OOAK Table Tennis Forum

As I'm sure some of you have noticed, we've had some 'lively' discussions in the Experimental Section lately, which are usually related to differences of opinion on whether certain practices (treating of pips / tuning) are acceptable or not. As some of you may have noticed, there are quite some difference of opinion of what cheating is, and you can read about this in the Cheating, yes or no? thread. Some believe anything that breaks against the rules is cheating, some feel it's only cheating if it's intentional or there is some advantage to be gained from it, some feel it's OK to break the rules if they are stupid or unfair, and the list goes on.

The purpose of the experimental section was:

As a reputable forum, I think it's important for us to show (to our current and new members/readers) that we follow the rules and do not encourage people to cheat, but with such a wide ranging opinion on what constitues cheating, this is not easy.

Do we want to take a hard-line approach and stop people here talking about anything that could be used to cheat, or do we give them the freedom to talk about it, as long as it's made clear that using the practice is cheating? Some may support closing down the 'Experimental section' completely, as all topics could potentiall be used for cheating, whereas others find even threads about 'how to cheat' useful and interesting, even though they may never use them themselves.

This is OUR forum, so I'm hoping we can decide together which is the best way forwards... I've created a poll here so that people can vote, and hopefuly we can have some good discussion on the way forwards...

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I'd be against any type of censorship. As I posted in the other thread:
Also:

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+1

I hate this PC world that we live in and the creeping sanitisation of our lives!

We will all be running around inside a wheel mouse-like if we do not protect our freedoms!

Big brother! Be careful what you wish for!!!!!!!!!!

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I find it quite enlightening to see what people can get up too. I think it shows the futility of some rules which (imo) if they can't be enforced shouldn't be in place. This is why I'm in favour of allowing Tuners (non VOC) and allowing FLP's, to create a level palying field for all (no I don't see this as the same as anabolic steroids in athletics as they aren't physically harming the user).

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Another one bites the dust.

My call would be to continue the section but to disallow any reference to methods of disguising treatments. I can see the fun in producing setups that do different things; for example tuning the life out of a rubber and enjoying a whizz-bang! session on a club night, and also for LP players to silicon coat pips for massive reversal to challenge their mates to loop 3 in a row. Some experiments (such as blade modifications or using different VoC free glues) may well even be legal in all circumstances. That's all fine by me, but none of that needs a discussion of how to pass ENEZ, or remove 'click', smells (of oils etc), or how to get low friction rubbers past a sharp umpire unless it is being used for illicit purposes, does it?

I think the section DOES have a valid purpose, and who knows, one of the ideas may even one day become a commercial product.

For me two wrongs do not make a right so even if my opponent is boosting/gluing/whatever it would not encourage me to do so, nor if I were a pips player would it encourage me to treat my pips.

Those who are outraged about censorship, please consider this. There may be (and hopefully are) juniors joining the forum. What sort of image do you want to project? I have 3 children who now play and I would not want them to think it is OK to cheat.

Kudos to Alex for asking the question btw.

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

I second every word of so_devo's and Speedplay's posts.

There is no reason whatsoever to remove the section. It is interesting and has a valid purpose, IMHO. However, if the purpose is solely to find and try experimental methods for personal or scientific interest I can not see the necessity to include specific instructions on how to avoid getting caught when using unauthorised equipment. That would only serve one purpose and that is to avoid detection in situations where it is checked, i.e. at competitions, an environment where these experiments are not allowed.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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Although I am against playing with illegal equipment in sanctioned tournaments (and don't even use such equipment in recreational play because I don't need it for my style), I don't think we should be getting into this dangerous territory of drawing fine lines about what constitutes merely making pips frictionless and what constitutes disguising such treatment. For instance, is a description of a particular method of treatment that's very hard to catch inherently a conversation about disguising treatment, or does someone have to make specific reference to disguising treatment for it to count as prohibited? How specific does the reference have to be? Plus, who gets to judge whether the line has been crossed, a moderator such as brabhamista, who is more on the anti-such-discussion side, or a moderator such as mynamenotbob, who is more on the pro-such-discussion side? I'm sure their instincts would be different.

In addition, numerous people have remarked that one thing they're impressed with about this forum is that we're able to disagree without being insulting, and the result is a lively discussion with all points of view ably and intelligently represented. I'd much rather let that continue to be the case than to have one side simply silence the other in this particular debate. The reality, moreover, is that a high-level close-to-the-table blocking player like Pushblocker -- who has been very willing to discuss methods for treating pips and disguising treatment -- adds a lot to this forum with his knowledge and experience, and if he (and others like him) are not permitted to discuss these topics here, they'll just go elsewhere to discuss them. I also fear that if we started severely censuring or banning people or anything like that for discussing such topics, the healthy, lively debate that we've thus far had the privilege of enjoying would rapidly deteriorate into acrimonious accusations being hurled back and forth. In addition, Pushblocker has also argued that if people flout the ITTF's rules on this, that may encourage the ITTF to CHANGE those rules, and whether you agree or disagree with him (whether on empirical or ethical grounds), I think you have to respect his viewpoint as, at least, rational. As a logical extension of that viewpoint, it might be argued that even DISCUSSIONS about how to easily avoid detection might lead the ITTF to realize even more than they now do how ineffective some of its rules are (and while I'm personally against cheating, I'm all for discussions of HOW to cheat because I DO think they might influence the ITTF in the direction we want). We know that Adham is a forum member, and there are likely others with power who've seen forum posts.

Finally, as for the potentially harmful effect on "juniors" reading these posts, first, I doubt too many juniors are playing with long pips, much less playing with long pips FOR BLOCKING purposes, and much less reading about how to TREAT them to make them frictionless in an online table tennis forum. Second, we're not exactly talking about how to commit murder and get away with it here. We're talking about how to defy an ITTF rule that virtually all of us agree is stupid. I think the best message that can be sent to a junior is not to hide the knowledge from them and pretend that no one is cheating, but rather, to make the knowledge freely available and to tell them, "Okay, here's how to cheat, but many of us feel like winning by gaining a competitive advantage using such methods is unethical and not something you should be proud of in any way, so now you have all the information available to you; you choose what you're going to do, and we hope you make the right choice." If any younger players are reading this, they're in all likelihood going to be 15 or 16, not 10. They're at an age where they should be mature enough to start thinking critically about decisions like this, and I don't think we're going to improve anything if we ban certain kinds of discussions to make it look like no cheating is going on when we KNOW it is, and those same juniors are much more likely to be exposed to this stuff -- especially gluing/boosting -- in their clubs rather than in this forum, and I actually think there's an advantage to having an open discussion here rather than in private at some club, because here, when someone expresses a viewpoint that seems to condone cheating, someone else will immediately chime in to offer counterarguments, while at the club, when one 15 year old takes another aside and shows him how he speed glues, it's not like there's someone responsible standing by to remind them to look before they leap. In fact, this is the entire concept behind the freedom of speech: it's better to let a thousand flowers bloom and let viewpoints we disagree with be debated and, if necessary, dismissed in public after a full discussion than to ban those viewpoints from being heard and let them flourish in secret, where they'll be discussed only among their proponents, with no counterarguments ever being offered and no public light ever being shined to expose mistaken views.

For those reasons, I think we should permit free discussion in the Experimental section, including discussion about how to avoid detection. (Plus, I find such discussions pretty interesting from a purely scientific standpoint.)

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I. Re-Impact Tachi Plus 2019; FH: Nittaku FastArc G-1 1.4mm; BH: Saviga 77 Monster OX
II. Re-Impact Turbo; FH: Spinlord Sandwind 1.5mm; BH: DMS Kamikaze OX
III. Re-Impact Smart; FH: TSP Spinpips RED 2.1mm; BH: Dr. Neubauer Gangster OX
IV. Sauer & Troger Firestarter; FH: Spinlord Waran 1.8mm; BH: Giant Dragon Snowflake OX

I certainly wasn't suggesting he supports cheating. I just said that he's pro-open discussion. Specifically, my sentence from the earlier post was, "Plus, who gets to judge whether the line has been crossed, a moderator such as brabhamista, who is more on the anti-such-discussion side, or a moderator such as mynamenotbob, who is more on the pro-such-discussion side?"

More generally, Speedplay, I understand what you're saying that not just moderators might participate in the decision about whether a post is about avoiding detection, but that's, in some ways, even worse, because you'll have 20 people exchanging heated remarks about whether some other member should be censured or banned or whatever (which is a topic far more difficult to be civil about than the more abstract discussions we've generally had), and I DO think it's a fine line, because if someone is describing a method of treating pips that's obviously difficult to detect (but they don't specifically say, "and, uh, it's difficult to detect") is that a discussion about avoiding detection or just a discussion about treating pips? I can totally imagine circumstances where it'll be hard to judge, and I think it would be silly to force those wanting to discuss such topics to use double talk to avoid the obvious implications of what they're saying.

Also, I fall back on my more general points I made in my last post about the positive value of having an open discussion about these things in public rather than banning it.

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I. Re-Impact Tachi Plus 2019; FH: Nittaku FastArc G-1 1.4mm; BH: Saviga 77 Monster OX
II. Re-Impact Turbo; FH: Spinlord Sandwind 1.5mm; BH: DMS Kamikaze OX
III. Re-Impact Smart; FH: TSP Spinpips RED 2.1mm; BH: Dr. Neubauer Gangster OX
IV. Sauer & Troger Firestarter; FH: Spinlord Waran 1.8mm; BH: Giant Dragon Snowflake OX

I'd like to see some porn on it.

I'm open to having such a discussion, but should the discussion itself be undetectable? Perhaps, in addition to the "Experimental" section, we can have an "Undetectable" section, where posts never actually get displayed to anyone at all.

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I. Re-Impact Tachi Plus 2019; FH: Nittaku FastArc G-1 1.4mm; BH: Saviga 77 Monster OX
II. Re-Impact Turbo; FH: Spinlord Sandwind 1.5mm; BH: DMS Kamikaze OX
III. Re-Impact Smart; FH: TSP Spinpips RED 2.1mm; BH: Dr. Neubauer Gangster OX
IV. Sauer & Troger Firestarter; FH: Spinlord Waran 1.8mm; BH: Giant Dragon Snowflake OX

I think Traditional Tradesman is spot on. A few of the threads in the experimental section are a little bit more edgy than thousands of others here, but it's an interesting discussion and in no way means we condone cheating. I think it's one of the forum's strongest features that we can freely discuss and learn about issues that affect the game without having information suppressed or censored. It would be disappointing if the forum were to lose that freedom. In any event, it won't be long before we're talking about other topics and this discussion fades out like all the other ones do. Hopefully the ITTF will reinstate frictionless rubbers next month and make this whole issue a moot point.

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The MNNB Blog has had some pretty amazing stuff lately. Just click this text to check it out. | My OOAK Interview
Table Tennis Video Links: itTV | laola1.tv | ttbl | fftt | Challenger Series | mnnb-tv

My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Great discussions guys, I really appreciate the honest feedback.

I'm really pleased to see that almost everyone (who voted and/or posted) does support this section. I do think so_devo makes a valid point, and I also think it's important for the forum to be seen as one that supports fair play and not intentional breaking of the rules.

How about the following:
We leave the section as it is, and continue to allow the free flow of information and discussion. However when a post is made that discusses how to intentionally cheat/break rules, a note must be made within that post, indicating that 'we' (as a forum community) do not support cheating or intentional breaking of the rules. If a post does not include this, the moderators will add this standard note.

This will not only make it clear to new or young members, but also makes it clear to any ITTF officials/members that might read this, and who we would want to participate. We want to show these people that we welcome them here, and that we respect the rules that they have put into place, even though we don't always agree with them.

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

So... will this mean that others are free to criticise the cheating in those threads?
Or is it to be a limited "open discussion"?

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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I think the discussion should be open, but other forum guidelines would obviously still apply. This means anyone can openly critize the method, as long as it does not get personal, and does not de-rail or ruin the thread.

If anyone has an alternative way of dealing with this, or would like to discuss specific examples, we can discuss how to deal with there here...

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

I asked the question "Why is it necessary to add specific information on how to make the treatment undetectable?" It is clear from the opinions in the thread that I highjacked it and ruined it. My offense is well documented in the thread: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=12050

Since the rules apply to me as well as anyone else, it is time to apply them, IMHO.
I await my punishment.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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