Cheats

THERE is a vigorous debate at the English Chess Forum about the problem of cheating in online chess.
Everyone seems to agree it is going on, but there are strongly divergent views as to what extent it is going on and as to what should be done about it, eg naming those whose prizes have been withheld.
Here as a flavour are two views posted consecutively:

Pete Heaven
I was very interested to see how the 4NCL Congress compared with the 4NCL league in terms of 'high-quality' chess, I have to say I'm even more disappointed after this weekend than I was at the end of the league.
In terms of accounts being closed before, during and after the tournament, (at least) 2 players had accounts closed just before (and set up new ones), two lost accounts during the event and one afterwards. Of course, this could be for any reason. Only one of the three who had their accounts closed in the past 48 hours would have been in my top 20.
As to Roger's point about congratulating players performing above expectation, one beat 3 players over 40 ECF points higher and another scored 2.5. That must be quite rare in one event.
Of the 52 players who completed the Open I would like to congratulate those who used no engine assistance, despite the temptation. That's at least 15 people. And to all those who displayed a form of advanced chess that can only be marvelled at - that's at least 20. Not sure about the remaining 17...somewhere in the middle, and analysing 125 games with 3 engines over several hours ,i would hate to jump to conclusions in the middle of the night but there was some mighty fine chess played by many of these.
And congratulations to me on predicting the winner of the Major, well one of the joint winners. That wasn't hard though.
I only post this, on the back of a couple of other posts in the same vein, to emphasise what I believe is the futility of long play online chess, unless the result is of little importance to you. Relying on software, whether lichess's or Prof Regan's, to catch 'advanced' players at 45+15, will have limited success.
I think I've made my point. I will retire from such posts until the next OTB wunderkind appears.

Richard Bates
Are people seriously of the view that juniors (in particular) performing several hundred points above their “official” rating, and not often when not even doing so consistently enough to win every game, is prima facie evidence of cheating (when zeroing in on individual cases)? Because that’s ridiculous. When it happens in over the board chess, all we hear is complaints about “under-rated juniors”, but now there’s another potential explanation ...well they must all be at it.
I reckon some people might get a shock at how much advance some juniors may have made if and when OTB chess resumes. I’m quite sure that the Coronavirus lockdown may have accelerated progress for some by many months if not years, as freed from the shackles of school and with other distractions ruled out, some may have actually spent the time “productively”.
There is probably no doubt that the statistics when looked at in the generality can give no other conclusion than that there is a level of cheating going on in online chess. Of course it is - the temptation for some, combined with the opportunity is too great. But in the specific, and based on variance from presumed strength - I wouldn’t draw any conclusions, especially where juniors or newish players are involved.
One of the UK’s best 10 year olds beats 3 players 40pts higher than them and loses to a couple of others? I’m calling “improvement” over “cheating” every time unless given solid evidence to the contrary. Lucky the players who played in the open and were therefore fortunate enough not to risk getting 100%.

Who is correct, or at least closer to being correct?