I'm going to start off by saying that I realize I'm a little late on this, but reading the other posts frustrated me to the point of registering on these forums and creating a post myself.

Going to start off by introducing myself, I'm an american player named bromontana. Captain of Team Exile in the states, and creator of the North American pug team for clanbase American IDOLS. I'm not here to cause a bunch of trouble, just here to say a few words and be on my way. I also wanted to say, I generally like playing on euro servers and in euro leagues because the level of competition is much higher and there is a lot less crying :). The thing though that I have trouble with is it seems like the admins of most of these leagues (both clanbase and urban zone) seem to be worse than a religious cult on a witch hunt. In this case I'm referring to the banning of my friend HiiT aka HeMP.

Yes, you can draw the argument that my post is bias because I'm in fact friends with him and have played with him on a team.. But then again this community itself is so small that everyone seems to know everyone.

One morning I got a PM from Sirmimer indicating that HeMP's demo was under review on urban-zone. Knowing that a ban from any league usually carries weight across every countries primary league, this was bad news to hear and I immediately sat down and watched the demo along side some of North America's top players. As even weedwalker pointed out, there are 2-3 weird situations and shots, but you will find that in any demo. Even bad players. I sat down and watched every single one of the timestamps put out and laughed at almost each and every one of them. To ban a player based on a demo like this is just pathetic and it seems like there have to be other motives behind this. HeMP then posted this topic in frustration from his ban. I admit it's not the most professional thing to do, but who wouldn't be upset finding out they were banned from a laughable demo. Almost all the replies show to me one thing: you guys really seem to just hate this kid.

What better way than to just get rid of someone you dislike than to ban him I guess? Any good player will say the same thing.. that the demo has a couple suspicious points, but nothing more than you see if you watch one of my demos, or one of Joram's demos. I was relieved after watching the demo because I really had hoped that we didn't recruit a hacker into our team and let him play most of the season, and watching that demo I knew there was nothing there. That he was just as legit as I thought he was. I'm really surprised, shocked, and saddened by such a laughable verdict. The responses by the admins on here are so disrespectful that I wonder how or why they even became admins to begin with.

Any good player can see that he is not cheating and that your ban was based merely on the fact you dislike him. Good luck to you and the rest of your firing squad in the rest of the league.

There's nothing reasonable I can say in reply to this hogwash. It's a compilation of lies, completely ridiculous assumptions, and quite a few insults. The truth is we did not ban hiit once before (several times before) because we did not find sufficient evidence and suddenly we all hate him so much we just have to ban him no matter what. Of course. Let me own up, it was all my fault, he stole my bike.
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Fact is, he got banned from a crappy demo with ridiculous timestamps. It is useless to deny it, anyone a bit brained can see that.

Then I guess you're not really speaking from experience.
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You are avoiding the question, typical.
And being agressiv won't help tbh.

Allow me to point out you didn't ask a question.
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So what you are saying is that we have nothing better to do than ban people we supposedly dislike? If I were to ban people I dislike we'd have a lot fewer teams. It's in our best interest to have as big a league as possible, but that doesn't mean that we should allow people to play whom we believe to be cheating. And yes, we don't have 100% proof, that's the problem with having humans judge other humans. Hence we can't wait for 4.2 to come and have done with these ludicrous accusations of banning people we dislike or "Urban Zone Mafia" etc etc. We'll review our bans that aren't 100% sure when 4.2 comes around. Of course we won't review bans with lock-on aimbots, screenshots with hack, etc etc. Who knows we might turn the bans into suspensions and let those people who we aren't 100% sure of play again. We (the head admins) still have to discuss this.

In the mean while, he is banned and will remain banned.

You re allowed to point that if you want to, you re admin after all.
But still, the subject here remains to be hemp banned from crappy timestamps given by opponents.
Please dont evade the subject or try to make me look like a troll or flamm, this is not what im trying to do.

Looks like there is more player thinking that hemp shouldnt be banned from this demo than the opposite, that was my point.

There are his teammates and a handful of fans. And every ban we do has that - no one likes getting banned. We made a unanimous decision and we are going to stick to it. It wasn't done lightly or by just looking at a list of timers from the opponent and going "wooh - that's a lot, let's ban him". That's the problem with getting your information from the banned player and his team - you're gonna be fed a lot of crap with a healthy portion of half-truths.
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I understand being an admin is not an easy task at all, in fact most people don't give enough credit to admins. They have very tough jobs and have to make very tough calls. It's always upsetting when I see people lash out on admins who are only there to help make a community better. However, the sword is double edged. It's also even more upsetting when I see injustice in leagues and faulty bannings of clearly innocent players. It's very true that because there is no working anti-cheat in place that you have to rely heavily on personal judgement. Which is why there is usually a panel of knowledgable players who make the verdicts. I understand this is exactly how urban-zone is structured and that is great. However, as time will show you, anti-cheat systems can also give a false sense of security as there will always be bypasses and players that get around this. Personal judgement and experience is very well required even then. To pass off this situation because there is no anti-cheat almost goes to show why I made this post in the first place.

I have admined many leagues across many games in the past, here is a list of some of them that I can remember:

Cyberathlete Amateur League(CAL) - Shadowrun: Game Manager
Cyberathlete Amateur League(CAL) - Gears of War: Warzone Division Manager
Cyberathlete Amateur League(CAL) - Gears of War: Execution admin
Cyberathlete Amateur League(CAL) - Quake III Rocket Arena 3 Season I & II admin
Cyberathlete Amateur League(CAL) - Call of Duty Anti-Cheat admin
Total Gaming League(TGL) - Team Fortress 2 Season 1 Admin
Stronger than All(STA) - Urban Terror Season XV Head Admin
Stronger than All(STA) - Urban Terror Season V admin assistance
Team Warfare(TWL) - Rocket Arena 3 Ladder admin

One thing I have come to see in all of my experiences is it's not too late to own up to your mistakes. It shows good character on part of the admins and that you are truly here for the community. You can deny the fact on here that the ban based on that demo was not warranted, but how can you deny the fact that all these very skilled and highly experienced players from the same very game think otherwise. I commend you on your thickness as an admin, but this is a situation where sometimes you just need to give way, it's obvious to almost everyone but yourselves that this ban is not right.

You keep operating on the premise that we have something to "own up to". I find that insulting and no doubt it was supposed to be, along with the quips about thickness and what not. Since we do not consider you to be "almost everyone" the ban stays in effect. Thank you for your interest in our league and let me point out that hiit/hemp has ample opportunity to redeem his reputation in one of your numerous competitions.
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Last edited by eya_allam on Wed Nov 03, 2010 11:29 pm; edited 1 time in total

- bromontana

It's also even more upsetting when I see injustice in leagues and faulty bannings of clearly innocent players.

It's not that clear as you indicated your self in your first post, there were certainly some suspicious moments.

- bromontana

To pass off this situation because there is no anti-cheat almost goes to show why I made this post in the first place.

I'm not passing it off, I'm standing by my decision and by doing so I am not agreeing with you hence you think we're passing it off.

- bromontana

One thing I have come to see in all of my experiences is it's not too late to own up to your mistakes.

And you may also own up to your mistake defending a friend and (in our eyes) a cheater.

For me the case is closed until 4.2 arrives and will no longer reply as I will not convince you and you will not convince me, I would say count your blessings that we even review our bans when 4.2 comes.