Farewell

@anonmod said in #17:
> how would simply presenting the evidence help the accused?

*Not* presenting evidence is fomenting distrust within the community. Closed-door trials and saying we're too stupid to understand is banana republic tactics. Especially in this case.

@spidersneedlovetoo said in #21:
> *Not* presenting evidence is fomenting distrust within the community. Closed-door trials and saying we're too stupid to understand is banana republic tactics. Especially in this case.

You are not too stupid. You lack the training. I did not understand the evidence put forward by chesscom, because I lack the training using chesscom tools.

@mcgoves said in #19:
> Should streamers get special treatment?

No. Of course not. That was just one of the three things I called him in that statement.

Everyone deserves an appropriate appeal response.

@anonmod said in #17:
> it does not make sense to present evidence

How can anyone defend themselves against an unjust ruling then?

There's not even an ability for it. The mods that made this decision are wrong. There's a good chance he was even streaming but they won't even tell him what game or arena they suspect it from. What exactly is this appeal process?

@anonmod said in #22:
> You are not too stupid. You lack the training. I did not understand the evidence put forward by chesscom, because I lack the training using chesscom tools.

Thank you for the correction. Apologies for extrapolating into the realm of the abstract. Worth adding:

I actually thought the chesscom report was fairly comprehensible, but maybe I just saw the average-civilain stuff and we were looking at different pages. I'm happy to acknowledge that I don't know jack about anything, just look at my opening repertoire for example, but in this case, it does feel like injustice is being done, and the glue that's helped hold the community together is being jettisoned unfairly.

I'll repeat myself because, while I love metaphor almost as much as I love hyperbole, I clearly glossed over my main point: *Not* presenting evidence is fomenting distrust within the community.

Even better would be to just reinstate Pepellou and sweep this whole thing under the rug.

@JoannaTries I've always known @pepellou was a very strong player, and I can't believe he'd have cheated. I enjoyed playing in the crazyhouse chess leagues, even the last one when I think I lost every game having raised a board after winning all but one game the previous season.

I haven't seen you streaming for a while, but I used to sometimes watch pepe's streams.

I thnk I am connected to you on social media somewhere (other than twitchtv) but need to check.

For those who don't know, @JoannaTries is married to @pepellou, they got married about 2 years ago, and about 2 years before that I see records of games I played against Joanna when she used to stream a lot and did casual variants tournaments, and they possibly even met each other on here, but I don't know as they already knew each other at the time.

Joanna wasn't particularly good back then which explains why I won all 4 games, and the fact they were variants explains the connection too as you can see from my profile I'm a big fan of chess variants. But she did improve a lot.

@pepellou was involved in a Crazyhouse league where we were members of teams and dependent on our rating we played someone in the other team on descending boards with increasing time controls. Board 1 played 5+5, board 2 played 6+6 etc. so if I was on board 5 I played 9+9 and one season I played there winning all but one game, but the next season (with a higher rating) I'd moved up to board 4 and lost them all. Many of those games were close though. Pepellou played on a higher board than me in the same team, and was good but also didn't win every game.

@anonmod said in #17:
"Considering this long process and how very little understanding the average lichess user has about cheat detection – how would simply presenting the evidence help the accused? We would additionally have to train them in cheat detection for them to even be able to understand the evidence. This would not be practical."

You are mystifying cheat detection. Being a mathematician and knowing pepe is working in IT, I have to say what needs days or weeks for average lichess mod to understand and learn, possible needs half an hour max for me or him. This is NOT atom physics. Sry.
I just checked pepe latest games on lichess.org/games/search?players.a=pepellou&dateMin=2023-03-01&dateMax=2023-03-26&sort.field=d&sort.order=desc&analysed=1#results He played 14 good 7+5 rapid games in that arena. Accuracy was 75% to 95%, mostly above 90%, but usually not without mistake or blunder.
This is not a clear evidence for sure.
For example in this game both player played well, then his opp blundered lichess.org/Np1ZQ3F1/black#47
All in all, I say this decision is highly questionable.

he didnt seem to have the rating of a cheater, if I remember he was like 2200 in everything

1. I didn't know I could search the games that way. Quite useful.
2. The ban came after playing in a "rapid" arena 7+5. But because pepellou berserked every game, he was playing 3.5+0
3. It appears he won every game but one, and beat Grandmaster DJ Haubi in the final game having drawn earlier.
4. It wasn't perfect chess, but you wonder if the GM reported him: After all, he might ask, if his opponent is so strong, why isn't he titled?

If so, that's a terrible reason to ban him. He won because he played a better game. No clear evidence he used an engine, maybe just his opponent made a bad blunder under time pressure (he had also berserked). Or maybe pepe is good enough to be a titled player but that involves a strong commitment that he doesn't wish to make in his lifestyle?