Hello. Some of you may recognize my name. I am the one, who in 2001, wrote an article about Cheating for the 'Zine. I used to play Diplomacy religiously, but over the years, got bored, and sometime between 2004-2006, I stopped altogether. It’s been at least 3 years since my last Diplomacy game. Recently, I stumbled across a political forum where Diplomacy was being played, and I signed up. I instantly became re-addicted. I recalled the incident and article from 2001 and wanted to see just what I had said. When I opened it up, I was shocked. I was surprised upon reading the article that I started playing Diplomacy a decade ago, as I was 14 at the time. I am 24 now. I have a full-time job and an apartment that I share with my roommate. That life seems a world away. I wanted to write both a clarification, and an update. I remember cheating. I remember why I cheated as well, and it was as I said at the time, just to get the game started, thinking someone would rather fill in a replacement than sign up to a game fresh. Of course, in my haste, I got caught. I made a bad decision and I paid for it by being banned. Officially, I was on a blacklist, and officially, the blacklist was just applied to one judge. Of course, other judges would pick it up and use it as well, I therefore became banned from a majority of games on the majority of judges. My cheating was in the Versailles variant by Martin Kennedy, and while I do recall apologizing to him personally, I wish to do so again here and now. Apparently, the judge keeper who I cheated on was Doug Massey, and I want to apologize to him as well, here and now. I don’t know if I had been asked to write the article or not, but I suspect I had been. If so, I’m shocked they accepted it since I spent half the thing complaining. In my list of “Gripes” I claimed that I had been the victim of a cheater; I don’t know if it’s true (I can’t remember that far back) but I suspect it was not true at all. I said I had planned to resign and not play two powers, and this is true, it was my plan. Re-reading the article, I cannot believe how much time I spent complaining in it. I look very foolish. I wanted to write what’s happened since then. Firstly, as my “a day in my life” suggested, something was just not right with me. I’ve since found out that I suffer from ADHD, and Depression. None of this excuses what I’ve done. (If I pull the emergency stop cord in the subway, the train will grind to a halt regardless of why I pulled it) At the time of the original article, I was in High School. Since then I went to University (and left due to lack of money/motivation), moved to the big city (Toronto) and landed a full time job as a Security Guard, something I’ve been doing now for 4 years. In that time I have grown, a lot. During that period I started, ran, and eventually watched die, a political simulation game online. It lasted for years before it died. As admin, moderator, and eventually player, I had to deal with cheaters. I’ve also played a number of other online games in the time, political and otherwise, and again, the prospect of cheating was always there. I even ran for office two times, but that’s not really important (except that I like to brag from time to time :) ) My last comment however, is something that many of you won’t expect, or see coming. The crux of my entire message to the zine was that I felt a lifetime ban, for any offence, was too harsh. In the years I ran the political simulation, I held to that, and still do. I personally unbanned (after 3 years) the person who tried to legally shut us down. Despite that, these are my opinions and my games. The Editor of the zine at the time himself said that he is “tough on first offenders”. Therefore, I humbly ask the judges to review that decision from all those years ago, and volunteer myself up to be placed back on the blacklist. I wish to return to playing Diplomacy, but do not want to do it with any secrets, I want to be 100% open. Should the judges decide that I can play, I’d look forward to having a good honest game or two against those involves in my past indiscretions, so I may put it all behind me. Nick Boragina (thenewteddy@hotmail.com) If you wish to e-mail feedback on this article to the author, and clicking on the envelope above does not work for you, feel free to use the "Dear DP..." mail interface.