Would like to see some control(s) put in place to prevent GMs from making trades, especially highly questionable ones, then abandoning their team soon after.

I am always open to suggestions beyond what is already in place.

Absolutely agree that some anti-cheating mechanism will need to be put into place ... apparently soon, since the cheaters have already infiltrated the game.

I am sure that the game developers have enough on their plate without having to act as MFN's enforcement arm. That could get really old for them really quickly. It's a shame.

It may not only be considered cheating, it is an unfair advantage for the very few vs the many. It can be a friend doing a friend a favor, like "Im going to dump my team, not getting anywhere with them"
"Oh, well, listen, before you dump the team why dont you do me a favor?"

There probably is no easy or convenient way to both monitor and correct the problem. You could put a time frame on gms abandoning teams following a trade, like 30 days (same as trade eligible), but they could do the trade and be inactive till the time period was up. The only other thing I can think of is what has been mentioned previously, about having league commissioners/mods that can oversee it, so that would significantly reduce the load on JDB to monitor and regulate.

There are two ideas that I'm considering to combat this:

1) User-created leagues - essentially a user would pay to create a private league, they would have full trade veto power.
2) Premium leagues - you must use paid credits to be in the league and/or can only be in the league if you have a credit balance of more than 5 credits (same criteria for hiding ads). This would give you the added benefit that everyone in the league has skin in the game. The other side would be that there are lots of great users here who have not purchased credits, and I don't like excluding them from a solution.

Both of these solutions could have as a part of them a more lax trade meter.

Some other thoughts are to maybe reset the 30-day trade ban if you haven't been logged in for, say, 15 days; change the trade ban to when you join a league instead of when your account was created (this one has gotten negative feedback when I've mentioned it before); and require trades that are beyond a certain point on the balance bar to be approved by the rest of the league. I hate having to make rules that make it difficult for legit players to play the game correctly.

Sounds like it would be too difficult to use league commishes & or modulators? As far as a "lax trade meter", there's nothing wrong with having a strong trade meter, in fact it would be terrific if it was effective. The problem is how the current trade meter values both players and picks. Overall or default ratings are over-valued. It allows a gm to trade a high meter value player, like a 2000 meter value TE or OL (which are used the most for questionable trades) to gain a first & second round pick. On the other end of the scale, I have players that are leading or near the top of their league in their respective statistical categories that are less than 100 meter value. To trade them for decent value, I have to bundle them with other players & picks.

Picks on the trade meter are in general, way undervalued. High first round picks are fairly accurate, but that's it.

Would be great if their was an "alert" for gms when proposing or reviewing trade offers, like an alert that states "You may get better or equal value from the Free Agent Pool!"

Multiple IDs appear to be the primary vehicle for those who want to cheat. On other sites, I have seen them used to make unbalanced trades. I have seen coaches use their Team B to develop young players, then trade them to their Team A when they reach an acceptable talent level. I have seen coaches use their Team B scouting budget to allow Team A to scout more players. I have seen coaches use Team B to torpedo the efforts of Team A's chief rival.

The site I am thinking of tries to discourage multiple IDs by checking IP addresses when an infraction is reported. But, often, the damage has already been done. And it creates yet another headache for the poor developer.

In some leagues on another site, there is poll system that gives an automated rejection of a trade if a certain percentage of the league members give it a thumbs-down. The downside is that not every member is paying attention or wants to devote the time to analyzing others' trades.

Some leagues use the commissioner to achieve checks and balances. The downside is putting veto power in the hands of someone who has a team in that league, and thus may create a conflict of interest by his decision.

I have seen a combination of both ... the poll system, plus the commissioner can rule if not enough members participate in the poll to achieve a quorum. That seems to be the most effective.

I also should mention that one user left my MFN league when he found out trades were allowed. He had bad prior experiences with unbalanced trades and prefers leagues where trading is not allowed. I am not advocating that stance, but it could be considered.

i think if people had a option of blocked users or option of block trades/DISABLE TRADES in their league they are in then really people like your friend had where he found out that trades were allowed he up and left and probably left the website they would have another course of action where they could just block every user or block trades/Disable trades in the league and problem solved.

I have to say either those were in the game i really doubt your friend would have left he would have just blocked every user in that league or he would have check DISABLE trades and he would stayed though he might have found something else that might have made him want to leave.

Why not come up with league veto options. I know that can get hairy with inactive owners and multis but maybe an option where if there are enough vetos, the trade doesn't go through. Not a 51% but something like 8-10 teams, that way owners that give a **** can prevent lopsided trades, and it's not as easy to veto if it's just one or two owners that don't like it.