Has XSV changed the face of tournament Paintball forever?

[Robbo]

As I see it, the problem with cheating starts out with a very small minority, it's effect is infectious and insidious.

There is one well known head of a team and personality who has for years been at the forefront of every type of cheating known to man and snake.
His will to win supersedes every other consideration or imperative he has, leastwise in his paintball life.
He will endorse, advocate, engineer every goddamn facet of cheating he can get away with.
If we earmark this individual as alpha one then we can pretty much trace a line of infection that spreads like wildfire from the west coast eastwards across the world...sound dramatic?
Maybe, and the only reason I am selecting him out of a very small pack is because I know for a fact he has indulged and heavily influenced a major part of the pro scene from long back.

Now, guys who played against him and his team had a stark choice....wait for somebody to catch him (ha fackin ha) or do they follow his lead?
These people who are now faced with this moral dilemma (and with some, it wasn't so much a moral dilemma as a practical one) begin to stack up like dominoes around the pro circuit....you know what's coming...
As one goes over, it brings the next down and as the momentum grows, so does the infection.

Eventually, we end up where we are at now.
Most of the guys and teams who cheat now aren't necessarily congenital cheats, they have just responded to what's going on around them.
In their heads, if they couldn't beat them they joined them and any moral considerations were thrown out the window like a cigarette butt.
Can I blame them?
Nah, not really, I really can't, I despise their weakness but when the rules committees and leagues are more worried about pissing off the industry than they are about safe and proper play, we are in deep, deep sh!te.

I ain't no saint, but what's happening now truly sickens me where we have industry complicity, a rule book that is unenforceable and a rampant philosophy of cheating that has embraced so much of the NPPL pro bracket that it beggars belief how these people can describe themselves as sportsmen.

I seem to be suggesting that this is all down to one man, it ain't...it's down to all of us involved, I tried making a stand, it got me nowhere, in fact, look where it got me

We need to grow bollocks, some real bollocks, not a couple of M and M's as we have seen thus far.......we need to get whatever it takes as far as rules, technology and the will to enforce....... anything less is useless.

 

[Wadidiz]

That.

Teej, m'dawg! Typical sensational journalism, quoting out of context. Don't you have any morals?

"That" was a preface to what followed:

I'm just being realistic and saying that many if not most people don't have them [morals] and it would be absurdly naive to believe we can preach paintball players into playing cleanly, fairly and safely according to the rules.

That, mon ami, is the where most of the PB world is today.

Then I must beg to differ that ALL the PB world is complicit in the gun cheat issue. There's been at least a couple of posts here about how PSP, Millenniium, CFOA, PA and some other leagues have dealt with the gun cheating very effectively. That kinda leaves one major league, doesn't it?

Are we writing the same language?

 

[Baca Loco]

So in your world it's OK to abdicate personal responsibility? If the rules don't stop it and I can't be caught, then off I go...

Disgraceful.

Okay, this re-hash is beginning to get my attention as a couple of interesting notions have come up.

Geez, Maestro. IF the rules don't stop it why is it "wrong" in a sporting environment?

What exactly is the morality of sport? And as an individual participant what is anyone's priority of responsibilities?
Any game or competition is defined by its rules and as Steve has pointed out this applies to the conceptual and the defacto rules whether one likes it or not. If the rationale is that one simply doesn't break the rules--which strikes me as a rather poor basis for any morality but that's neither here nor there I suppose--what does one do with unenforceable (or unenforced) or incomprehensible or antiquated rules? Take for example the gun rules of the NPPL. For starters the rules as written don't acknowledge current accepted technology and continue to insist on the no longer valid predicate of one pull one shot. [And if you want to argue this please start another thread but you've no leg to stand on.] Next it is abundantly clear that whatever the NPPL may say they in fact and practice have accepted (and tacitly approved) of guns that do not meet their own (incomplete) rules. So what is the player supposed to do?

 

[TJ Lambini]

Okay, this re-hash is beginning to get my attention as a couple of interesting notions have come up.

Geez, Maestro. IF the rules don't stop it why is it "wrong" in a sporting environment?

That's weak and you know it...there's no rule saying you can't slip sleeping tablets into your opponents' Kool Aid, or cut their hamstrings with a rusty knife, or call in an airstrike, is there?

The NPPL's rules are weak and poorly unforced - and unenforcable - and this is an issue and a big one. However, it does not excuse players using boards they know are illegal by the (albeit poorly conceived and executed) rules.

 

[TJ Lambini]

Teej, m'dawg! Typical sensational journalism, quoting out of context. Don't you have any morals?

None whatsoever...but my point was valid anyhoo, as was merely stating that your expressed personal morality was at odds with the one expressed by most people in this sports - by their actions, if not their words.

 

[Baca Loco]

1--That's weak and you know it...there's no rule saying you can't slip sleeping tablets into your opponents' Kool Aid, or cut their hamstrings with a rusty knife is there?

The NPPL's rules are weak and poorly unforced - and unenforcable - and this is an issue and a big one. However, it does not excuse players using boards they know are illegal by the (albeit poorly conceived and executed) rules.

Pedantry is Missy's job.
I qualified the question by maintaining the context of a sporting environment and you jump to cutting hamstrings? That's avoidance of the issue. It's like the deadman's walk. The Eurotrash used to think it was a bold move while most Americans found it gutless and demeaning yet in either case if the rules don't preclude it there is literally nothing wrong with using the tactic.
So when is a rule really a rule? When it's written down however poorly and unenforceably or when it actually plays a role in defining the game being contested? On what basis is a rule that has no force to be recognized or is it emminently more sensible to play by the rules that actually exist?

And who is really responsible? The players who play the game or the peeps who have the power to change it?

 

[TJ Lambini]

Pedantry is Missy's job.

And who is really responsible? The players who play the game or the peeps who have the power to change it?

1.It's a jobshare.

2. Both.

And over and above rules, there is also the spirit of the game, sportsmanship...y'know, laregly outmoded concepts that some of us still hold dear.

I'm not disagreeing tha NPPL is at fault here - but that does not mean some players ain't doing stuff they know they shouldn't be.

 

[Chicago]

So in your world it's OK to abdicate personal responsibility? If the rules don't stop it and I can't be caught, then off I go...

Disgraceful.

What's disgraceful about that? If the NFL suddenly stopped calling penalties for holding, would you not allow your team to hold because of 'personal responsibility', even though the league was letting your opponents use holding on you, and it was making it extremely difficult for you to win?

You can't blame the players for this. If you make a rule and then let anyone who wants to break the rule, it's stupid to expect people to yield a huge advantage to cheaters because of 'personal responsibility' when you won't excercise the responsibility of actually enforcing the rule you made.

If you make a rule and let other people break it, I must choose to break it, and that's not my fault for not deciding to let cheaters beat me, it's your fault for letting cheaters break the rule in the first place.

 

[TJ Lambini]

What's disgraceful about that? If the NFL suddenly stopped calling penalties for holding, would you not allow your team to hold because of 'personal responsibility', even though the league was letting your opponents use holding on you, and it was making it extremely difficult for you to win?

You can't blame the players for this. If you make a rule and then let anyone who wants to break the rule, it's stupid to expect people to yield a huge advantage to cheaters because of 'personal responsibility' when you won't excercise the responsibility of actually enforcing the rule you made.

If you make a rule and let other people break it, I must choose to break it, and that's not my fault for not deciding to let cheaters beat me, it's your fault for letting cheaters break the rule in the first place.

I am not denying the league is at fault, but your holding analogy is weak, as there patently are still penalties for gun-related infractions as players are still banned for dodgy guns.

 

[Chicago]

I'm not disagreeing tha NPPL is at fault here - but that does not mean some players ain't doing stuff they know they shouldn't be.

But NPPL is primarily at fault. We can admonish players forever and it will never fix the problem. Or we can fix the rules and the enforcement, and the problem will be solved.

Since NPPL is the only entity capable of fixing the problem, NPPL is the only entity at fault for the failure to fix, and thus the existence of, the problem.