What is cheating?

JJnet recognizes two kinds of cheating: technical and (for lack of a better word) atechnical cheating.

Technical cheating is when some kind of program is used in order to gain an unfair advantage. This includes but is not limited to playing with unlimited ammo, radar or a resolution hack which shows you more than the server’s settings allow for. Please refer to the main rules page for details on allowed and disallowed software.

Atechnical cheating includes but is not limited to:
-Playing as someone else
-Hiding your identity
-Lie about the rules of the ladder to gain an advantage over clans less knowledgeable clans
-Submit fake ladder matches
-Participating in cheating with spectators using voice communication.

The philosophy of JJnet’s anti-cheating policy

Fairness: objectivity vs. perceived fairness
When designing an anti-cheating policy, fairness is its crucial objective, but how do we achieve that? At a first glance, objectivity might seem like the obvious answer, but the problem with objectivity is that it’s an unattainable ideal. It is very difficult to logically account for all potentially relevant factors, which leads to the conclusion that some element of subjectivity will be inevitable.

If we approach the issue from another angle, it seems obvious that the main thing that can go wrong when a ruling is made, is that the legal consequences intuitively don’t seem fair. Therefore we stipulate up to-punishments in this policy document, leaving us enough wiggle room to account for mediating factors, all the while maintaining an objective basis.

The purpose of punishment
The purpose of a punishment is to prevent the individual committing a crime again. In essence there are two ways to achieve this: capital punishment (=a life-time ban from JJ2) or a punishment that seems justified to the convicted. The latter option seemed more humane to the JJnet admins, so that is what we opted for. This principle entails that the punishment should not be too short - that would trivialize the offence, and anger bystanders -, but also not too long, as that would only serve to enrage the convicted and make him more likely to try and take revenge.

A one-and-a-half strike system

It is the opinion of the JJnet admins that getting caught cheating twice is in most cases one too many, therefore we don’t opt for a pure two-strike system, whereby you get off easy the first time you cheat, but get punished severely the second (and, god forbid, later) time(s). The first offence rules are only applicable to newbies, who has not long enough been members of the competitive community to realize how wrong their actions are, and without any guarantees to experienced players who only commit atechnical cheating, provided that the damage caused wasn’t too great.

These are the rules that the JJnet admins will apply in a proven cheating case:

First offence

the cheater:
-receives a one-month ban from playing ladder matches and clanwars.
-may receive a one-month ban from servers associated with JJnet (e.g. Camel Duels or Puke Nukem).

his or her clan:
-loses the points won by the cheater

Second (or more) offence

the cheater:
-receives a ban of up to 2 years from any competitive JJNet games, including tournaments arranged in collaboration with JJNet (JJ2WC, National Tournament, Duel tournaments, ...).
-receives a ban of up to 2 years from associated servers, but as a principle, this part of the punishment will be shorter than the former aprt, for the purpose of reintegration.

his or her clan:
-loses the points won by the player.
-receives an additional point punishment up to the amount of games the cheater played for the clan.

Other

Relevant questions in determining the additional point punishment include:
-Could the clan have prevented it?
-Was it a known/suspected/ex-cheater?
-Was the clan's leadership complicit?
-How much effort die the cheater put into convincing people of his or her innocence?

Reductions

Minor reductions to the punishments may be possible if the cheater:
-provides good evidence against other cheaters.
-shows honest remorse, especially towards the victims of his or her actions.

Enforcing bans

- In order to make the personal bans effective, any clan that is found to let a banned player play for them, albeit under another nickname, will be punished severely.

- For the same reason, players are encouraged to report it to the appropriate admins when they see or suspect a banned player playing in an associated serve.

- JJnet admins and admins of associated servers therefore also have the right to force you to tell them who you are when you play with a nick that does not resemble your own and kick you off if you refuse to oblige. This means that you can play with such nicknames as long as you tell the admin in public or in private who you are, but it is much preferred that you use your real nick at all times, because then other players will have an easier time noticing if a banned player is faking you and acting differently than you would.