An announcement for the good of the game (please read)

[baumer]

Effective immediately, I am no longer going to play the game. I am still going to run it but I will no longer be a participant in it. There are several reasons for this, but mainly due to the fact that in the spirit of competition and fairness and transparency it is best if a mod, the creator and person who has all the power in the game, not be playing it as well.Nothing is going to change in the game. Everyone has worked hard so far and many of you have a great chance to win this thing. This will be a permanent decision and it will affect all the games and all the years going forward.I enjoy running the game but I don't want any kind of cloud or appearance of impropriety to taint the game in any way.Thank you for your participation and good luck to all of you the rest of the way.Dan

[iceroll]

I don't think it's unfair that you play your own game, you can't see into the future either. If playing your own game would give you an advantage you would have won at least top 3 by now

[CJohn]

Did someone complained?

[The Dark Alfred]

I don't see any reason why would you not participate, baumer. All the predictions are posted according to a deadline, everything is fair and square.

[MovieGuyKyle17]

I should really do that with my NFL Pick-em game in the Sports section

[rockNrollaDIM]

I understand your decision. I never found you as player-gamerunner to be unfair but I can see how it's a conflict of interest. One time on Evan's forum he did a Winter game and I was pretty convinced at the time his decisions depended on how he answered the questions.

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

When I had my site grading thread, I opened a site and graded my own predictions along with regular box office sites. Looking back, that was probably not the best thing to do. Most of it was just straight numbers and accuracy, but every once in awhile a situation would arise where I had to make a call. Even if I didn't fall into temptation to "juice" my grades(which I never did, of course), it may have influenced my opinion when those judgment calls had to be made.I think baumer is making the right decision for the betterment of his game.

[Fake]

I don't see why you can't play the game.... all the questions are yes/no or number based. I don't see any problem with fairness and transparency at all.But it is your decision. I would however suggest that you finish this season at least. There are only 8 weeks left....

[Fake]

When I had my site grading thread, I opened a site and graded my own predictions along with regular box office sites. Looking back, that was probably not the best thing to do. Most of it was just straight numbers and accuracy, but every once in awhile a situation would arise where I had to make a call. Even if I didn't fall into temptation to "juice" my grades(which I never did, of course), it may have influenced my opinion when those judgment calls had to be made.I think baumer is making the right decision for the betterment of his game.

But there aren't many judgement calls here, the answers are pretty much yes/no or over/under..... and if there are, I have always seen baumer make the right decision.... if someone is suggesting otherwise, they need to get their heads straight.

[Cedarpoint1111]

I think you should continue playing Baumer. If you happen to win, you can just disqualify yourself at the end. I only say this because I know how much fun I have playing this and it would be a shame if you didn't get to enjoy it as well. Especially after all the hard work you put into it each week.I hope nobody complained...

[XenoZodiac]

Though I think that the decision will make the game better and more transparent, I don't see that its needed. Its more than enough good and transparent.

[baumer]

I just sent this to Shawn, and I think it's fair that everyone know why this has happened.A couple of members contacted Shawn and said that I had changed some of my answers over the past couple of weeks. They provided screen shots to him and he confronted me about it. I of course denied it at first, because that is the human condition, deny when caught.But I have a guilty conscience and it took me 12 hours to fess up to Shawn. Here is the message I sent him:Hi Shawn,Well, here's the short answer to this, and believe me there is a longer one I could post, but I'll leave it at this (you don't need to hear about personal problems).I did change my answer I believe twice. Once was SOTM5, a few days later when I recalculated. The other was an answer during one of the weeks. I know this can affect the outcome of the game but it was not done with absolute malicious intentions. I did it because I answered my answers too quickly and threw an answer in and later came back to change them to what i wanted. This doesn't make it right or just in any way. It's cheating and I have to fess up to this. Other members I'm sure are rushed and they do not have the option of going back in to change their answers. The part of this that has been bothering me though is I give a lot of leeway to other players in the game. I have:1) accpeted answers after the deadline with honestly half the players2) accepted answers from people by pm because they forgot to answer some pre season questions3) provided makeup questions for anyone who has missed one week or a certain answer or because they didn't take the time to read the thread when there was an update. 4) changed aspects of the game because some members don't like the direction it is heading5) included other types of questions in the game to appease certain segments and demographics in the game.6) removed those questions later because it wasn't what some wanted the game to evolve to.7) gone back to award points to players 5-6-8 weeks later because they went back and re-checked the scoring, even though is supposed to be done the weekend of.The point is, and not to excuse my behavior because I cheated plain and simple, but I am very approachable and lenient in this game because it is a game. And as you know I put a lot of work into this and pay out my own money. It takes about 2 hours to score every night and countless others to run the game smoothly.The whole point of this rant is that if someone had a problem with my changing the answers, they should have come to me and confronted me first instead of going to Shawn. This leads me to believe that I have some people who are at odds with me as a member, a mod and maybe as a person. Shawn owns the forums, but it is my game. I should have been given the courtesy to hear about it first from the one(s) who reported me.I'll re-itterate this one more time. I didn't do this to win the game, my scores are not that good every week to begin with. I've just had three good results that put me in third for the first time since maybe the second year of the game. If I was doing it to win, I would have changed a lot more. But, and there is no way around this, I cheated, plain and simple and for that I should be admonished for doing so.It started with removing myself from the game. If I continue this game in the future, I will never participate as a player again. I feel bad for this but it was not my intention to cause any problems.I have already informed the players that I am no longer playing. AA and Shawn, you are both my friends outside of this place and I'm sorry to put you both through this. Again, not done with personal gain involved. But as they say, haste makes waste and that is my biggest problem.DanSo as you can see what I did was wrong and there's no way around it. I took liberties with the game that I never should have.For this I apologize to all of the playes who put in so much effort every week. I let you all down.

[CJohn]

Did someone complained?

I have my answer

[The Dark Alfred]

I don't see any problem with that. You're an honest man baumer, so when you changed your answer it wasn't because you got it wrong, it was because what you posted was wrong. We only have to worry about our predictions, you have to deal with all the answers every week, so clearly you have less time to spend with the actual predictions.So what I suggest is to let us decide. Make a poll whether you should be part of the game or not. If the result is above 80% that you should carry on playing, I think it's a yes.

[baumer]

I appreciate that Alfred. But this is a final decision. I cheated, there is no two ways about it. It doesn't matter why it happened, I did. So I'm going to stay out of it. It'll just make things a lot better, for me as well. It's okay for you guys to be mad at me. I deserve it.

[CJohn]

I am not. I would do the same thing

[baumer]

Ok, thanks Cjohn, that made me laugh.

[tawasal]

That's just BS punishment baumer and I don't like it, because you don't deserve it even if you cheated as game creator, none of us do. I suggest people back me up in saying that a better punishment will be that you lose those points you earned at the time you cheated and it should be legit for everyone else who does cheat. I am not really liking the game if this goes on. And could be possible that I lose interrest and pull my self off too.

[CJohn]

I am pretty sure that what happened here is that Baumer edited his posts after the Deadline. We can't do that because it shows that we did it. He can because he is a mod.I agree with tawasal in the lose points thing.

[acsc1312]

:rolleyes: It's a game, people. Confront the person directly. I'm sure Baumer would have given 4th place a prize anyway if he would've been top 3. I commend you for posting the reasoning, Baumer. I still love the game to death, and hate that you have to leave it because of something like this.