain AP, yet it's a complete gamble if you get punished for doing it. Naw, I'm not interested in this. Niantic must explicitly and in great detail explain what's allowed and what's not. Not some "personal opinion" of Krug, ex-employee, from years ago which sends mixed messages. Until then Ifs events can ****.)
Can someone just remind me what makes you think that the ban was because of wintrade?
It is a logical fallacy of Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I have no idea why they pretend to be sure that the ban was for wintrade. As far as I know the players involved did wintrade and they also did a lot of other actions prohibited by TOS. Inside the community pr0m very often abused of his reputation and statute to protect obvious cheaters in his very close surrounding. Just one single recent example amongst many other. The mule account in my screen. It is more than one year old, it once spoke by mistake on the com, then just disappeared. Pr0m denied that this account was dodgy.
Exactly, that’s why just asking NIA to answer those players in person not just generic mails. Besides, they promised to do so.
if this is the case and they agreed before just to abuse the system a ban is fair, but perm seems a bit crazy still... but agree to make as much ap with your enemy is against the spirit of this game either way..... i hate xfac events and that i refuse be in them....
This is the very first time I witness a WinTrading ban and I really would like to request such effectiveness upon ALL players who WinTrade.
Also, reading this post, I just learned that it is only considered WinTrading if it is publicly stated. And now I'm wondering if that is enough to trigger the ban. What if I publicly state about my abuse intention and then I stay at home, gaining 0 AP?
As always, lacking equality before the banhammer.
#TalesOfSpoofland
Point 4 summarizes the problem well. With these two parameters: 1) Wintrade just removed frome the ToS and 2) No warning received despite the three-strike policy, I find it quite unacceptable that you can lose your account immediately and permanently for win-trade on the day of a First Saturday global event.
@NianticAndres @NIACHAOSMONKEY @NianticAustin @NianticAndres @NianticBrian @NianticCasey, I'm waiting for you to explain why Ingress took the decision to delete the account of an assiduous and compliant player for years:
>without sending him any prior warning about a game point that was undoubtedly in the grey zone
>without the slightest line of explanation, and this for a world top-10 player who has invested thousands of his time in your game. It's extremely ungrateful and gives a very poor image - to say the least - on the level of respect you give to your players.
If punishment were to occur (in a context, I repeat, where the exact definition and contours of win-trade are unclear), the punishment taken here is utterly disproportionate and grossly inappropriate.
As a first, prior warning was imperative. Second, a withdrawal of the APs won during the contested phase of the game would have been an understandable step to restore the balance of the game. A period of temporary ban, finally, could eventually have sanctioned the infringement, if it were indeed true that their practice was as regular as some players of the opposing faction claim here.
Hi,
Agents have been informed by ingame chat and by telegram by local players
Have fun
Thank to your message I had a good laugh ;) Do you really think that pr0m waits until I finish the field by courtesy? Maybe they got banned because win-trading or maybe for some other reason. Personally, I also saw pr0m playing with another account…
The good news is that two toxic agents from Lausanne we were punished and that is fine.
Good job NIA