Possible Admin abuse?

quote: If a spec talks in game, but does not give away any information then it is not spec cheating.

If by "information" you mean current-game related one: Correct.

quote: If someone with admin powers kicks players because they just dont want any specs talking in game, without the use of a vote. Then it is hands down an abuse of their powers, and is a detriment to the Zero-K Community.

Depends. Admins can open their own room, be !boss and !kick without needing admin rights (and thus without the !kick being an admin action).

Similarly there is an unwritten "rule" that says spectators of tournament games should not use chat-to-all unless reeeally necessary.

quote: every spec chat is spec cheating So it should be noted that anyone that says anything as a spec in any game is spec cheating

This is not true.

Relevant

Replay: http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/325343

Dialog:



Sadly I have joined late to the party and saw only last statements.

Oh sfire....

From the CoC:

quote: 6. No cheating ... Also be careful what you say when you are spectating, do not give away intel.

Given that FFA is based a great deal on diplomacy and deception between players, pretty much anything said by a spec that's at all game related shouldn't really be allowed.

Telling the players who is winning and who controls what territory is entirely unreasonable.

tl;dr: Yes, what [G0G0]Dancer did is in fact against the code of conduct. He was warned, he kept talking, he got kicked from the game.

I commend the final part of the CoC to your attention:

quote: Abiding by moderator penalties Making forum threads complaining about how unjust one's penalty was and insulting the moderation/administration team is one of the most common reactions by trolls to moderator action. It is also strongly anticorrelated with the original penalty being found on review to be, in fact, unjustified. Don't do this.

Aquanim:
Keep in mind that except for maybe "now licho get 3 start point" (unsure) none of what [G0G0]Dancer said was intel acquired from spectating. "Sfire wins" is something that might've been said either way.

The last Cockentry doesn't apply here. There was no complaining and no insulting. Besides, "It is also strongly anticorrelated with the original penalty being found on review to be, in fact, unjustified." shows how idiotic of a rule it is.

quote: none of what [G0G0]Dancer said was intel acquired from spectating

How do you know?
How do the players ingame know?

The important question here is how would the players know?

I don't recall ever seeing Corvus_Corax scout the location where [G0G0]Dancer was fighting. I don't see how Dancer could know what all the other players were aware of. The players would not know which intel is from spectating.

Additionally, would [G0G0]Dancer said "now sfire wins" if he had seen some secret game ender owned by one of the other players? You can't say that what he said was uninfluenced by what he saw a spec.

The very simple rule is that if you want to talk you should do so as a player. Interaction with players stops when you resign. I have decided to brave the widget space and implement a spec mute because people can't understand this.

quote: brave the widget space and implement a spec mute

Won't a gadget be better? Widgets are unsynced and can be disabled.