Official Denial Statement
 

Today the game was plunged into great discussion and gossip about what went on with Denial.
Rumours were spread. Accounts had been closed and everyone wanted to know who it was and what happened.
As the hours passed, the closure of 3 Denial HCs was made known to the public.
This came as a shock to Denial members, the command team and the other alliances in the universe.
There has always been a long list of people through the history of this game, who have exploited some aspect of the game.
The involved members and HCs realise they made a mistake and admit there was a lapse of proper judgement. They accept the fact that they were closed for breaching the player code.
The Denial Command team have decided collectively that one person's actions regardless of command position will not break something that has taken multiple people to build.
With this we humbly ask the Planetarion community to forgive and accept that people are flawed and this is now history.
Denial are ready to face the challenges infront of us, and we will keep playing with a complete and effective command team to give you a fair fight for universe dominance!
Denial HC

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

I <3 you Mystic! :D

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Could we have, to entertain us outsiders, a covering report on who haxed, what haxed, and who had multiple bot accounts, please. I'm totally out of the loop but good gossip's always worth it.

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Its pretty much in the other thread, named Denial HCS or so.

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koks, reese (apparently reese is a she in which case if she is fit i'm willing to let this act of abhorrence slide) and eksero

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

"She is fit" and you are willing to let it "slide" as in Crusie-way?

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Keeping HC who cheat in place is a stupid and careless thing to do imo. Their actions cant be justified in anyway. As for ur pleed for forgiveness, what did u do when asscandy was accused of cheating last round ? I hope u get the same threatment.

a gladly denied ex-denial

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If your being deliberately ironic there then well done. If your not your rather shit.

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considering the accused were closed, and deleted/reset, then yes, it is a fair fight now. I don't get your problem. If this were an issue alliance wide that everyone was using and STILL using, i could understand, but it wasnt and isnt. I guess ur signature says it all.

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Bad cheaters always get caught, I guess you other cool cats were just a little bit better

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

(1) If I am not mistaken the general principle is that: cheating is forbidden.
(2) Now, this means many things, but I am not sure that it includes a duty to report someone known to be cheating, unless you are a multi-hunter. .
(3) However, I am sure it is understood by the community that HCs have extra duties, not only to their players, but to the community at large. And besides MHs, HCs may have a duty to report cheaters. IF SO:
(4) What happens when a group of HCs willfully ignore 'cheating in their midst'? Should they and the ally peons be excused because they 'really' did not know? Should the community exonerate those who fail to observe their duty to police themselves?
(5) NO. The community should not fully forgive them. They were responsible to monitor themselves and they FAILED do it properly! The 'no cheating' policy was not strong enough in this alliance and some of its members (senior nonetheless) deliberately engaged in cheating. NONE of them are fully 'free of fault,' and therefore THEY ALL may legitimately be punished! This is a team game after all!!!!
(6) Or should we now risk similar occurrences in the future? Cheaters to be will calculate that they may be closed if caught, but their alliances would suffer little, so, why not take the chance? Success only come to those who risk it, right? (Thats is precisely the instict fueling most crimes).
(7) If we allow an entire MINOR-alliance to go on unscathed by this event we are signaling to the community at large that cheaters will be punished, but alliances that fail to police themselves will only receive a slap in the wrist. (Hear yee Top 5) This is not a valid message. In fact, this is a bad message to put out there.
(8) Some may say, well, what if the alliance did all it could to prevent this? And this is a fair question. If an alliance was TRULY non-negligent then I can see an argument sounding in equity. But it is irrelevant to this particular event.
(9) Thus, if we agree HCs had a duty, if they had to prevent/investigate and report cheating; if they failed to do this, if cheaters, and thus the alliance, benefited to the detriment of the community, THEN if we don't punish the entire alliance, future HCs will not think it twice before wilfully ignoring cheaters, because there won't be any consequence. Or worst perhaps, HCs may even cultivate a 'don't ask/don't tell policy' among their tech savy (geeks :P ) players, or even engaging in cheating themselves.
(10) Therefore I suggest the community demands every Denial account to be reset & Denial tag barred from this round. ex-players may do as they will, they may each plead their case when applying to new alliances and that would be their trial & tribulation ... is a free round anyways, they can only complain so much! They may, if so they choose, come back next round and try to redeem themselves.
(11) And in return they, indeed WE ALL, may even learn an enduring lesson in Ethics.

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

I just find it amusing that after 3/4 HCs get caught cheating you say things like that. Sure you might be giving everyone a "fair fight" now but if they hadn't been caught you would still be happily playing on an uneven field.

But I guess your sig says it all and I shouldn't expect you to be unbiased.

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What's this I hear about elviz closed again?

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There's no IF in this case, they were caught and punished. This thread is a statement about NOW so yes this is valid. Now go troll somewhere else, like under a bridge where u belong.

And they were, ur point?

Why have multi hunters if its up to HC's to do their jobs for them? Don't be a moron. And I wouldn't call Denial a MINOR alliance either, but i guess thats a matter of opinion. We lost 5 high ranked planets (including 3 HC, 1 of which quit and 2 who got their high ranked planets reset), that is not "unscathed".

I can't believe u even wasted ur time with such rubbish to get to a 10th point, let alone one so terrible as the one u make here. What have the members got to plead for, they did nothing wrong. Why shud they be put on trial just because ur an idiot and think they should be.

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

VenoX, I understand you feel you have to defend the indefensible.

(1) No, the entire alliance has not been punished. And they should. supra
(2) MHs are merely an extrinsic police mechanism, and probably deal mostly with n00bs that think having multiple accounts will improve their fun/luck.
(3) HCs should be responsible for the behavior of their players. supra
(4) We, as players, should cultivate our own culture, which should include, and in fact includes: no cheating!
(5) HCs, as leaders, should be role models of proper behavior and allied players, as the veteran generation, should blindly observe this rule.
(6) Again, MH are mostly meant to police n00bs who don't yet know how the game works (and, yes, also the few wise asses that gamble it each round).
(7) DENIAL is a MINOR alliance! period!
(8) Everybody in the alliance failed to investigate, discover and report cheating. How do we know this? The whole ordeal became public before the alliance did anything to "fix" itself.
(9) As a team, you all failed, and thus you should be disqualified!

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

Are you a priest?

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cheating is 100% ok if you don't get caught. i only bothering reporting people to be closed when there's an advantage in it for me to be gained (usually this is simply a gain in planet rank or one less enemy and so on)

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

Aedolaws, your a complete and utter moron, 3-4 people are adjudged to have cheated, so your idea is to ban the other 71 people from playing, and delete the last 400 hours of their hard work??

Maybe you should join the Planetarion Hierarchy, you could be just the ticket to make Planetarion demise even quicker than it already is doing.

Idiot.

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

the planets involved were punished through a combination of closure and resets.
If the rest of the community doesnt feel this was punishment enough, you can always go and punish them more ingame.

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again, moron

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How so?
Care to explain the flaw in the logic of pointing out that there is a perfectly acceptable way for other players to punish one another.
Persistant incoming for one?

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It is not "my idea." Players cheated & the alliance failed to prevent it. Had they been un-allied players, then we would not be talking about this. Had the alliance reported and corrected itself, then we would not be talking about this. Neither of this happened moron!
I am not talking about "banning" people, idiot! As you yourself concede, is a reset!
400 hours of "hard work?," "hard work,"? come on! IS A GAME!!!
I really have no clue what you mean with the last one, imbecile! BE MORE CLEAR!

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You failed to prevent it too. As did I. And my neighbour. You cannot hold people accountable for the behaviour of others. It's simple as that.

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mens rea + harm = punishment! Otherwise, we all go down a notch.

Yes Mzy, and the community at large is already harmed by their behavior.
I am only talking about players in A TEAM, and only talking about 1 round.
This is just retribution! And, deterrence for future behavior! A way to return to status quo!

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

no1 in denial knew that the planets were even closed let alone for cheating, and or knew about cheating til after pa's intervention, so your whole arguement is bull

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no, actually, that is part of my argument! supra

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I'm sorry to say (and even more sorry to agree with Disc), but you're an idiot.

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Perhaps. But I am an idiot for wasting my time writing this, here, now, but not because my argument is flawed.

Calling me an idiot does not invalidate anything.

And someone like you surely know how much someone like me cares about being called an idiot for writing this, here, now.

Heh. Enough damage for today, I am off for the day.

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

Aedolaws is clearly a law student, because a only a law student could put so many legal terms in their writing while clearly demonstrating they have no clue whatsoever as how they are properly used.

Somebody page Yahwe up here, quick.

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

Hey Ghosteh, weren't you a law student at one point?

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What is your point? Just to bash me? What does it matter if I am a law student? Is this classic ad hominem? (there, just to annoy you even more)

But tell me, I am curious, which legal terms are those that I misused?

Out of the hundreds of words I used, I can pick a handful that could be considered legal terms: rule, mens rea, negligent, punishment, deterrence, harm, willful ignorance, investigate, duty, and the old therefore.

I think that I used them all correctly in this lay context, especially since we are talking about rules, breaching, and consequences. So tell me how was it that 'I clearly demonstrated' I don't know how to use them properly? Please, explain by e-mail or in public, I don't care. If I did, believe me, I would like to correct my ways.

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Using Latin does not make you look cool or smart.

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Or more accurately "Latinicus makeus butticus muchicus".

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btw, how did they get caught ?

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You can. Just not in this specific situation :)

Also, adding "monitoring and controlling possible cheatesque behaviour" to the tasks of HC is a ridiculous thing to do. This is a game here, not a damn job!
(In this situation it is even funny. I imagine a lot of talks to the mirror)
Of course, in general, when one discovers cheating behaviour it should be reported etc.

Finally, I think they (those cheaters) should be punished more severely. However, the problem lies in that you could delete them, let them sign up again (perhaps in a different name) and have it the same way as it is now. Realistically seen, this was the best they could do, given the situation. And with this I reject the idea of punishing the remainder of the alliance. It seems they had nothing to do with the cheating.

My two cents.

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Cheating is wrong simple as whatever the cirumstances! And no one gets forgiven for that.

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did CBA create a new forum account called Aedolaws?

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unfortunately if i did create a new forum account i would have the account CBA perm banned so this a no can do. sorry jellyteen

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

Okay.
Okay.
The iceberg is starting to crack. Any 'duty' to the community at large is clearly unenforceable... you cannot be punished for acting contrary to 'the spirit' of the game. Want to sign up 5 alliances worth of people and then block? Is there a rule against that? It might not be great for the game but what are you going to do, report them? For what?
Your use of "willfull ignorance" is problematic. If people found out and did not report, perhaps there is culpability there. But I am not convinced that the rank and file must be aware of every single thing every other member of the alliance is doing at all times. That is a bad assertion.

Also, if the 'community' wants to punish the alliance by attacking them every day, that's their decision to make. But that is their customary right - it does not justify PA's instruments of 'legal' sanction being used against the innocent.
No, it may not have been strong enough in some members of the alliance. However, your assertion requires that ALL members somehow know exactly what every other member is doing - this is the only way none could be free of fault in your comprehension. As a scanner who hadn't been active for a week while this was happening and knowledge of this arose, I fail to see how I (along with others) can legitimately be punished, as I can only be at fault if I had knowledge I had no way of accessing.
The argument that 'I'll probably be closed but hey the alliance won't suffer' doesn't make any sense, because comprehending one's probable closure is comprehending probable damage to the alliance.
Actually, the current rankings say they're a pretty major one. And if you want this game to be policed by custom (as you imply in point 3), of course the major alliances will influence the administration of sanctions. Custom is fluid, law tends towards obstinacy.

Like I have stated earlier, how can the members of an alliance police every other member without knowing what every other member is doing at all times?
Actually if someone is truly non-negligent there's an argument at law. Such as "how can someone have a duty to control a third party they can't control". Seriously, the rank-and-file alliance members, who had no knowledge and reason to suspect the HC did something wrong are supposed to expel them? That is absurd. Punishing those who cheat in an alliance necessarily punishes the whole of an alliance by depriving it of resources it could previously use, without unjustly punishing the innocent parties in that alliance. And you cannot expect them to fulfill the duties of MHs, without the tools of MHs. Let me draw an analogy - PA is styled as a military game, so consider an army.

According to Aedolaws, ALL soldiers in an army have a duty to know what ALL OTHER soldiers are doing and report ALL breaches of ethics, EVEN THOUGH there is no possible way of knowing the conduct of others. I cite myself - as a barely active scanner who joined this round, I'm supposed to know what other people were doing with their account. How?.

If you wanted to argue the severity of the punishment or why there can appear to be a double standard with HCs, fine. But you didn't. You put forward one of the most unreasonable, impractical and unjust arguments in the thread, far worse than any I'd seen from those just gloating because 'hey I hate Denial and they got caught'. To make things worse, you had to quote just about every legal term or principle you could recall from your months of watching "The Practice" or "Law & Order".

I don't even know why I bothered to write this. It's not like anyone's mind is going to be changed anyway. No rational person could actually take your ideas in this thread seriously.

Oh wait, I remember now. Part of me hopes, prays that you're just a troll. If this is right then bravo sir and well played. But I don't see how this could be true. No troll would put so much thought into ideas nearly worth considering (custom ranks, some of the revolution ideas), while simultaneously pumping out so much bile (barbarians, alliance wonders, punishing entire alliances). It is simply impossible for a troll to negotiate such a fine distinction.

I don't expect to convince anyone who had their mind made up previously. Not even yourself. Forums do not work like that. But I cannot stand by and watch someone whose legal experience seems to be that of a juvenile defendant poorly dress up legal terminology and pretend their argument in Alliance Discussions, for God's sake, is somehow more worthy. Denny Crane, you are not.

Res ipsa loquitur, bitch.

(my apologies to everyone else for driving this into the ground some more - I'll keep everything else in private)

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

What Aedolaws adresses has been discussed previously in regards to a persons duty to report bugs which are found in a game(I think it might have been in that other game, point still stands), and weather or not failing to report such is in and of itself against the spirit of the game, perhaps even a punishable offence. The problem then as now is how you prove said knowledge, and then as now it becomes impossible to police any such regulations simply due to the nature of the indiscretion. For the same reason, any kind of internal monitoring can not be mandated, however it can be expected as a communal moral principle. If a given alliance is in breach of the communal moral code, it lies not at the feet of the game designers to police said indiscretions, but is the responsibility of the community to inforce through the means available to them.

I don't think it's justified to call Aedolaws a moron. His arguments are simply idealistic, his conditions unaffirmable in the real world, and his solutions uninformed. Misguided, yes. Malinformed, yes. Moron? Not on grounds of what he has written in this thread alone.

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

Gosheh, you got me lost on your third sentence, right after the 2 okays. So I didn't read anything else except that and a couple of other sentences and the Res Ipsa Loquitur. Have fun knowing I didn't! Bitch! (but with a sweet voice)

Now, you don't know the difference between screaming and arguing, between arguing and being right (or wrong), between being right (or wrong) and being a moron. Further, remember that a declaration of right or wrong is up to the bench (and here in PA, up to the community), not up to the advocates, much less up to the Ps and Ds. All I did, was to present what I think is the strongest case for the prosecution (and yes, being a law student, I KNOW there are always two sides for every coin). All you did, in your rebuttal, was scream, babble analogies and call me a moron.

I have no agenda or personal motive against Denial. I am not "really" playing anymore and in all honesty it is the first time I see this tag. So, my belief that Denial players should be punished does not arise out of a personal vendetta or out of a desire to see them fall. I could not care less about PA politics. My argument was put forth simply out of a desire to see this happen no more.

You tried using analogies to explain your point of view. This is a misguided attempt to sound simple yet profound. We are not Jesuses. So, stop doing it. The real world works with real examples (you analogize your case to previous cases), not with made up analogies that depend on the subjective common (community) sense of the actor (and/or audience). You will rarely see an analogy in a legal brief, or motion, or whatever. Why? There is nothing inherently wrong in using analogies, they can be a very helpful rhetorical device indeed to illuminate and help make your point ALIVE to the trier of facts... but just as often it backfires when they are ill-thought analogies (i.e. your soldiers without a duty... BUT, are you telling me that they have no duty to report a fellow colleague known or suspected of rape or theft?), usually because the speaker deludes himself that his made up scenario (usually an elaborate syllogism) clearly encapsulates all: the problem, the rule, and the solution... AND no more. This is rarely the case, however, because it is way too easy to find a problem in almost ANY analogy's logic, and say: But...

I read above you might have gone to law school. Did you survive your first year? (Personally, I doubt it, you don't even know what willful ignorance is, and that is 1L material.)

I do not watch Law & Order. I prefer South Park, dildo.

P.S.

I did go back and read your entire post. You have a few good points.

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

tbh if you got to be a lawyer and you were assigned to my case, i'd just plead guilty and goto prison just so i wouldn't have to hear you babbling on about bollocks.

your whole arguement to try and get denial tag removed and players banned from planetarion is that "3 people got reset, therefore the other 72 players in denial knew what was going on, and also aided the cheaters". Denial members didn't know this was going on, and half of them were unaware still what was going on when these forum posts came out. and anyway, even IF denial members knew about this issue, if they didn't use the issue which were talking about, then they didn't break any rules anyhow.

let me ask you a question Aedolaws, my little sister ate rat poision the other da, had to have her stomach pumped, should the doctors issue out a public warning asking all 3 year olds to come to hospital for stomach pumping, just incase they ate it to?

now shut up please, your attempt at sounding intelligent is bordering on the redicilous

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

"Stupid is as stupid does."

Forrest Gump

....

I am not trying to sound intelligent, in fact, my only conscious effort when writing is to write as simply as possible (as any good writer does [and English is not my first language btw]). And again, stop using worthless analogies!!! They do not illuminate your case, they simply show how simpleton of a mind you have for believing they do so.

If you want to defend the innocent members of Denial, YOU SHOULD!, they deserve it (hey, I will make a living defending criminals).

But, don't expect us to blindly take the word of members of an alliance already proven, BEYOND DISPUTE, to harbor cheaters. THAT is the only reason why I replied to "your official statement." It seems you have lost track of the problem here. The problem here it is not my harsh proposal to punish you all, or the fact that I am in law school, or whether I am a moron or not. The main issues here are (a) cheating by some of your most senior members, (b) how to avoid similar situations in the future!

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

i use them because it helps to show how worthless your view is.... and boring to read, yet i have to read them because you annoy me.

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you do have an uncanny talent for making my life easier, again: "Stupid is as stupid does!"

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It is not my responsibility (as Ascendancy member and HC) to police the behaviour of other Ascendancy members and HCs. This is what the multihunters are for (may they be praised). If I do happen to find out someone is cheating, I would consider reporting it, but it is not compulsory, like nothing in the (meta-)game is.

Your entire point appears to be revolving around the opposite assumption, which I most violently disagree with.

Did you grow up in Eastern Germany of the 80's, by any chance?

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The thrust of my argument rest on this assumption of a rule (a no, no in debating), YOU ARE CORRECT! And I expressly indicated this by using: HCs may... and IF SO.

I duly noted this in my first post by expressly recognizing that while MHs are the ones responsible, HCs may be held (as I believe they should, see infra) to a higher standard - they are, after all, although not the entire PA elite, at least a good chunk of it.

Finally, someone that pinpoints a good weakling in my argument, instead of screaming, babbling or using nonsensical analogies. Cheers!

=========

Now, to use a simple analogy... in a proper way (perhaps to annoy some of you):

(1) With great powers come great responsabilities. (This is a pillar of Western Philosophy.)

(2) All leaders have greater duties and are expected to behave more "properly" than a common citizen or individual - they are, in a sense, the role models of a society (whether politicians, athletes, professors, etc).

(3) HCs are to the PA world as leaders are to the real world.

(4) Thus, should HCs be expected to have greater duties and to behave more "properly" than the average player?

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

That's the second weak link. The first is that I may not even have knowledge of the cheating in question. And why would I, they're not exactly shouting it off the roofs.

To recap, you're expecting people to first know things they don't, and then act on it when they are not required to. These are really the simplest terms I can put it in.

Now if you read back Ghosteh's post, you'll find he has already gone over this. As have I. And Sun_Tzu. And (even!) Disc.

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But why did they fail to discover the crime?

Was it because the criminals did a very good job in keeping it secret, that is, it was IMPOSSIBLE to discover unless you got MH tools?
Or was it because they failed to have the morale and the mechanisms in place (i.e. (1) alliance rule: if you cheat, you are out forever!) to avoid cheating?
Or was it because the others HCs turned a blind eye to half joke comments made in the private/officers channel(s)?
Or was it because the member-base was led astray by a handful of criminals while the other HCs did nothing to avoid this?

Myz, I addressed both "weaklings" in my original post. I did mention that if the alliance was truly non-negligent (they took all reasonable measures and this came about without their control [or even influence]) then there is a fair question whether to punish all members.

Was this the case here? Maybe.

Denial members should have argued this, instead of calling me a moron law student.

=======

I can understand how relatives may think their relatives are innocent (even when they see the blood in their shirt); and wish for their relatives to not go to jail. That is, to keep it in the family. And yes, human nature dictates that we will more readily forgive those we love or that are linked to us, than our enemies. But, this does not cure the crime. This is not even Christian. This in fact exacerbates a culture of lawlessness which will eventually wreak havoc to the detriment of all.

=======
Now, besides this issue of fault/no fault, there is the issue of punishment. Some of you say that it is enough to only punish those members "caught," and that the community should not punish the entire team, but instead, let it go (in the wishful thinking that they were the only ones at fault and that it won't happen again [it takes a village to raise a child, or a criminal, or whatever!). Some of us, and trust me, a bunch of people have told me so, believe that this is an ideal opportunity for the community to show itself that it will not tolerate cheating and that it would punish it severely, for the greater good.

Re: Official Denial Statement
 

Utterly irrelevant. Referring back to my earlier post, it is not my responsibility to find, report or punish cheaters.