This is like, in soccer matches, the referee giving red cards but without any bad consequences for the team when a player commits a penalty foul (as for example the removal of the player from the match or awarding a free kick to the opposing team). 
Prove me wrong.
Chess.com writes:
What does Chess.com recommend that we do/think about cheating?
Forget about it! If you are rated below 2000, you are NOT going to encounter a lot of cheaters If you are rated above 2000, rest assured that we are always checking top players and evolving our detection methods Enjoy your chess, tell us if you have concerns about a given member, and let US worry about the cheaters!this reply is directed to the chess playing public in general, but the WL is a tournament where a draw can make a big difference to the outcome of the team match. What's more of a couple "wins" of a cheater!
Please direct your suggestions to chess.com and how they report the outcome of team matches. The World League will abide by the results provided by chess.com.
You can make your suggestions here in this forum:
http://www.chess.com/forum/category/suggestions
Dear World League Staff,
I strongly appeal the decision of the WL administrators to leave the points as is if chess.com detects cheating and removes the players account. In our team's situation, we are playing a very close round 1 match where the two points in question will change the result of the match score from a loss to a win. With only 8 matches per year, this is going to significantly alter the final standings for our team. Obviously this is a topic that many of the world league members feel strongly about since a forum thread had to be created due to the large number of posts on the main page. Please reconsider your position on this.
Sincerely,
Billy Willson
I support Billy's appeal!
This is possible to be done in a very easy way, only onnce or 2 or 3 times (at the end of the season and after, let's say.. round 3..and round 6 considering that we have 8 rounds)
@Daws: Even if chess.com would agree that a recalculation is needed.. you know that would require time to implement..
Imagine if a match is won by a team that has most of the points won by cheaters! Or if a team match is very balanced and one team wins by accumulating more points from cheaters in the remaining games.
Please reconsider this, for the sake of the competition!
I don't claim to be expressing the opinion of our team, but personally I would support the (fair) claim to update the results of a team match, if the account is officially closed by chess.com for cheating. I agree though that it's not easy and is time consuming.
On the other hand, chess.com closes accounts also for "bad words" (I have once said "oh sh*t" in a live game chat and I was seriously warned, that my account might be closed if I continue). Maybe also for some other things that I'm not aware of.
So, IMHO, the results of team matches should be updated only in case of account being closed for cheating, and not in other cases.
Fair games to all of you,
Arsen Drambyan
Please use your time to appeal to chess.com to change the way they score team matches. If they feel that changing the result of a team match is the correct approach, then we will use the results published by chess.com. There was an unbelievable amount of time wasted in calculating and recalculating results last year and that will not be repeated.
If the big effort required is the main reason for not doing the recalculation, then let someone ( or a group of volunteers) who is willing to help to do it..If among you, the WL Staff, there is no one willing to. Simple.
I am sure that we can easily find players willing to help.
I find any other reasons for not doing it as not justified.
Since we did it last year and some recalculations were crucial for certain teams (matches were considered lost for WL even if the chess.com score is showing the other team as the winner!) I cannot accept this change just because for someone it's too much time to waste.
Let someone else do it.
I agree with unu 100%. It looks like our match score for round 1 will be 50-52 in favor of the cheating team. By changing the points it would be 52-50 in favor of our team. I can't imagine this would be that difficult for WL admins to change. How about this... Could WL change the score only if it changes the result of the match? This would greatly reduce the number of changes that would have to be made since it only applies to close matches. Reactions?
Some other points to consider:
How do we know the player was actually cheating in these games? Chess.com no longer states the reason for account closure on the player pages. It just simply states that the account was closed. So every account closure would have to be checked against the list of caught cheaters. Go and try to find a player on that list, there is no search function and they are not sorted. Then how do you know if they were caught cheating in live games or in online chess? You don't.
There are also known issues on the team match page that all account closures are not shown with the icon beside their name. Take the first pair in this match as an example: http://www.chess.com/groups/team_match.html?id=73962
Now you have to go through every player in every match to ensure you catch all account closures and cross check aginst the cheater list.
Then we have the issues of timeouts. Who should get the points in a cheater vs a timeout. What about 2 cheaters and one time out?
Now that you have all of that sorted out. Are there any volunteers for this job?
In all seriousness if you are interested in helping the World League Directors on an ongoing basis, please send me a message. We are always looking for some good volunteers to help out.
I will fully support a change in the outcome of a team match due to cheating if Chess.com implements the scoring adjustment.
Thanks for your reply Daws. You bring up some good points. In answer to those points, I would suggest ignoring any closed accounts unless there is controversy. In the case of controversy, like in our match I mentioned above, I'm sure members of the team being unjustly awarded a loss would be glad to cross-check the cheaters list and send the info to the WL administrator who would change the score. It would not take much take much work to research this and I would happily do this for WL if the admins lack the time. I would be willing to bet that of all the WL matches, very few would have results reversed due to cheating. Of the hundreds of accounts closed each year, only a couple would have to be cross-checked due to cheaters getting a win in a match that they shouldn't have won. Let me know if you want the info regarding the player who cheated in our match and I will send you a screen-shot of his name on the list. I'm sure we can both agree that the WL should be a fair and just league and that we all of us will do what we can to have valid match results. Again, let me know if I can help out with this.
Thanks,
Billy
Daws,
I have requested the change to the chess.com suggestions forum with no response. As much as I would like them to make this change, I do not think it is going to happen unless admins from WL also appoach chess.com about this issue. That being said, I volunteer my services to WL to make any changes in any controveral match involving cheating. Just let me know what needs to be done for me to become an admin. Thanks.
Guys,
First of all let's refrain from phrases like "the cheating team", because it's not fair towards the rest honest part of the team.
Secondly, what about this: The team, that wants the result of a game changed finds and presents the necessary facts. As an answer admins of the team "defending" the result are notified to present their answer (some time limits should be defined and no iterations on this phase). The final result of the match is then decided by WL just by checking the presented facts.
Makes sense?
Cheers,
Arsen
P.S. And yes... the result of "cheater vs timeout" should still be 0 for the cheater. ;)
Arsen,
But when does this process end? A week later another cheater could be banned, then the result changes again.
And why do you award points to a player that times out on the first move? Surely the cheater did not fire up his engine to play 1.e4.
Based on the new cheating detection they have in place now, over 2000 players have been banned this year already. I think we are running down a slippery slope if we try and judge the matches ourselves. Why not do as chess.com says and let them worry about the cheating. It they deem a team match score to be adjusted then we can abide by their rules. It is not as clear cut as you may think.
But I do appreciate your constructive suggestion. We have considered some sort of appeals process for match results. I'm still not sure we have enough information to make an informed decision on the matches. Only chess.com has all the info. I still think that is a more appropriate place for the concerned parties to be lobbying for change.
Regards,
Daws
For those interested, here is the link to the related thread on the Site Feedback/Suggestion forum:
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/suggestions/changing-match-scores-due-to-cheating
Perhaps if more people responded in that thread, then chess.com may be motivated to make a change.
Fair enough. Thanks for discussing this with us.
Hello Daws,
Thanks for your answer and thanks for the link, I'll take a look and add comments there.
The easy part: Even if the cheater didn't fire any engine to play e4, they should IMHO be the loser, because when the account is closed chess.com doesn't analyse all the games (maybe the cheater cheated only in half of games). They just close the account and thus state all the games as invalid/lost (even if the opponent timed out) as a punishment.
It's a valid question when does this process end... Let's assume the results of a match can be appealed within 2 or 3 months (because maybe some user started cheating later), but not later than a week before the end of the WL season.
Thanks for your efforts,
Arsen
The World League will not be adjusting the team match results in the 2012 season. We will use the match result published by chess.com.
There are numerous time consuming logistical challenges that were encountered when attempting to adjust results in the past. We will follow the chess.com advice and leave the cheating detection and resolution to them. Currently chess.com does not retroactively change the outcome of team matches.
If at some point in the future chess.com decides to retroactively adjust team match results due to cheater participation, then we will use the end of season results published by chess.com.
Chess.com writes:
What does Chess.com recommend that we do/think about cheating?
Note also that, to keep our regular forums free of a subject that tends to cause unnecessary anxiety, we have createda special group forum for discussions of cheatingin online chess. Please restrict your comments on the subject (if any!) to that group forum. Thank you!
[edit] Please note that effective June, 2012 CM ilmago has joined the WL Directors and is providing us the manpower to review close matches for adjustments due to caught cheaters.