[Arbitrage] Les suspensions après disqualification, comment ça marche ?

Dear fellow judges,

It has been recently brought to my attention that the process of post-DQ Investigations wasn’t clear enough, neither to judges nor players. Hence I felt this was worth clarifying so that:

1- You know about the process.

2- You can share that information with your players if they have questions.

Yes, this means that you can talk freely about the content of this email. We, of the Investigations Committee, want to be as transparent as possible, and more importantly, we feel it’s extremely important that players who are disqualified know what is going to happen to them.

*What’s an Investigation?*

An investigation is the direct consequence of any disqualification issued at a sanctioned event.

Each and every disqualification should be reported in the Judge Center (http://judge.wizards.com/investigations.aspx) as soon as possible, to be reviewed by the Investigations Committee, who will determine whether further action (a suspension) is necessary.

*What is the Investigations Committee?*

We’re in charge of reviewing all the Disqualifications reported in the Judge Center and make recommendations about follow-up. Then Wizards of the Coast chooses whether to follow that recommendation or not.

Evaluating actions performed by an individual is hard. That’s why it is a committee rather than one person who’s in charge of determining the outcome of each and every disqualification. Having several persons reviewing the same cases decreases the chance of mistakes.

Therefore, the Investigations Committee is made of 7 Magic Judges from all around the world, fluent in almost all of the major Magic languages.

* *

*Why do we suspend players?*

We are well aware that suspending a player can be very important in that player’s life. However, we want Magic to remain a clean game where each and every player can play in a fair environment where rules exist and are not intentionally broken.

Making mistakes often happens. It’s even possible to intentionally break the rules without knowing one did (the most common example is a player offering to roll a die to his opponent). Even is this can lead to a disqualification, this is not worth a suspension.

On the contrary, a player who intentionally and knowingly whose to break the rules is a detriment to the tournament scene. He makes the game experience worse for all those who play in the same tournament. At that point, we believe he needs to remain off the tournament scene for a while, so we can protect the honest players while that player has time to rethink his views on how Magic works.

*How do we make decisions?*

To determine which action, if any, should be taken and the length of the suspension, if applicable, we have a Suspension Guide. This is reviewed periodically to handle new situations we may discover.

The Guide is based upon the following idea: Penalties in tournaments are based on the tournament REL, but Investigations are based on a player’s intent to cheat.

Please note that the Guide is not a public document and will never be published.

A couple details about our philosophy:

- If a player did not know what he did was very bad, he cannot receive a suspension.

- If a player knew he was about to do something bad but did it anyway, he might be suspended.

- If a player came to an event prepared to cheat and got caught, the suspension will be very long.

The actions we recommend are:

- No Action: We believe that the DQ was educational enough

- Warning Letter: We want to stress that the player’s behaviour was very inappropriate and that, if repeated, there will be an automatic
suspension.

- Suspension: The player committed the infraction knowingly. He intended to break the rules. He’s a detriment to the tournament scene.

On top of that, we know that context matters! Therefore we have a list of aggravating and mitigating circumstances that can affect a general recommendation listed in the Suspension Guide.

Last, but not least, if the disqualification was the result of a very close call, the player will not be suspended. We know that judges sometimes have to make tough decisions, and may still have some doubts. We do not want that judge to feel responsible, directly or indirectly, for a suspension when the disqualification was not clear-cut.

*When do we make decisions?*

We do not expedite cases, unless it comes to Assault. Acting too fast when making such important decisions only leads to making mistakes:
Misunderstanding a situation and issuing a suspension inappropriately would be very bad. So here's the process:

- Each [Month], on the 1st, all pending cases are extracted from the Judge Center.

- The 7 members of the Committee have 3 weeks from then to make their recommendations.

- The last week is saved for debating problematic cases, either because the Committee has not reached agreement or the case is not yet
covered in the Guidelines.

- At the end of the month, our recommendations are submitted to WotC. It takes about 15 days to process these recommendations. Players are notified of the decision by email.
*That’s why it is extremely important to collect players’ emails when issuing a DQ.*

In total, it takes 45 days from the end of the month until a player knows the result of the Investigation.

*How can a player appeal the decision?*

Players can appeal our decision. To appeal and get the opportunity for a new decision, they need to provide new and relevant elements. Appeals are to be done through http://wizards.custhelp.com/

[...]

Kevin Desprez

DCI Judge level 4, Leader of the Investigations Committee

keya a écrit:interessant

mais en regardant la liste 2 noms m'ont assez surpris : Wafo tapa et Matignon quelqu'un sait pourquoi ils ont été banni??

keya a écrit:interessant

mais en regardant la liste 2 noms m'ont assez surpris : Wafo tapa et Matignon quelqu'un sait pourquoi ils ont été banni??

We regret to report that the New Phyrexia spoilers posted prior to April 25 were done so without authorization of Wizards of the Coast, and that the sources of the leak have been discovered. We have received confessions from both Guillaume Matignon and Guillaume Wafo-Tapa describing what happened and apologizing for their actions. Two other players—Martial Moreau and David Gauthier—have also been identified as being involved.

As you all know, the "God Book" contains every card from an upcoming set, and this confidential material is trusted to very few people in order to keep the contents concealed until the proper time. As a writer for Lotus Noir Magazine, Matignon had access to the book in order to write about the upcoming release. He broke the trust of Lotus Noir and Wizards by sharing this information with his friends, and ultimately spoiling the set well in advance of its release. [...]

Unfortunately when we learn of things that harm the integrity of the game and of the Magic community, Wizards cannot stand by without action. Guillaume Matignon has been suspended from the DCI for three years. Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Martial Moreau, and David Gauthier have been suspended from the DCI until October 2012.

Discuté ici sur ce forum.
Notez que ces quatre suspensions ne sont pas passées par le comité et le processus discuté ici, qui ne concernent que les suspensions après disqualifications, bref ce qui a un lien avec les tournois.