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Journey — Remove a Cheater

Contain, prove, retract, reopen — and what happens when the season has already closed.

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Trust & safety analyst 24/7 rota Goal — Take the illegitimate contributions out and leave the ranking correct Trigger — An automated inflation signal, or a report from a member near the top Done when — Contiguous ranks, an auditable record, and nothing a reward was paid on changed silently 1 · Notice signal or report 2 · Contain freeze the scope ◆ moment of truth 3 · Prove read the evidence 4 · Retract bulk compensation ◆ moment of truth 5 · Reopen unfreeze What they do Opens the inflation alert Freezes the scope Reads held contributions Retracts by cause Publishes again What the platform does Quarantine already holding Ranking stops publishing Log slice, not a counter Compensating deltas + rebuild Contiguous ranks restored How it feels Confident Fine Exposed Where it hurts Ingestion must not stop Season already closed Reward already paid What answers it Reversible hold, not a drop Freeze is read-side only Log is the evidence Correction record, not a rewrite Cleared holds replay in order Journey — An Analyst Removes a Cheater From a Live Leaderboard The trough is a retraction that lands after closure, where a reward has been granted. The platform's answer is a correction record beside the original standing rather than a silent rewrite of a published result. v 1.0 · owner Platform Architecture · date 2026-10

The finding

  • Freeze is a read-side operation. Ingestion continues, the quarantine keeps holding, and only publication stops — because an exploit under investigation must not also become a data gap.
  • The trough is a retraction that lands after closure, where a reward has been paid. The platform's answer is a correction record published beside the original standing, never a silent rewrite.
  • Quarantine holds rather than drops, so a cleared decision replays the held events with their original timestamps and the member loses nothing.

What the platform owes here

  • Bulk retraction by named cause as one auditable operation across every counter and window the events touched.
  • Contiguous ranks after any membership change, by recomputing rather than adjusting.
  • A retention of 5 years for retraction and audit records (assumption).

Risks

  • Retraction is the most powerful operation in the platform and the one most likely to be requested under time pressure with incomplete evidence. Authority and reversibility matter more than speed.
  • A member whose rank improves because someone above them was removed is owed an explanation the platform does not currently generate.
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Solution Architecture v1.0 · Google Cloud · Platform Architecture · 2026-1006-journey-remove-a-cheater