Why flagged cheaters are allowed to play in casual mode?

I cannot understand why cheaters are not banned permanently. I play in casual mode just for fun and to reduce the probability to play with one loser of life like those. As I progress in a casual game match I feel when someone is using a machine (playing perfect moves so fast and with the same tempo)... I investigate the profile of my opponent and I was right! He is a flagged cheater! It was too late because I already lost a game from him and was in the middle of the second. I had to resign in order not to lose my time anymore. If I wanted to play vs a cpu I could use a software and not this site.

Can Lichess disallow cheaters to play any games in the site or at least give a tool to the opponent (as a punishment) to be able to abandon game without cost of loss?

Despite playing a casual game I have a hard earned positive win ratio. So losing from cheaters hurts even in casual mode...

agree, cheaters should be banned FOREVER!

It is good to play atomic, rarely do I encounter a cheater.

It is true that atomic chess will not have cheaters because there is not a software to support an assisted AI or if there is, it is not commonly used. The site should handle more harshly the cheaters for traditional chess because I feel lately they are very aggressive and in the long term this could damage Lichess.

The reason cheaters are not usually banned outright is for a few reasons.

First, by not banning them, the cheater is often unaware of the mark for some time (usually until they enter a tournament or notice their rating isn't changing because the games they are playing are not rated) which delays them from going and making another throw-away account at least for a time. IP bans are not effective against cheaters (since a lot of them use proxy accounts anyway), so instead IP tracking is used and it assists the system and mods in catching many cheaters faster.

Second, there is no way to police casual games in the same way as rated games since there are anonymous players that can't be punished (see the note about IP banning being ineffective). So allowing them to continue playing casual games is not much different than allowing them to play anonymous games.

Third, not every "cheater" that gets marked is a cheater, and by automatically banning them, it would make it difficult for them to appeal the mark if it were in error. (i.e. Maybe they're a strong titled player that did not register for their title for reasons, or a recent change to the auto-flagging system was too sensitive and generated many false positives.)

However, I've suggested a few times that marked accounts be handled by the filter as if they are anonymous in order to help casual players filter out cheaters from their seeks. Hopefully something like that is possible and comes in a future update.

Is a positive win ratio a good thing? I think a negative one is better because it shows that you played stronger opponents.

@Fenris1066
I think that the following would be good to be implemented and easy to do:
- Show "Cheater flag" within the lobby not only in the profile of the user. So if for example the cheater enters my play room I can see him fast and abandon the game before it starts so I am not trapped to play vs a cpu or resign.

Usually all the flagged cheaters you have in the site are not false positives and it is very good that you police Lichess as well as you can. Speaking for myself it is one of the strongest reasons I use this site.

As for ip banning, since the site tracks ip so it traces double and triple accounts of cheaters, I suggest you try permanent banning and trust the fact that most cheaters will not use proxy... Those who use will be a minority and the site will be benefited by an immediate reduce of cheaters to login in Lichess or maybe even play as anonymous cheater (I have asked before for banning anonymous cheaters ip).

It is like saying that it is not worth to have a fence in your house because most thieves would simply climb it. It always helps an additional layer of defense.

I disagree banning cheaters. If they get banned, they will make another account and cheat again and again. You can't stop them. You make them more angry to cheat more.

I believe the best solution is the "rating bar". A rating bar should be add to the users profile to show how trustworthy he is. You may cancel the game, if you think he is not trustworthy. The more restriction to more violence.

@DarthNick isn't it far more likely that you're playing against a stronger player? What would be the motivation to cheat after all?

I've played thousands of games online and I've never suspected my opponent of cheating but I notice that many players suspect cheating every time they lose a game. It's really unrealistic from my position and it just seems like a symptom of narcissism.

On a related note I noticed today that a player that I played against recently was flagged as a cheater, I went back to look at our game (which I won) There were some clear blunders and it's obvious the he wasn't cheating and that his true strength was what it was supposed to be. So now we're banning non-cheaters for cheating? There's no way this will have a positive impact effect on Lichess.

I like playing here, especially the analysis board, but if I have to worry about accusations of cheating I'm probably going to have to find somewhere else to play. Just saying.

@zeeChess
More or less we say the same thing. How trustworthy is someone can be indicated inside the game so we can cancel it without cost. Again though a flagged cheater would eventually be forced to make another account because all his opponents would cancel the games with him.

@pguardiario
There are many ways to understand if someone cheats on you, during or after the game with analysis. Even Kasparov would not be able to play so consistently and fast these good moves, especially in online games in which, usually, you are not entirely focused (I very often do multi-tasking while playing which can lead to inaccuracies and mistakes).

A cheater does not always cheat. So playing with a flagged cheater does not mean he always uses a cpu... obviously.

By the way, to say that you never suspected someone been cheating on you after thousands of games seems like a symptom of pathological lying. Maybe you do not want to risk been flagged sometime in the future?