Cheats

[Chad Williams]

Often using sporting metaphors, an ideology of 'fair play' pervades Western-type capitalist societies and perhaps provides a reason for the widely expressed aversion to cheating. In sport, this ideology came from and has been associated most strongly with the ethos of amateurism that emerged from the English 'Greater Public Schools' and Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the second half of the nineteenth century.

It is an ideology that remains in many sporting arenas and with it comes the illusion that people compete simply on the basis of their innate, albeit highly trained abilities: the 'best' competitor or team wins. Although in practice numerous cheating tactics may be used and sometimes detected--weeding-out a cheat every now and then gives the appearance that they are an aberrant few and the sport as a whole is honest--the public face of many major sports present an image of fairness and honesty. But this imagery is a throw-back to the amateur fair-play ethos.

Cheating blunts pure competition and permits players to manipulate chance in their favour to increase the probability of a positive outcome.

Something needs to be done. I don’t like cheats, No one likes cheats, lets weed them out!

[todd]

If cheating is so prevalent, wouldn't it make more sense to try to improve the system that makes cheating possible.

If you weed out Dwayne (that is who you're talking about, right?), somebody else can use whatever methods he has purportedly used. So instead of whining about Dwayne, who as far as I can tell has worked within the confines of the system, why don't you try to come up with some constructive way to make cheating more difficult. I'm guessing C2 would be willing to consider changes that would improve the integrity of their system.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading your posts like I used to like watching championship wrestling, but it, like championship wrestling is getting kind of old. Don't you have something else to worry about and weren't you supposed to be gone for a while?

BTW: I am NOT saying that Dwayne has ever cheated.

[schweinlew]

I have been following the Chad v. Dwayne posts for some time--and not without some amusement. It seems that the bottom line is that we do not know whether Dwayne cheats or not. I can live with this ambiguity.

However, I have to chime in here. It seems ironic that Chad would submit a post on cheating when he in fact plagiarized the text of his post from an Australian Journal of Anthropology article by Mewett (Dec., 2002, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... 48964/pg_4).

In the academic world direct quotation without appropriate attribution is one of the worst forms of cheating. I understand that academia may seem like an insular world with its own strange rules. However, because academic authors usually do not have much that they can claim as their own, they can and should be able to claim their own words. The "rent" they ask for using their words is nominal: proper citation/attribution.

Regards,

William Schweinle, Ph.D.,
University of South Dakota

[Chad Williams]

You mentioned Dwayne and cheating in the same sentence not me. I have moved on from that so why bring all that up again.

I am after a system change, a governing body, drug testing at big events for category winners, I want this sport cleaned up. I want a level playing field, no cheating of any kind.

[row4life]

Chad...and weren't you supposed to be gone for a while?

We were hoping he was going to be gone for a while.

[row4life]

I have been following the Chad v. Dwayne posts for some time--and not without some amusement. It seems that the bottom line is that we do not know whether Dwayne cheats or not. I can live with this ambiguity.

However, I have to chime in here. It seems ironic that Chad would submit a post on cheating when he in fact plagiarized the text of his post from an Australian Journal of Anthropology article by Mewett (Dec., 2002, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... 48964/pg_4).

In the academic world direct quotation without appropriate attribution is one of the worst forms of cheating. I understand that academia may seem like an insular world with its own strange rules. However, because academic authors usually do not have much that they can claim as their own, they can and should be able to claim their own words. The "rent" they ask for using their words is nominal: proper citation/attribution.

Regards,

William Schweinle, Ph.D.,
University of South Dakota

The language definetly sounded to educated for him. Nice going Chad!! Cheater!!!

[Chad Williams]

However, I have to chime in here. It seems ironic that Chad would submit a post on cheating when he in fact plagiarized the text of his post from an Australian Journal of Anthropology article by Mewett (Dec., 2002, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... 48964/pg_4).

I have not claimed my 1st post on this thread as my own, I did indeed get it from the internet, Dress it up with all the big fancy word you like, that is not cheating, it is copy/pasting.

[todd]

Dang... I wish I had caught that unattributed quote. I have never heard of this type of behavior as being acceptable - in any forum. I wouldn't feel comfortable calling anybody else in this forum a liar or a cheat because of a lack of proof, but it seems like the shoe is fitting pretty well here.

[Chad Williams]

I see the same pond lives are still intent on starting trouble. Row4life, why not put your efforts into your rowing rather than name calling me.

You even have to hide behind a forum name “row4life” are you to ashamed of who you really are? Guess you must be?

I guess you must be an under achiever, insecure, that is why you have an altar ego, makes you feel more worth.

Lets see if you have anything constructive to add to this thread rather than silly name calling.

Do you think people should be tested for performance enhancing products at the CRASH B’s?

[Dickie]

Often using sporting metaphors, an ideology of 'fair play' pervades Western-type capitalist societies and perhaps provides a reason for the widely expressed aversion to cheating. In sport, this ideology came from and has been associated most strongly with the ethos of amateurism that emerged from the English 'Greater Public Schools' and Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the second half of the nineteenth century.

It is an ideology that remains in many sporting arenas and with it comes the illusion that people compete simply on the basis of their innate, albeit highly trained abilities: the 'best' competitor or team wins. Although in practice numerous cheating tactics may be used and sometimes detected--weeding-out a cheat every now and then gives the appearance that they are an aberrant few and the sport as a whole is honest--the public face of many major sports present an image of fairness and honesty. But this imagery is a throw-back to the amateur fair-play ethos.

Cheating blunts pure competition and permits players to manipulate chance in their favour to increase the probability of a positive outcome.

Something needs to be done. I don’t like cheats, No one likes cheats, lets weed them out!

I don't like cheats either, I wish they were gone. What I like less than cheats is accusing someone wrongly. Let me try to explain.

Lately I have been reading quite regularly about people who have been incarcerated wrongly, sometimes for decades. Only to be released now that new DNA procedures can exonerate them. When i think about it, I can't fathom what they went through, a life destroyed, all by mistake. There is nothing anyone can do to give them back what they lost, carreers, friends, family. I would rather see the guilty go free than to convict someone wrongly, because as time passes I may be able to catch up with the guilty and punish them, but i can not restore a lot of that which was taken wrongly.

So it is with cheats, all the circumstantial evidence in the world is not enough, you have to prove it, otherwise you let it slide until you can prove it. I am not anyones flunkie and no matter what I think of someones ability to post a top time, I will not call them a cheat without positive proof.

Our ranking system is an honor system and that lends itself to cheats, a sad fact of life. But it looks to me that a certain portion of its users want it to be more than a motivational tool. They want a list they can count on, like a world record but without all the rigors associated with making it accurate and above reproach. It is interesting to note, that the people calling for an outing of cheats are the competitive ones at the top of the rankings, but who are not yet good enough to be placed on the World Record List. (There is one exception to this, we have a forumite who has/had a world record that has weighed in on this).

The ranking is a place to post our training times as well as race times done during the current ranking year, not a place for your all-time personal best. I would expect the worlds best to be near or even exceed their best in training sessions from time to time. How many times have you heard of someone who broke a world record in training only to fail to do it in competition. I used to hear it all the time while watching weightlifting competitions on TV. If you have a problem with 'cheaters' on the rankings you can display the ranking showing Race only results and compare your times with that, because as we have seen on these threads in the past, the only true representaion that is universally accepted are race Results.

I can't find the numbers right now, but if I remember correctly there are in excess of 25,000 members of the ranking system. There are currently over 9000 that posted a 2k time this year alone. I am all for a solution that would make it harder for cheats to post bogus times, but anything that is done, needs to take into account all the members of the ranking, not just the few who get stressed out over the current system in this forum.

I welcome any an all suggestions, but be prepared for a Devils Advocate, I will try to shoot them down. Who knows, mybe we will have a suggestion that withstands the scrutiny and we will have a better ranking for all.

Fred Dickie

MH 50 no current times worthy of boasting about

[todd]

The same pond lives? Looks like everyone posting here has posted very few times except for you and row4life. I think you are trying to divert attention from your own misdeeds. Plagiarism is defined as theft. When you put that text up there with only your name beside it, you committed theft. You can try to gloss it over and say it is just cut and paste but we all know what it is.

Dickie makes very good points. I have said before that records should be made at competitions where the effort can be scrutinized and undeniably verified.

[Chad Williams]

The same pond lives? Looks like everyone posting here has posted very few times except for you and row4life. I think you are trying to divert attention from your own misdeeds. Plagiarism is defined as theft. When you put that text up there with only your name beside it, you committed theft. You can try to gloss it over and say it is just cut and paste but we all know what it is.

So call 911

[row4life]

Plagiarism is defined as theft. When you put that text up there with only your name beside it, you committed theft. You can try to gloss it over and say it is just cut and paste but we all know what it is.

Chad - aka thief..aka plagiarer.

[hjs]

You mentioned Dwayne and cheating in the same sentence not me. I have moved on from that so why bring all that up again.

I am after a system change, a governing body, drug testing at big events for category winners, I want this sport cleaned up. I want a level playing field, no cheating of any kind.

Sounds good chad.

but I think we should make 1 exception. don't you?

[Gus]

Lately I have been reading quite regularly about people who have been incarcerated wrongly, sometimes for decades. Only to be released now that new DNA procedures can exonerate them.

You might find the movie The Exonerated interesting. It was recently released on DVD. It's a very powerful movie.

I apologize for interjecting something off topic into the thread.