I find the idea of posting in KTL for a free game from an unranked player annoying.
It's a room for teachers and learners who offer to teach or be taught.
The owner of the room clearly states in the introduction:
Welcome to the KTL.
- Players of ALL strengths are welcome.
- Please teach those who are weaker and in return someone stronger will teach you.
- It helps if you post your rank when asking for or offering help.
- It also helps if you load a game or post a game offer in addition to just asking for review or teaching game in chat ("If you load it, they will come")
If I were looking for a teaching game, I'd go there expecting someone clearly stronger to play a game and give me instructions. Imagine my shock if I accepted a "teaching" game from an unranked player who later reveals that he is much weaker than I am.
Or perhaps I thought I was giving a "teaching" game and it turns out that my opponent was sandbagging to insult my "advice" as evidence of my stupidity and lack of understanding of the game.
Would that be the type of atmosphere KTL would like to promote? I doubt it.
If an unranked player asked "free game anyone?", I'd also have a question in my mind whether the player actually knows what the purpose of the room is. Is he a newbie just in the room by chance? Will he run away right after the game ends? Will he escape in the middle of the game?
The uncertainty would make me weary of accepting such a proposal for a free game in this room.
I'd also want to choose the gap between the teacher and the student relationship. I might not want someone too strong to play with as I want to have a better chance of playing well in the game. Or I might think I'm not strong enough to teach someone so closely ranked to myself.
As Mef pointed out, if you have been in the room quite a few times under different aliases, it may not be hard for people to notice or suspect the accounts as being from the same person who refuses to disclose their ranking but still wants a game. And if it keeps happening, perhaps someone there would complain to an admin.
Mef wrote:Even on a guest account it can be pretty easy to get an idea if a player has been on KGS before. The fact that you found your way to the KGS Teaching Ladder, put up a game offer and had a rank range in the notes means that it's pretty reasonable to infer that you have been on KGS before and probably have a pretty good idea of you rank. Along those lines it makes sense that someone would request you mention your rank (After all it is listed in the room message, and since people rarely seem to read that, it is quite common for users in the KTL to mention those bullet points as a default response).
Now, as far as admins go, one thing you must keep in mind is that admins aren't exactly your regular every day KGS user, these are generally people who have spent way too much time on KGS already, and much of it is spent watching the social interactions taking place. The end result is that there are some who are quite adept at identifying users based on their behavior. One example - there a few perennial troublemakers who will choose gibberish for guest names then proceed to go curse out their opponents in game. Some of the admins can distinguish these people from each other simply based on the type of gibberish used in the guest names. They can also pick the names out of a user list and check in on the game being played to make sure someone isn't getting cursed out.
With that in mind, what will we know about you is: 1)You put up a game in the KTL (This already cuts us down to maybe 400 people if not less), 2) Time of day (This will put us closer to 100 people), 3) Approximate rank range based on game offer (This will probably narrow it down to maybe a dozen people), 4) Who else is logged on (this will probably be 10 of those 12). This is before we get into trying to guess based on behavior, name choice, chat style, etc. Considering all of this, it shouldn't be terribly hard for an experienced KGS user who spends their time people watching on the server to figure out who you are (another anecdote - there are admins who have had personal/playing accounts figured out by users in less than a day). Immediately assuming that they are snooping your personal information might be jumping the gun.
I really don't see how you can infer that just because an admin says "it's better to put your rank, as you should know" or "setup a game and they will come, as you should know with as many accounts as you have", that he had breached your privacy by looking up your IP. You do make an accusation for such abuse, but there is no evidence that it happened and there is a reasonable case for why it does not have to be as you envision it to be.
If say someone was really annoyed by unranked people asking for games at around the same time every day, and they complained to the admin in private, would a statement from the admin in public to remedy the complaint be unwarranted?
