Bago Country

[Tomawaky]

I received this mail from socksey and we decided to post it there to have more opinions about this subject.

discussion on fibs this morning.  krautlover resides in usa but wanted to play for switzerland.  he and anakin apparently argued about this so it is unclear to td's what country is to be used.  i said i thought it was country you reside in.  i thought it was a rule but not.  maybe you told me this.  diane said if you have a passport from a country, that is where it should be.

i think your should post the explicit rule to the tourney rules so that everyone is clear on this subject.  i urge you to do this so we are all on the same page as well as the players.  also, please email the td group so that they are made aware of how you want it to be done.

thank you,

socksey


In my mind I think we could accept both, country where player lives and player's Nationality. The problem is that it is difficult the check the second one.
So it is hard for me to put rules cause it's so easy to cheat with it.

But I and socksey wait for all of your comment to improve the rules if possible...

[inim]

As far as I knowResh "I wanna play for Israel" Lakish is a dual passport holder. I'd bet double nationalities are more frequent then one may think, as are expatriats. From what I understood the country of residence used to be the only criteria so far. The passport solution may actually open a can of worms ...

inim

[socksey]

I prefer we use the place of residence since in most cases that can be verified by ISP.  However, if one wants to cheat, there are certainly many ways to do it, unfortunately.  It would be impossible for me to verify a passport on the net without looking at it.  Worms?  I agree.  

Yes, resh, was another one who wanted to change.  Diane thinks he has played for both countries.  I was thinking it might be a pain to change once established in the records.  I don't know how automated your tracking system is for this, Tom.  Anyway, that's my 2 cents for now.    

socksey




"Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease." - Bill Maher

[diane]

The really obvious one for me is ozgit - he is Australian - and currently residing in England.  He has always played for Australia without question. He is by no means unique - in this increasingly mobile world - there are many like him. When I ran the bago tournaments - a few times players said to me, I live here - but I am from this country and would like to play for my home nation.  This seems reasonable to me - but is of course difficult to verify.  Most of the time I took players on trust - since the points they win are for their country - it seems unlikely they would be randomly donating them to some other country.
The only potential problem is someone throwing matches to bring the average of a country down - surely this would be pretty easy to spot - and a tad more devious than the average Bago player gets!!
Resh was the only issue I ever came across - he claims to have an Isreali passport - but obviously he cant verify this online in the time scale of an online tournament.  If he had arranged beforehand to play for isreal and offered some valid reason I may have allowed it. The reality of the situation is that day to day I see an American, living in America, who is proud to be American, supports American football teams and way of life.  This is why I never put him down as being from Isreal.  If he were to persuade the current Tds - then he should have all the previous points rearranged  
Donzaemon is another obvious case of a dual passport holder - he chooses to play for Japan, simply because they are under represented on fibs.
The question is much bigger than it first seems - but I think it comes down to common sense - what malicious reasons might a player have for claiming another country as their actual home nation? It seems to me this is called bag'Olympics' - and was always intended to be an olympic type backgammon event, as I understand the rules there - if a person has a passport from one nation - they may participate for that nation.  You will have to take players on a mixture of trust and your previous experience of them.  My simple advice would be - it is an online tournament with nothing more than pride at stake - dont overcomplicate it!

[socksey]

so we are all on the same page as well as the players

On the contrary, I think having a rule would simplify the matter, so that we don't have one player playing one way and another playing another way.  Never mind the cheaters.  The third choice would be of course to leave it to the player, which should also be in the form of a rule, i.e., "Players may choose what country they wish to play for."

socksey



"I was in a supermarket and I saw Paul Newman's face on salad dressing and spaghetti sauce.... I thought he was missing." - Bob Saget

[mrbond]

I really don't see what the issue is here!

In my opinion, a player should be able to represent any country they want to represent! Whether their choice is based on where they are residing, their nationality, their favourite holiday destination..... etc etc.

However, what needs to be determined, is when the player decides on a country to represent, can they be allowed to represent another country at the next Bago?

Clearly, that is not acceptable!

IMO, once you have chosen your country, you must stick with that option!

Simple!!      

[amarganth]

I handeled it in the following way:

• if a player told me a country, i simply accepted it. Without passport check   or something else. I added this country to a list of all players with their country. From that tourney, I used that country for all following tourneys, the user played.
• if I had no country of a player and he/she don't tell me the country, I tried to get it from the IP address or from the FibsLeaGammon-Statistics. That works usually fine for players except our US friends (.com .net).
• if a player told me another country, where he/she has played in the past for another country, I haven't  accepted that change.
• if a player told me an unexistant country (once a player decided "Lummerland", a fantasy country of Michael Ende, a book writer), i fixed his country from his IP address.

I am aware of sentimental players, preferring to play for another country than that, where they live. I have no problems with that. Another group of players decided to play for another country, because they were the only players for that (usually small) country.

I have no problems, to change the handling in any way. But I would like it, if a player cannot change the country once selected.

[diane]

• if I had no country of a player and he/she don't tell me the country, I tried to get it from the IP address or from the FibsLeaGammon-Statistics. That works usually fine for players except our US friends (.com .net).
  

You are so tolerant - I simply told them if they didnt tell me a country - they couldnt play - that usually got em behaving  

The rest seems fair though, I really dont see why someone would lie about their country of origin - but I do see a lot reasons why they might not be logging in from their actual home nation.

[adamosad]

The Amarganthââ,¬â,,¢s method is the one I use to update Tourneystatsbotââ,¬â,,¢s database and I think it is fair...