Game against cheaters

If I'm playing rapid but berserk so the time control I play becomes blitz, then the result of the game still goes on my rapid rating (whether I won or lost, and whether the loss was over the board or on time).

The purpose of berserk is partly for the extra "point" in arenas but can also act as a handicap to your opponent if you've got a much weaker one. If used for that purpose, it might enhance the enjoyment of the game as a contest, but the effect on the rating will be slightly fake.

Arenas don't match you up by rating anyway. So perhaps all arenas should be unrated? But then the purpose of the rating is to give an indication as to how good you are, for regular matching. And a lot of players play the vast majority of their games in arenas.

@mcgoves said in #30:
> I just think we should stop calling them "refunds". It sends the wrong message.

That, and abolish the policy... it doesn't help matchmaking.

The ideal solution might actually be to recalculate rating changes of every game since a player played against a cheater as if that game was never played.

@GloriousSpeed said in #33:
> The ideal solution might actually be to recalculate rating changes of every game since a player played against a cheater as if that game was never played.

... and every game that those recalculated opponents played. And every game THEIR opponents played. And so on... Gets a little out-of-hand.

@mcgoves said in #34:
> ... and every game that those recalculated opponents played. And every game THEIR opponents played. And so on... Gets a little out-of-hand.

Maybe it does, but without this sort of calculation, ratings aren't Glicko-2 http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf
> To apply the rating algorithm, we treat a collection of games within a “rating period” to have occurred simultaneously. Players would have ratings, RD’s, and volatilities at the beginning of the rating period, game outcomes would be observed, and then updated ratings, RD’s and volatilities would be computed at the end of the rating period (which would then be used as the pre-period information for the subsequent rating period).