Under each game is an area for "Game Strategy". It says there (copy and pasted here): "Tips, hints, secrets, cheats & walkthroughs". I really don't think it is a good idea for the admin to encourage and promote cheating.
I'm ambivalent about this. Here's my thinking. Referring to cheats on the game page serves two purposes. One, it helps seo, because the content on a page is part of the determination of what shows up on a search engine. Two, it functions as a honeypot (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(computing) )
All the regular players on piotw know that cheating isn't allowed. Occasionally someone gets banned for it, and it mentions on the rules/policies page that exploits are taken seriously. The place it is mentioned is in a list of synonyms in a section where users can write comments, in effect its asking people to "tell on themselves" if they know of a cheat. If any cheats are submitted in the strategies section of a game, they can be reviewed and handled accordingly.
I agree with you that it's an inconsistency on the site, but it's far from the only inconsistency, and inconsistency is usually bad but not necessarily so, and if it had no effect one way or the other (maybe it doesn't) I'd change it because it's such a simple change (would take 5 seconds obviously). But in this case I wonder if it's actually a net positive to be slightly inconsistent for the two reasons mentioned above.
I see your points. Very valid points. I also believe that you see my point. Basically I just wanted to make you aware of the wording in case you had missed it.
Wording Should Be Changed
Posted - 06/19/2013 : 01:52:10
