I was unaware of this until yesterday when I uploaded my first track here on MX and my GF Rhona raced it, uploaded her time and tried to award it and I get a PM from forzyy asking my relationship with her... I was kind of chocked when I realized this was considered an attempt to cheat. IMHO, this rule does not make much sense and I want to bring it up for debate.

First, awards does not add value to tracks, replays do... So, if someone are stupid enough to buy and pay for a second game just to be able to have a second account here on MX, with the purpose of award own tracks, then upload replay to this track should be forbidden as well. To police this would be an impossible task for moderators and site owner anyway.

Second, where is the boundary here? If my neighbor buying this game, coz he see me drive and getting interested to give it a try and start racing also here on MX, and he happens to be my friend also, is he, by that, not permitted to award my tracks ? If the young kids that happens to came in my small internet cafe and race, happens to get money to buy their own personal version and then race it on the computers here, coz they are too poor to have they`re own computer, is that also considered as friends and thereby not permitted to award my tracks ? My kids and grandkids? Rhoene, daughter of Rhona? My cousins? My second degree cousins ? My old classmates ? So, as u can see, this rule is just too weird... I have seen it all over here when I race tracks and gives award, friends in real life awarding each others tracks, without ever reflect upon that as a potential cheat...... Forzyy him self have a track here, awarded from eyebo among others. Forzyy as site developer, eyebo as moderator... I see nothing wrong in that, but in the wider perspective of this rule, one can start wonder..... In TMX, this was never ever any problems, as far as I know......

Nesrally says:
In TMX, this was never ever any problems, as far as I know......

Actually it was a problem we had to deal with almost every day, and it continues to be an issue, especially on TMX NF.

And you are wrong about awards. They do add value to a track in that they have the power to increase it's exposure to a wider audience. Artificially inflating that exposure by awarding your own tracks is seen as a form of cheating.

Of course your neighbors and second cousins can award your tracks. If you actually got everyone you know to play TM, that's quite an achievement anyway I'd say.

It's somewhat common knowledge that the system is based on IPs. So it's not about your relationship. It's about your location. We simply disallow accounts that are all under one roof to award other accounts under that same roof. There's no way we can tell the difference between a single individual awarding his own tracks or another actual human doing it.

We don't like to talk about the system of comparing IPs among awarders because it gives signals to the cheaters on how to potentially get around the safeguards.

Granted, not everyone is trying to cheat, but enough have tried in the past that we have had to take these measures.

It's a pity.

But if you really think the award system has no value anyway, then this really shouldn't bother you.

I'm also not sure what you seek to accomplish with this topic. I explained much of this in my own PM to you, albeit not in quite as much detail.

eyebo (701) says:
I'm also not sure what you seek to accomplish with this topic.

Raising the issue to the public and getting my attention?
Well, thx eyebo for explaining the IP stuff. Good thing that noone else under my roof plays TM.

this entire topic should probably be deleted to remove the evidence

I'll leave that to someone else. I think we could all stand to be a bit more transparent around here.

eyebo (701) says:
I think we could all stand to be a bit more transparent around here.

If someone want to cheat there is a million ways to do it.
just drop this nonsence and remove the ip stuff
what we dont know we wont feel bad about.

you dont have to remove IP for security reasons ofc but award under same ip, please thats just stupid.

or remove award system and find someting new and cool instead....


shame on you forzyy....

{quote=Forzyy}Our system has detected that you're trying to cheat the award system. Don't. Nice try anyway.

Oh, and thanks for reporting yourself. Not many idiots have the balls to do that.{/quote}

literally, Rhona doesn't have balls...

Haha "Friends" are not allowed to award ?

Too bad that I know most mappers ingmae and consider quite a few of them my friends. So I can not award any of their maps ?

And my best friend for the last 15 years, who happens to also play TM, can not award my tracks if he likes them ?

Seriously, this rule stinks ^^ IP tracking may be a good idea to see if somebody uses multiple accounts, but that's about it.

smigles says:
Haha "Friends" are not allowed to award ?

Too bad that I know most mappers ingmae and consider quite a few of them my friends. So I can not award any of their maps ?

And my best friend for the last 15 years, who happens to also play TM, can not award my tracks if he likes them ?

Seriously, this rule stinks ^^ IP tracking may be a good idea to see if somebody uses multiple accounts, but that's about it.

It is allowed, there is no "rule" that forbids friends to award your tracks. And actually I don't think that all the mappers who are your friends live with you under the same roof, so it shouldn't be a problem. Just read what eyebo wrote.

eyebo (701) says:
Of course your neighbors and second cousins can award your tracks. If you actually got everyone you know to play TM, that's quite an achievement anyway I'd say.

It's somewhat common knowledge that the system is based on IPs. So it's not about your relationship. It's about your location. We simply disallow accounts that are all under one roof to award other accounts under that same roof. There's no way we can tell the difference between a single individual awarding his own tracks or another actual human doing it.